UND92,96

I'm watching this game, and the commentators were talking about the South Florida defensive coaches and mentioned the name Rich Rachel. It sounded vaguely familiar, so I looked up his bio on the South Florida web site and sure enough, he once coached at UND under Roger Thomas in the late 80's.

I notice he's already been removed from the roster. That certainly didn't take long!

Dosch has proven that he is a very good coach, particularly with what he's done this year at Jamestown. However, knowing Dale Lennon's track record, he's a loyal guy. I can't see him making any big staff changes unless one of the current coaches leaves for a better job. I could see Mussman getting a head coaching job after this year, but I don't see any of the defensive coaches being close to moving up the coaching ladder at this point.

This would appear to be as close as we've seen in the media to a confirmation from Twamley that Buning won't be back:

It sounds like Bauer may be back for the Duluth game, but Muscha probably won't be ready yet (although he's apparently not out for the season). It doesn't sound very promising for Malner to play again this year, so presumably Schwenzfeier will be playing a lot at strong safety.

Buning was/is allegedly back in GF: link

Just because somebody--whether Buning or an attorney--came up with the idea, doesn't make it a good one. I can't guarantee that I'm right, but I do have some experience in this area. And my opinion is, unless Buning somehow thinks he can argue his way back into his job, there is no advantage to delaying the inevitable. Any wrongful termination or breach of contract action is not going to be substantially affected by delaying the firing. I'm confident Phil Harmeson and the UND general counsel would agree with my assessment, or else they wouldn't have (allegedly) given Buning a couple of days to decide whether to resign or be fired. I'm willing to bet that they didn't foresee this happening, precisely because it makes no sense for somebody to do. In the end, we'll probably never really know what the theory was behind this course of action Buning has taken, because it's likely going to end with a resignation and a nice check (which he would have gotten regardless). But a lot of bridges will have been unnecessarily burned, and it may cost Buning any chance he had to work in college athletics administration again.

The "futile and misguided" part is thinking that you have to delay a firing, or else you may lose some of your rights in some sort of a wrongful termination action. Not true. I was not commenting on whether Buning actually has a cause of action (although I don't think he does). I'm simply commenting on the wisdom, or lack thereof, of using the FMLA in this manner. If this was such a great idea, don't you think that it would happen more often in situations where somebody is given the choice of resigning or being fired?

If one believes that Buning was already told either he could resign or be fired, then taking UNPAID leave makes no sense whatsoever. It accomplishes nothing positive. If Buning truly has a "serious medical condition," then he has my sympathy, but the reality is that it makes no difference in terms of his soon-to-be-former job. If you have no job to return to, what sense is there in taking FMLA leave, other than a futile and misguided attempt to "explore your legal options"? Why would his options be any different after the firing/resignation than before? In my opinion, there would be no difference. I think there's good reason few if any people have heard of a situation quite like this before. Because 99.9% of employees would see what a futile and pointless gesture this is, and wouldn't do it.

It wouldn't be public record, but the employer can request medical certification that the "serious health condition" for which the leave is taken actually exists:

My understanding is that UND was in her final two. Oh, well. I can't blame her for wanting to play in the Big 10. I hope she does well.

I agree that the defense did give UND the chance to win on Saturday. I actually expected to give up more points than we did. But I must admit that seeing a UND defense give up 340 yards rushing is disappointing. That would have seemed almost unthinkable not too many years ago, back in the days when even Lamar Gordon and Josh Ranek were held to less than 100 yards.

This post is not meant to affix blame to anyone, but the reality is that even last year's defense, which had five first team all-NCC players, and two second teamers, including the defensive lineman of the year and linebacker of the year, wasn't really all that dominating. The playoff game against UNO, in particular, simply wasn't a very good performance. There were several other games in which the defense gave up a lot of big plays. It was still a good defense, but not a great one. This year, the defense is much younger, and lacks the star power of last year's defense, and the results are fairly predictable. Maybe having a dominating defense in this day and age of offensive football just isn't realistic. I don't know. But I would like to think that we can at least get back to being dominant against the run. We have a ways to go in that regard.

[url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=53847

Yes, I'm quite sure this is FMLA leave. Of course, that means this is an unpaid leave, except to the extent he had accrued vacation or sick days.

Therein lies the problem. However, it has seemed to work well at GVSU, and even though UNO has no playoff success to speak of, it certainly seems to have worked out for them in the regular season. I really don't know the answer, but I feel pretty confident that but for the impact of transfers, neither GVSU nor UNO would have had the success they've had against UND. It would be kind of interesting to know what percentage of starters on national championship teams over the past decade have been transfers.

This is just my own personal theory, but when you look at the two programs who have winning records against UND over the past decade--GVSU and UNO--the biggest difference I see is that both of these programs have had numerous talented transfers who have played big roles, whereas UND has had relatively few (Jeff McElroy, Glen Mathews, Travis Lueck and Jared Enger come to mind over the past 10-12 years). Yesterday, for example, all of UNO's touchdowns were accounted for by transfers--Zach Miller (Nebraska), Brian McNeill (juco) and Keith Eloi (juco). Additionally, one of their top defenders was Nebraska transfer Jeff Souder. GVSU has also had numerous transfers who have been difference-makers, including Cullen Finnerty. UND has done a tremendous job of high school recruiting, IMO, but should a bigger effort be put into getting transfers who may be difference-makers? Is it even realistic given our location?

I don't have any knowledge of Smith in terms of research dollars, but in my opinion he'd be an extremely popular choice in the athletic department, among a lot of alums, and probably among a lot of students. A lot of the faculty, however, probably wouldn't be happy for some political reasons, e.g. the Sioux nickname and the fact that he's not opposed to it. If I were on the state board of higher ed, I'm be far more concerned with how students and alums feel than faculty, but I have no idea how the board actually views things.

It's my hope that starting this recruiting season, now that UND will have full scholies to offer, that we may see some Nebraska players here. Time will tell. Aside from Chad Mustard, I'm not aware of any Nebraska players who have been in the UND football program, and of course Mustard didn't play until his UND basketball career was over.

They certainly seem to develop offensive linemen better than anybody else in the NCC. To me, that's the key to UNO's regular season success.

He had 11 receptions for 192 yards. Both he and Trenbeath (10 receptions for 115 yards) had huge games. Unfortunately, the rushing numbers just weren't what we're used to seeing, due in large part to the called-back Chappell touchdown. I realize it's very, very small consolation right now, but through four of five home games, UND is averaging 11,158 fans per game. If we can somehow avoid a home playoff game and the notoriously small crowds those have drawn of late, we should exceed 10,000 per game for just the second time ever.

No question UNO's o-line is very good, but I'm frankly shocked that McNeill is even good enough now to beat out UNO's other backs. I think you almost have to have followed North Dakota high school football back then to really understand what I'm talking about. The odds of a North Dakota high school back who's not even the best in his conference even playing running back in the NCC, let alone putting up big numbers, are extremely remote. I doubt it's ever happened before.

I'm still trying to figure out how the heck McNeill went from being a guy who probably never rushed for 200 yards in a game in high school; a guy who finished just 6th in the EDC 100 meter dash (nearly a half a second behind Ryan Chappell) as a senior; and a guy who wasn't considered a good enough offensive player to actually play offense in the Mon-Dak and Shrine games; to putting up the kinds if numbers he has so far this year, and running away from the UND defense on a 79 yard td run? Had you asked me about him coming out of high school, I'd have said he was a marginal dII prospect as a defensive back, but that no way was he an NCC running back prospect, and I'm willing to bet most coaches felt the same way at the time. I guess he's just a late bloomer.

When UND lost to UNO in 2001, I felt it was just a fluke since UNO somehow managed to finagle 27 points despite just 144 yards of total offense. When UND lost to UNO in 2005, I felt it was our quarterback's complete meltdown and umpteen turnovers that caused the loss. This year, UND just plain lost. No excuses. I don't know how or why it is, but UNO just has our number, at least during the regular season.

NW Missouri's offensive numbers are heavily skewed by the 86 they hung on woeful SW Baptist. Had UND not called off the dogs against Humboldt, I'm sure they could have put up similarly ridiculous numbers, but it wouldn't have accomplished anything. IMO, UND has the best offense in dII this year, so this game should be a good gauge of UNO's defensive capabilities. BTW, Mr. Souder certainly sounded confident in the article in yesterday's Omaha paper. To the extent the UND offense needed any extra motivation, I think his comments may have done it.