UND92,96

Bemidji is improved, but it's definitely a game the Sioux should win. Moorhead won there, and somehow, BSU managed to only beat Mayville State by five points last week in Bemidji.

I had been thinking that UND had a good chance of finishing in the top half of the NCC with the way they had been playing the past few weeks, but these statistics may suggest otherwise: NCC leads the NSIC in head-to-head games 21 to 10; UND against the NSIC: 4-5.

While they have made the playoffs in the past with scholarships in the 24 range--and Winona has had good teams with scholarships at about half that--I just don't see teams with scholarships much below 30 being competitive with the Grand Valley's of the world more often than perhaps once every decade, particularly with the available talent being further diluted with the additional scholarships which are/will be available to the SU's, UND and USD. If simply making the playoffs or winning a conference is the main goal, this move will be a positive one for the the soon-to-be-former NCC schools. If the opportunity to potentially win a national championship is more the goal, they need to find another job because it's not going to happen for an NSIC team at the current scholarship level. Bubba strikes me as too competitive of a guy to accept that, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Men lose to Mary 69-67. Not a good loss at all, given the fact that Mary is not exactly loaded with talent this year. On the other hand, at least it's not as bad as getting swept at home by Michigan Tech.

From the boxscore, it looks like UND shot very well from behind the 3-point line and from the free throw line, but terribly from inside the line. The Sioux also dominated the boards, which is encouraging. Concordia has a poor record, but has played St. Cloud State tough twice already, and hadn't lost at home by more than six points prior to today.

I guess I'm confused as to how suites are treated. I knew they were no longer considered in terms of the Alerus' capacity of roughly 12,300, but I was also under the impression that they also weren't counted at all as part of the attendance. An example would be the reported attendance from the NDSU game in 2003. That was essentially a full house, but attendance was reported as being 12,267. It's tough to explain that number if suites ARE actually counted. It seems to me that the ACTUAL attendance for that game was in excess of 13,000. Ditto for the UC-Davis playoff game in 2001.

My thoughts exactly. I'm not expecting it, but a guy can hope, can't he?

Assuming both UMD and SCSU get into the NSIC, and further assuming that conference refuses to increase their scholarship limit above 24, do these guys seriously look for other jobs? I can't imagine they relish the idea of trying to compete with the GLIAC schools with 12 fewer scholarships.

It will be a good basketball league for both men and women, although unlike the current NCC there will also be some very weak programs, as well. I guess that's inevitable with potentially a 14-team conference. Football will continue to be a problem, however, so long as they persist with their ridiculous cap of 24 scholarships. If I'm Randy Hedberg or Bubba Schweigert, I think I'd be looking for another job. Once you've made the playoffs and have built your scholarships to a point where you're approaching 36, cutting them back down would be a tough pill to swallow.

Comparing UND football attendance to NDSU's isn't something I'm too concerned about due to the obvious differences in seating capacity, and the large difference is metro populations. With that said, if I were the a.d., I'd do the following to get the Alerus consistently filled: 1. two or three night games be played per year. Dale may not like it, but it needs to be done. 2. discount tickets on the end sections, particularly on the visitors' side. These tickets tend not be sold anyway, so cutting prices to about $10 for most games is better than having those seats empty. 3. market the product better, starting with targeting season hockey ticketholders who don't currently have football season tickets. 4. count suites towards the total attendance. These people presumably have their tickets scanned like everybody else. Eliminating them from the reported attendance makes no sense. This has nothing to do with getting the Alerus filled, but it irritates me that suites are apparently not counted in attendance figures.

Pierre Lamoureux?

NDSU does a better job of marketing its football games because football is number one there, whereas it clearly takes a back seat to hockey at UND in terms of how the two sports are marketed. Secondly, I think you would need to look at ticket prices, two and three-for-one offers, etc. I don't know what NDSU ticket prices were this year, but I believe UND has the highest prices in dII, and probably among the highest even in I-AA. NDSU also plays some night games, which UND doesn't, and night games probably do help crowd sizes since some people work on Saturdays, or just prefer to spend fall Saturday afternoons outside.

I'm frankly not sure we're going to have enough on the defensive side of the ball to make a playoff run next year anyway, but assuming players are added who can contribute immediately, I think most UND football fans would like to see a good schedule, but one that gives UND a reasonable chance to make the playoffs and get a decent seed. We have a long enough period of playoff ineligibility coming up without making it one year longer by default. It's not like the schedules of recent years have been full of non-conference games against teams known or expected to be sub-par. For example, when the Winona State contract was entered into, we were coming off a last-second home victory over them in the playoffs. IMO, UND playing a team that isn't a "name", but which is expected to be regionally ranked (e.g. Bemidji or Humboldt State), is no worse than a BCS conference team playing a I-AA or a non-BCS conference team, e.g. Michigan vs. Ball State and Central Michigan, Ohio State vs. Northern Illinois and Bowling Green, etc.

That is true about Maine agreeing to play at NDSU in 2001, although I believe that was a combination of NDSU throwing a very large guarantee at them, and Maine being somewhat desperate for money. While it would certainly be theoretically possible for UND to do something similar, the fact that the Maine-NDSU scheduled game is the ONLY one anybody seems to be able to recall where a I-AA scholarship program agreed to play AT a dII school leads me to believe that it's rather unlikely.

Two prominent dII programs that have early-season open dates for next year (per d2football.com) are North Alabama and Catawba.

I wouldn't mind seeing them in 2008, but I would have a problem travelling to play a non-scholarship team next year. I'm not aware of I-AA teams (even non-scholarship ones) playing dII teams on the road. If UND is going to play three non-conference games next year, and presumably one will be against a scholarship I-AA team on the road, I think the other two need to be at home.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a non-scholarship I-AA team on the schedule in 2008, but I'm in no hurry to see it. The reason? They're generally terrible. Examples: 2004--NDSU 52, Valpo 0 2005--SDSU 69, Valpo 6 2006--UNI 49, Drake 7 (and Drake was 8-2 this year!) San Diego is apparently pretty good (only lost by 10 to UC-Davis), but as far as I know the rest of the non-scholarship teams are worse than the top NSIC teams.

UND probably has a guaranteed eight tough games right off the bat. SCSU was supposedly the worst NCC team this year, and we all know how close we came to losing that one. Assuming another game against a I-AA team, that's nine tough games. That leaves two more to be scheduled, since the Herald article yesterday indicated UND would like to get back to an 11-game schedule. To me, one of those two games has to be against a "lesser" opponent, to prevent a potentially suicidal schedule. Sure, we could theoretically get a game against a GLIAC or MIAA team, but it's very tough to get games against the GLIAC because they only have one open week from their conference schedule. As for the MIAA, other than NW Mo. State, it's questionable how good those teams are these days, given how Pitt State did against BSU, and the fact that Winona State actually beat two MIAA teams this year.

What's the latest on Harkins' condition? Will he play this year?

The Herald has a couple of articles today on the football season, and on the prospects for next season. Listed as newcomers to watch were Jake Landry, Kenley Wahlin, Nate Rambeck and Creighton Schroyer on offense, and Joel Schwenzfeier, Paul German, Ryan Kasowski, Ty Boyle and Dylan Glaser on defense.

Thanks--I was thinking this was Mary's only season as a provisional dII member. As for BSU, maybe the fact that they didn't lose badly to Pitt State last week will convince Tesch that he doesn't need to be afraid to schedule a strong, fully-funded program like UND. Given the proximity of the schools, the connection between Tesch and Lennon, the fact that BSU will likely be the pre-season NSIC favorite, and the fact that the two schools play in every other sport, it seems like a no-brainer that these teams should play.

I believe this will be the first recruiting weekend, and it should be a good one with Wisconsin in town for hockey. I understand the Brackins kid from I-Falls will be one of the prospective recruits visiting.

Question--considering the inexperience at quarterback and to a lesser extent on defense, who should UND be looking to play for non-conference games next year? Winona is definitely not on the schedule again, but what about another NSIC team expected to be at or near the top of their conference? I know Mary has an open date for September 1. That game may not be popular in many people's eyes, but obviously Dale Lennon did coach there, and it would probably be a good idea from a "strength of schedule" standpoint. It would also probably give a young quarterback a better chance to succeed and gain confidence than would playing against a I-AA or a traditional dII power. Just a thought.

Wayne Nelson touches on some of the same things we've been discussing in this thread in an article today: [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=19727

Konrath, Gudmunson and Setness are all in the running, I'm sure, but I think the reason people are speculating that it's mostly a Freund vs. Landry competition is because Lennon himself indicated as much on one of the coaches' shows a month or two ago. I know a lot of people are understandably skeptical about a freshman potentially starting at quarterback, since it hasn't happened in recent history at UND, but keep in mind that Shepard at USD was a freshman this year, and he did pretty well. Also, Reilly at CWU was quite good in 2005 as a freshman, and they didn't even have a running game to take some of the pressure off. Ditto for Schlafke from UMD in 2005.