UND92,96

UND women are picked to win the NCC again. link.

Karla Nelson does a nice job at Moorhead. She's a UND grad, and it's good to see her do well.

The committees will likely meet Saturday night, as the selections are announced on Sunday. If there's not a ruling by Friday, it may be too late, at least for the first round. However, if UND wins on Saturday, it would be nearly assured of no worse than a number 2 seed, which means a first round bye.

BSU did beat Winona, pretty badly, but unfortunately for them, the rankings are largely based on "strength of schedule", so BSU's poor non-conference schedule is really hurting them. Winona played and beat two mediocre MIAA teams in addition to their loss to UND, and that's apparently enough to keep them ahead of Bemidji. If the rankings were based on common sense, BSU would certainly be ahead of Winona. Of course, if the rankings were based on common sense, there wouldn't be any NSIC team in the playoffs this year, but that's another issue altogether.

This game will mark the first time all year that UND's big three offensive weapons (Manke, Dressler and Chappell) will be in the starting lineup for a home game. The last time Manke played at home was against Winona State, and Chappell really wasn't playing much on offense at that point. I really expect that UND will be able move the ball very effectively.

The db's absolutely have to be disciplined. USD is probably only going to throw about 15 times, but it's clear that when they do, it will go for big yards unless the db's are very conscious of not cheating up to stop the run. On the bright side, I don't think this year's version of the USD offense is really any better than in 2004 (Beschorner's junior year, Logan's sophomore), at least in terms of talent, and aside from a couple of big Logan runs, UND did pretty well against them. I take last year's game with something of a grain of salt due to the fact that Beschorner had an unbelievable season, and UND was so shell-shocked from the meltdown against UNO that I don't believe that was the "real" Sioux defense that was shredded so badly.

I realize moving Rory to quarterback isn't going to happen, probably for a variety of reasons, but I do think a fairly strong argument could be made that the UND offense is at its best with a mobile quarterback who makes good decisions, can make plays with his feet, and is an accurate short passer. I believe Rory would fit that description, but hopefully one of the other quarterback can, as well. It certainly didn't look like Freund has much speed judging by watching him try to run down the guy after the blocked field goal, but hopefully he has quick feet and good pocket presence similar to Reed.

For those who believe that history tends to repeat itself, I offer this regarding USD--although they've had good records the past three years, their BEST road wins have been over teams that ended the season with 6-5 records (Augie last year and Mankato in 2004). To put it mildly, they've had their struggles on the road against good teams (and occasionally, against some not-so-good teams). UND is 27-1 at home since late in the 2002 season, and although there have been a couple of less-than-impressive offensive performances at home this year, none have been with Manke playing. If the Sioux play smart, e.g. kick away from Logan to the extent possible and the db's not cheat up to stop the run only to get beaten deep, I am pretty confident UND wins this one. USD's pass defense tends to get exposed badly on the road (Mankato this year; Duluth last year), and the Manke-to-Dressler combo is better than anything they've seen.

UND wins 86-78 in ot over a very good Texas A & M-Commerce team. I honestly expected the Sioux to lose this one without Langen, but Maffin came up huge for the second game in a row.

Although the Manke injury this year has been very unfortunate, if it had to happen, the timing turned out to be as good as it could have been. He's played in five games, and four of those have been on the road. Obviously, considering how difficult it is to win on the road, he's the guy you need in there moreso on the road than at home.

I realize it probably isn't going to happen, but I don't think it's because he isn't capable. I'm pretty sure NDSU was recruiting him as a quarterback, and he was second-team all-state as a quarterback. There are some interesting comments about his quarterbacking skills here: link.

This really has nothing to do with the game yesterday, but since there was talk early in this thread about the quarterback situation next year, I thought I'd throw this out there for consideration. IF neither Freund nor Landry seize control of the job early in spring ball, how about moving Rory Manke to quarterback? He was a heck of a high school quarterback, and if he has even half the intangibles that Reed has, he could actually be our best option, notwithstanding the fact that he hasn't played the position for a few years.

I was fortunate enough to attend the game yesterday. A few observations: -Manke is amazing. He made some plays yesterday that I'm not sure any other quarterback UND has ever had could have made by escaping the rush and improvising. I have the utmost confidence in the offense when he's in the game. -the running game right now is excellent. Chappell is looking more and more (no pun intended) like a young Phillip Moore. -the kick coverage team needs some work. Frankly, I think there should be more defensive starters out there. Bring back ZBJ, for example. It will need to play well next week, or else just kick the ball out of bounds, because Logan is very dangerous. -the db's need to eliminate the big plays. This is three games in a row that long touchdown passes have been given up either because of a missed tackle or a blown coverage. USD doesn't throw often, but when they do it tends to be for a big play since db's tend to start to cheat up to help against the run. -it was an excellent contingent of UND fans in St. Cloud, as usual.

Playing in Bozeman would be pretty cool. From a strength of schedule standpoint, I would strongly recommend trying to schedule Tiffin next year. They're in the northwest region, and they'll likely have a very good record again given the types of teams they normally play.

I think we had 10 in 2004, also. Although I'd certainly like to have that 6th home game, I think we'll see a 10-game schedule again next year since chances are that the off week from NCC play will come too late in the season to have much of a shot of filling since basically every other team in the country will be playing conference games after about mid-September. A few teams that UND could possibly schedule later on would be Humboldt State, Western Oregon and Tiffin.

Landry definitely has talent, and has an extremely strong arm. I was very impressed with him in the state title game last year. For those outside the area who aren't that familiar with him, he was also a three-year basketball starter, and is a heck of a pitcher with a 90 mph (or so) fastball. I honestly can't recall UND ever having a red-shirt freshman starter at quarterback (maybe Todd Kovash?), but it wouldn't shock me if Landry does start next year.

I'm sure UND will be all over this kid, but it will probably come down to whether he gets offered by I-A schools, or even playoff-eligible I-AA's, i.e. NDSU. The Mannasau connection will only help UND's cause. If anybody gets a chance to watch the Minnesota high school games today at the Alerus, I would be interested to hear some opinions on the TRF running back, Michael Benedict. He's put up some impressive numbers (158 carries for 1,574 yards and 17 td's). I know there's also a big offensive lineman for TRF that UND has shown interest in. I'm also still wondering which schools are after Solum from Fargo South. I would think UND would have a good shot at him.

According to the WDAZ sports tonight, both Manke and Belmore will play on Saturday.

The fact that Freund didn't play against UMD was addressed somewhat on the coaches's show last night, and basically Dale's explanation was that he's seen too many big leads disappear quickly with today's passing offenses so he wasn't comfortable with a 35-14 lead, and once UND's long drive for the final score was over and it was 38-14, UND never got the ball back. With that said, I agree that there have been some instances this year when the starters, or at least the key players like Manke and Dressler, stayed in a bit too long. Manke's injury against Winona really was avoidable IMO. That game was over at halftime (35-0), and Belmore should have played the entire second half, but I realize hindsight is 20/20. The fact that a team could theoretically come back from a 35-0 deficit isn't an excuse considering how much faith Dale has consistently professed in Belmore.

A few things from the coaches' show last night: 1. Manke and Belmore have shared time practicing with the first team this week about 50-50, and Lennon said Manke is very close to being completely recovered, but I got the impression Belmore will start again. 2. A caller asked about Freund's progress, and of course Dale was complimentary, but he indicated that it will probably be a battle between he and Landry this spring for the starting job. He also said he's heard from a few prospective quarterback transfers interested in UND.

Here's the athletic department release for the two exhibition games. The projected starting lineup certainly isn't what I expected, although I had heard that Koenig was probably not going to play in the exhibitions so that's not a big surprise. I'm pretty surprised that Porter and Gutter are projected starters, and I kind of expected Hoy might be a 6th man rather than a starter.

Here's the season preview. I heard that Youngblut is probably red-shirting, and that Jossy Bergan is not, but I'm not sure about the rest of the newcomers.

Of course. Mea culpa.

Between injuries and some erratic play, it's been five years since UND has had a quarterback actually make it through an entire season as the starter (Klosterman in 2001). In 2002, Kelby was injured pretty early on and Bowenkamp played most of the year. In 2003, Bowenkamp and Wilson both played quite a bit. In 2004, it was Bowenkamp and Belmore. And of course, in 2005 and 2006, Belmore and Manke have been in and out of the lineup. It's actually kind of surprising UND has had as much success as it's had given this lack of stability/continuity at such a key position.