UND92,96

Nice list, Sic. One thing I would add under B(4) is to ask Grandall how his recruiting is going and inquire as to why it's been several years since anybody has signed a LOI. How is he spending his recruiting budget, however small it may be?

I suppose I should give Rich credit for being so candid. But between those comments, and the loss to Mayville, you have to wonder what's going through Mr. Buning's mind right now with regard to the state of what should be the third-biggest revenue generating program in the athletic department. Thankfully, Gene's team is doing the heavy lifting right now and since most games are part of a double-header, the financial impact of an under-performing program won't be quite as severe as it otherwise could be. But oh, for the days of the early 90's when Hyslop was mostly full for the entire conference season. With what the women are doing, and have been doing for most of the last 15-20 years, if the men could ever get back to where they once were, I have a feeling the budget deficit could be erased rather quickly.

I didn't make it to the game last night, but from what I read in the Herald, it sounds like this was the worst performance so far this year. A 9-point home win over UMC is not good, considering how they are supposed to be down even by their standards this year.

This thread maybe isn't the ideal place for this, but to give an example of how recruiting is an inexact science and that mistakes are sometimes made, here's a piece of information that was in the St. Cloud paper today:

I agree that Mertens is somebody to look at pretty closely. I believe he's in the 6'4" to 6'5" range, and about 190 pounds, so he's got excellent size for a receiver. I know he's had a handful of monster games this season. I've never actually seen him play. What kind of speed does he have? How about leaping ability?

Here are the minutes from the September meeting. This was the most interesting information:

There's a fairly small but dedicated group of us who have discussed basketball quite extensively over the past few years on this board. At this point, discussion will, of course, be infrequent due to football, and also the fact that hockey is in full swing. I haven't seen Koenig play since high school, and I've never seen Harkins, Gutter, Miller or Blackwell play in a game so I'll be very interested to see what they'll bring to the table this year. I think discussion will pick up next week since there will be two exhibition games and we'll get a chance to see how the newcomers look.

I mostly agree with you. I mean no disrespect to Belmore or any other Sioux player or coach. At no point have I or would I say that Belmore stinks or that Belmore doesn't give 100%. Where I'm coming from is more from the standpoint of I've always been a Manke guy since I saw him win a state title for Detroit Lakes, and I'd like to see him get a shot to play. I don't mean any offense to you, to Belmore, or certainly not to Lennon or Mussman. I was very disappointed in the outcome last Saturday, just as all Sioux fans were, but I also understand that everybody makes mistakes.

I'm not going to argue with you, coachdags. I realize you feel that nobody should ever be critical of any UND athlete or coach. That's your right, and that's fine. But you also realize full well that most people don't share that sentiment. If nobody was ever allowed to post anything but positive comments about everyone and everything, this board would probably cease to exist because it would be incredibly boring.

Frankly, I think we'd still be talking about how five turnovers in one game is pretty bad. I don't think anybody thinks that the ship is sinking, but clearly that was a crushing loss in terms of the way it happened and the ramifications of likely now having to win on the road at least once and perhaps twice in order to get to Florence. Losing is something that happens to nearly every team at some point during a season, but you kind of hate to just give the game away, which is essentially what happened last week.

Not that I think we should be emulating Pat Behrns, but it must be pointed out that Brian Masek was yanked for several series last week, and he's a senior and a Harlon Hill candidate. If he can be pulled when he's struggling, and it obviously didn't faze him, I don't see what the harm would be to put in Manke if Belmore continues to struggle. These are Belmore's numbers for the past two games: 36 of 63 for 354 yards, with 2 td's, 6 int's, and 1 lost fumble. I believe there have also been some other fumbles which were recovered by UND. I realize not all of the int's were his fault, but the td-to-int ratio is very alarming nonetheless.

No. I was a little surprised that the issue wasn't brought up.

I may have misunderstood him, but I thought he was talking about the 4th down conversion. I thought he originally said the missed assignment was on the 4th down conversion, and then said something about the touchdown, corrected himself, and mentioned the 4th down conversion again. I could very well have misunderstood him, however. In any event, I do think it was asking a lot of a 5'9" corner to be covering Denney all over the field by himself. For three quarters, Hoffschneider did a fantastic job. In retrospect, it may have been a good idea to have have had a safety or a nickel back double-covering him during the last couple of possessions, particularly on 3rd and 4th and long.

Regarding Denney, I personally would have double-covered him in the last couple of possessions because I don't think they had any intentions of throwing the ball anywhere else, at least on 3th and 4th downs. With that said, however, Lennon did mention on the radio last night something about a missed assignment, which makes me think somebody was supposed to have been helping Hoffschneider on the long 4th down conversion along the UND sideline in the 4th quarter.

I would say UND is definitely very interested in Cavalier's Matt Anderson. He's the top senior prospect in the state, IMO. I'd say the odds are quite good that UND is also interested in Ryan Kasowski. Probably not as a running back, but possibly as a linebacker.

I'm not always a huge fan of the playcalling, but I suppose that's normal for fans to second-guess the offensive coordinator. I felt that we didn't really attack UNO's weakness--their corners--enough. But it was the turnovers, not the playcalling, that was the real problem. One other thing Lennon said on the show last night that is quite true--and I'm paraphrasing here--is that fans want the offense to be as dominant as the defense. With just 36 scholarships, that's simply not realistic. With a couple of exceptions, UND's top talent is on the defensive side of the ball. That doesn't mean the offense has to be sub-par, and it certainly hasn't for most of this year, but it's also unlikely that it's going to consistently be a 40-plus ppg unit, either.

The issue of playcalling came up on the coaches' show last night, and Dale Lennon made a point of distinguishing between a conservative offense, and one that simply failed to put many points on the board. His feeling was that UND wasn't being conservative against UNO--they just made too many mistakes. As for the short leash comments, my feeling is that Belmore should be pulled if he has another bad turnover. He simply can't fumble anymore. And if he gets intercepted, it needs to be on a long pass attempt or the result of a receiver bobbling the ball. I've always felt that as between Belmore and Manke, Belmore has more of the "measurables," i.e. size, speed and perhaps arm strength. Manke would seem to have all the intangibles going for him, and he had a far superior high school career. I certainly don't claim to know better than Mussman or Lennon who should be playing, but I honestly feel that Manke is a winner and deserves a legitimate shot to play before his career is over.

I've always felt that aside from location, UNC had absolutely no business going dI. Their men's basketball program is a joke--terrible team, terrible facility and terrible fan support. They would also appear to be somewhat strapped for cash, with a 2004 budget of just $4.3 million. Even football, their bread and butter sport, has historically had trouble sustaining success over long periods of time. They're evidently desperate for football wins, since after playing an all I-AA schedule in 2004, they've played two RMAC teams this year. Not coincidentally, those two games count for two of their three wins on the year.

UND has shown interest in Fargo South receiver Evan Savageau, according to the this Forum [url="http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=107507

Aside from being located in a very small town, which admittedly is a problem, I don't think USD is in too bad of a situation in terms of money. Their fiscal year 2005 budget is at about $4.3 million, and I suspect their football revenue this year has gone up considerably now that they're actually doing well and fans are interested again for the first time in about 20 years. They're averaging a little over 7000 per game now, and that number will likely go up a bit after this Saturday's game. They draw around 2500 per game for men's basketball, which puts them far ahead of Northern Colorado, for example. Their fiscal year 2005 budget is very comparable to SDSU's fiscal year 2004 budget.

This may not be an identical situation, but in the 2003 season, I seem to recall Bowenkamp being pulled a few times in favor of Joe Wilson when he was struggling. Like Belmore now, Bowenkamp was in his second season as starter in 2003, and had his share of ups and downs. If, as expected, Belmore gets the start on Saturday, I think he needs to be on a very short leash. It's not like there's some inexperienced freshman backup. Manke can play. Keep in mind that the passing game will be key on Saturday. Like UNO, USD is decent against the run, but bad against the pass. This will not be a game to go ultra-conservative, because USD will put up some points. Their offense is better than Omaha's, particularly playing in Vermillion. We probably need to score 30 points to have a good chance to win, and it will be difficult to do so without being more aggressive with the playcalling.

I don't know that he was "officially" fired, but he was definitely forced out. I suspect he was essentially told to resign or be fired. He was just too young for the job. I believe he was in his late 20's when he was promoted from defensive coordinator. I agree with you regarding UNO's probable playoff fate. I think both UNO and USD have the same problem--pass defense. UND simply didn't exploit that weakness and paid for it. Hopefully we will do so on Saturday or else another loss wouldn't surprise me.

According to the first UND women's basketball press release, the games will be on the radio.

If UND were to be seeded 3rd or 4th, they'd be playing at home on November 12. If seeded 1st or 2nd, they'd have a bye. If seeded 5th or 6th, they'd be on the road. I won't even address the one other possibility...

Another mystery of this week's poll is how Central Washington jumped up three spots to number seven. They have a win over an NAIA school, which is very costly to your quality win index, and although they do have a nice win over Washburn, their other six wins consist of five teams with below .500 records, plus the aforementioned NAIA team.