UND92,96

Speculating on attendance is interesting, but ultimately I'm not sure the NCAA really cares too much about it. This is the same organization that once awarded the women's basketball Elite 8 to Pine Bluff, Arkansas for three years. I don't think there were 100 locals there when I went in 1998. Regarding the Snow Bowl, I don't think that's an apples-to-apples comparison. All-star games, especially in football, just aren't that interesting. At least with a national championship you have two actual teams playing each other instead of a group of players with maybe a week to practice together prior to the game. I'm not saying that 10,000 locals would show up for a non-UND game, but I'd be willing to bet that the game would generate more excitement and local media attention than the Snow Bowl ever did.

I was impressed with Manke in the first half, except for the interception into the endzone which was a poor decision. The second half? That was a whole different story. He had the same struggles that Belmore has had with regard to poor decision-making and bouts of inaccuracy. I'm thinking Bowenkamp will probably be given a shot on Saturday. If he can throw at all, which he apparently now can, there's nothing to lose. On the bright side, UNO has given up at least 13 points in every game this year, and with the way the Sioux defense has been playing, that could actually be enough.

I'm pretty sure UNO won't jump over UND since UND's SSI is still higher, and obviously they have one more loss. I believe this week it will be 1. Mich. Tech; 2. Northwood; 3. Winona St.; 4. UND. I had been concerned that even if the Sioux somehow managed to win out, they wouldn't be able to jump over Winona St., at least in SSI. However, UND got potentially a big break yesterday when Concordia-St. Paul lost again. That means that when Winona St. presumably beats them in two weeks, it will be a 12-point game rather than a 14-point game since Concordia will likely finish with an under .700 winning percentage. UND should be no lower than 3 IF they could win the last two. Actually, I believe UND could rise all the way to 2 if Michigan Tech were to lose to either Saginaw Valley at home, or to Grand Valley State at the Big House. EDIT: I see Jim has updated his regional rankings estimator, and SCSU is still in the top 4, at number 4. If that is the case, I suspect there will be a pretty big uproar for the second week in a row over the regional rankings. It seems inconceivable that a 2-loss team who didn't even play a particularly difficult non-conference schedule (UMC, Wayne St., Northern St. and West. Wash.) could be ahead of UND, or UNO for that matter. The manner in which the SSI is calculated is really looking like a joke right now.

With Minnesota hockey series, and the football game tomorrow, this would be a great weekend for a recruiting visit.

I've thought of that possibility, also. Freund's credentials are pretty impressive, although I have no idea how he's doing this year in practice. This is all speculation on my part, but I suspect Manke might be one of those players who does better in a game situation than in practice. I'm afraid Belmore might be just the opposite, at least at this point in his career.

Yes, according to a feature on him in the Herald from about a month ago.

I don't think anyone is disgruntled about Winona. Just with the idea that somehow wins over Bemidji St. or Concordia St. Paul would possibly merit 14 points if common sense played any role in the process at all. Winona St. would probably still do well if it played a tougher schedule, but I can't say the same for anybody else in the NSIC. Winona St. is the only team in the NW region that will have a virtual bye into the playoffs every year unless one or more NSIC programs drastically improves.

One other thing on Dressler, don't blame him or the coaches for the fact that the media is constantly asking Lennon or Mussman about him. I've heard it on both the 1440 A.M. coaches' show with Hennessy and Swygman, and the WDAZ show with Sweeney. Those are the guys, along with the Herald writers, who are asking about him. It's not as though Lennon is always talking about Dressler without being specifically asked.

I'm sure you'll be happy to know that we're all Ferris fans now!

That's obviously bad news about Bowenkamp, and I'm certainly not happy that Belmore is also hurt, but at least this will give Manke a shot to start and hopefully play a whole game to see exactly what he can do. While he's not as fast as Belmore, I think we'll see better accuracy and very sound decision-making. I'm a little afraid he may not come back next fall if it appears he won't get a real shot to win the starting job, so this game is probably especially huge for him.

Certainly the punt return team deserves a lot of credit for blocking well. But before we give them all or even most of the credit, let's remember that Groeschl was returning punts the first few games of the year, and he wasn't doing anything resembling what Dressler is now doing. Either the punt return team all of a sudden started blocking much better, or Dressler can do things that probably nobody else on the team can. I suspect it's the latter.

If UND does finish at 9-1 but doesn't get one of the top two seeds, my recommendation for future years would be to schedule as many NSIC teams in the non-conference schedule as possible. Playing Bemidji St., Concordia-SP and either Northern St. or SW St. (along with Winona St., which I believe is already on the schedule for the next two years) may not seem very appealing to some fans, but at least it would potentially give UND the same benefit Winona St. gets by beating some of these weak teams that happen to have pretty good records.

My biggest beef with the SSI is that Winona St. will likely get 14 points each for beating Bemidji St. and Concordia-SP, which frankly is absurd considering how those two teams would stack up against the top four teams in either the NCC or GLIAC. Winona is a good program, I'm not criticizing them, but they play in an incredibly weak conference and are actually rewarded for it. Their only difficult game all year was SDSU, which they lost. I'm not sure I have a better system, aside from just scrapping the whole thing and going back to the old system, which while imperfect was certainly not any LESS accurate.

What about women's track/cc?

I do realize that it's highly unlikely that UND is currently fully funding all of the women's sports. For the purposes of the computations, I had to assume something since I'm not privy to the exact scholarship numbers at present. Also, with regard to women's hockey, I didn't address that since once it does get to fully-funded status, it should cancel out men's hockey, just as women's basketball does with men's basketball. Regarding the swimming scholarship limits, I got the info from this link. I can't vouch for its accuracy, however.

Why do I have the crazy idea that you're pulling those numbers out of a certain part of your anatomy?

I understand what you're saying, although with Minnesota the problem has more to do with the Metrodome rather than all the other entertainment options, IMO. And I'm certainly not denying that there is a fairly large UND contingent in Fargo-Moorhead. I just think that it stands to reason that if you take two areas in which one school's sports are king--NDSU in Fargo and UND in Grand Forks--the school in the city with essentially twice the population is going to have an advantage in terms of being able to draw crowds. Why it hasn't necessarily been the same story with basketball is an unknown to me.

So which part of what I posted isn't true? I think you're misunderstanding what I wrote.

My point was simply that if you're comparing which football team is more popular in the state of ND, UND or NDSU, NDSU has a big advantage because 20% of ND's population lives in Cass County. So regardless of the allegiances of the rest of the state, NDSU will likely have more fans due simply to the fact that the Fargo area is so much bigger than any other city in ND. It will likely be able to draw a lot of fans from Fargo who perhaps grew up elsewhere and had no allegiance prior to moving to Fargo but would be far more likely to follow the local team rather than one 75 miles away. Similarly, if somebody moves to Grand Forks from outside the area, chances are that they will follow UND more closely. The difference is that Fargo-Moorhead has far more of these types of people from which to draw from.