UND92,96

I don't know where you got the idea that Lennon is spending "all his time" scouting at GF Central games. There have been coaches from NDSU and many, many other schools looking at Chappell all season. Fargo South apparently does have a better team than Central judging by last night, but I can guarantee that in terms of prospects in the senior class, South has nobody that is or will be as highly recruited as Chappell. One sub-par game doesn't mean a kid isn't a player.

You're entitled to your opinion as to what UND fans are happy about or not, but the real test will be what happens if the Big Sky says no to expansion this far east. If they do expand into the Dakota's, it's at least potentially great for both UND and NDSU. If they say no, NDSU is stuck in dI independent purgatory for potentially many years, NDSU fans and alums will be or at least should be very worried about what will happen in terms of conference affiliation, and UND will be faced with deciding which is the lesser of two evils--being a dI independent in all sports but football, or staying in dII in spite of the fact that football scholarship limits may be identical to NAIA. As I see it, either both schools will be happy or neither will.

Does anybody know what the inside story was with the Pennick recruitment? According to the Forum article, NDSU had shown only passing interest in him prior to this summer, whereas I know UND had been recruiting him for awhile. Was it just a desire to play dI, or was there some other reason?

I understand. I think the game on Saturday will go a long way towards determining how the season will play out. If the offense can put some things together and the Sioux can win by 2 or 3 scores, I like the chances of finishing 9-1. If UND struggles to win or even loses on Saturday, then 8-2 or 7-3 is about all we can expect. What is interesting to me this year is that Lennon seems so much more reluctant to make a quarterback change than he was last year. Last year, regardless of whether Bowenkamp or Wilson was in, Lennon didn't seem to hesitate to pull the trigger and give the other guy a shot if the offense was struggling. Presumably, he felt that there wasn't a huge difference between the two quarterbacks. I realize that Manke has next to no experience, but by at least some accounts from people who see practice on a daily basis, there's very little difference between Belmore and Manke. So I have to wonder if it's simply a case of not wanting to hurt Belmore's confidence by sitting him down, or whether there's more of a difference between Belmore and Manke than what I've been led to believe? I tend to think it's the former. Lennon has really gone out of his way to deflect criticism from Belmore on radio and tv interviews, but he did say on the coaches' show last night that he had a heart-to-heart talk with Belmore this week about needing him to elevate his play.

Bob- I see in your column that you picked UND to finish 8-2. Can I assume you think UNO will be the second loss? Under normal circumstances, I couldn't really disagree with that since the Sioux have struggled to win in Omaha, but UNO seems to be really under-achieving this year. If they lose in St. Cloud as expected, and are then all but out of the playoff picture, I think the wind may be out of their sails by the time the UND-UNO game is played. If ever there was a year to play UNO in Omaha, this would appear to be it.

Great information. Thanks for the update. She would be one of the highest profile recruits UND has had, along with Jenny Crouse and Jaime Pudenz. Hopefully the opportunity to play in front of family and friends on a regular basis will win out over the opportunity to play in the Big 12.

1440 AM in GF, Wednesday evenings at 6:30. Dale Lennon is generally on first for about a half hour, followed by Hakstol. It also includes the basketball coaches once the season starts. Hennessy and Swygman host.

Minnesota averaged just under 1400 per game last year. I would assume that's close to the highest, if it's not actually the highest average attendance ever. There's no question that women's hockey has a ways to go before it gets to the level where it could possibly be self-sufficient, but it will probably gain in popularity in those parts of the country where men's hockey is very popular.

According to the latest NCAA dII stats, UND is ranked in the top-5 in both total defense and scoring defense. That's pretty good, especially considering UND has already played arguably the two top offenses on its schedule--Delta St. and SCSU. With the running game doing quite well, if Belmore can get his completion percentage up to a consistent level of about 55%, or if Bowenkamp can come back at something approaching 100%, this team can still do some damage. I'm certainly not predicting a national title, but for anybody who wants to write off the Sioux due to one loss, keep in mind that 9 of the last 13 national champions had at least one regular season loss, obviously including UND in 2001, as well as Grand Valley State last season.

I certainly agree that despite the loss, there were some very encouraging signs for the Sioux. Holding Birkel to under 4 yards per carry is pretty good, and especially the fact that he was almost completely negated in the second half. Also, holding Kaczor to 11-26 passing for a relatively modest 176 yards was also a good effort by the defense. Regardless of many yards the Ferris back had last week, I'd still bet anything that Birkel is the best back the Sioux will face this year by far. I would look for the UND defense to give up less than 100 yards on the ground this week, and win the game by a score of about 24-7.

You will note that I said "IF THE SIOUX RUN THE TABLE," not "WHEN THE SIOUX RUN THE TABLE." What is your problem, anyway? I don't see how you can have so little regard for a program that has accomplished what UND has over the past 10-11 years.

There have been very few games between the top-5 teams in the GLIAC, so within the next few weeks we will start to see them knock each other off. In fact, with Grand Valley State having to go to Saginaw Valley (who already has one loss), it's quite conceivable that no team will get through the league unbeaten. As for Winona St., their one more possible loss will be this week at surprising Bemidji State. Even if Winona loses, they will still have a chance to make the playoffs, but it would likely be as a result of "earned access." Bemidji could run the table and still not get in due to their extremely low SSI as a result of having played two dIII/NAIA opponents. If the Sioux can run the table, they could still get a decent seed, but obviously the margin for error is now essentially zero. There are at least three games for UND that could result in pretty big power points--Ferris St., USD and UNO.

They don't need to care about the sport of hockey itself since obviously that is not and will never be a part of the Big Sky, but they do probably care about the facility (REA) that hockey shares with basketball at least on a part-time basis, the revenue stream that hockey produces that puts UND on pretty sound financial ground (ticket sales alone in the neighborhood of $2.5 million per year), and at least conceivably the national recognition UND has garnered due to its hockey success. One can argue exactly how much the second and third points would help UND, but they certainly won't hurt their cause.

Not that this really has anything to do with the game, but it really seems that St. Cloud has hit the jackpot with some qb/rb/wr recruits who weren't necessarily highly sought-after. It appears that Birkel was an almost complete unknown coming out of high school in Wisconsin. Keith Heckendorf wasn't necessarily an unknown, but neither was he a huge name, either. I don't think the current quarterback, Kaczor, was recruited by any other NCC schools. What's ironic is that when they did sign a kid who UND and nearly everybody else was after, wide receiver Kyle Gearman from Alexandria, he transferred to St. John's after one year in the SCSU program! Despite their seemingly advantageous location, it really seems like St. Cloud is winning with players who may have been overlooked rather than guys who they were able to sign because of their proximity to the Twin Cities.

I've always thought McFeely just disliked everything and everyone. Or at least that's the persona he seems to enjoy cultivating. Geography would seem to dictate that the BSC is really the only viable option at this time. SDSU may be ahead of UND in the process, but having added just two scholarships for football thus far pretty much negates that advantage. Is that really a horse that NDSU wants to hitch its cart to? It would certainly seem that SDSU's move to I-AA football looks suspiciously like certain schools who have moved to dII and then kept their funding at the same level they were in NAIA. As Kolpack said or at least implied in his column today, the Big Sky is a football-first league. As between UND and SDSU, I think we all can agree who would appear more attractive to a conference that puts a high priority on football.

Wow, I'm glad I didn't say anything along the lines of "Bob Eblen is an idiot." Seriously, how would you rate St. Cloud's defense? It would seem that the only legit offense they've played may be Western Washington, who may not really be any better than Central Washington judging by their game last week. And while the Western Washington-SCSU game wasn't ever close, Western did do some damage offensively.

Kolpack has a column on the Big Sky today, in which UND is mentioned as having had discussions with the conference, and that UNC and SDSU have some work to do to get close the the Big Sky unofficial football scholarship minimum of 60. link

Only she can probably answer that. It's possible that she just grew up more of a UND fan. I think UND has been recruiting her from the start and perhaps NDSU got in later and she basically told them that she's either going to a dI school in a major conference, or she's going to UND. It's anyone's guess.

I think one of the big differences between the situations is that when NDSU announced their move, we all kind of knew that dII football scholarships would be cut at some point, but we really didn't know exactly when or to what extent. One school of thought was that it makes sense to stay in dII as long as possible because it would allow for at least the possibility of another title, something that presumably will be tougher in I-AA. I'm not saying that this school of thought is necessarily definitely right or definitely wrong, but it makes a certain amount of sense depending on your point of view. Now, with the football scholarship cut highly likely to occur within the next 3-4 months, it makes a potential move to dI/I-AA more pressing and arguably an easier sell to the public. It may not make a difference to a faculty member who doesn't care for or understand athletics, but for many of us who do, it certainly makes the decision easier to make.

I can't deny that Iowa St. draws well, plays in a very good conference, and did very well during the glory days of Taylor, Welle, et al. But over the past two years, Iowa St. is a combined 30 wins, 31 losses. To me, that's mediocre. It obviously remains to be seen whether they can regain their form from 3 or 4 years ago, or whether their success was based on hitting the jackpot with a few recruits who were overlooked by some of the traditional powers. For example, if Minnesota had had a decent coach back then, they would have been all over Taylor and Welle. That could have entirely changed the fortunes of Iowa St.

It looks like the d2football.com NW Region columnist has jumped off the UND bandwagon after last week's game. He dropped the Sioux from 1 to 3 in his unofficial regional power poll, predicted that Birkel can run against the Sioux defense, and that without Bowenkamp the Sioux can't throw well enough to win. If you're interested, read the entire column here.