UND92,96

I also see where Jim Kleinsasser is out for the year, according to the Star-Tribune. He's really had some bad luck with injuries, especially in the past couple of years.

Minnesota has three pretty talented frontcourt players who are freshmen this year, plus two verbals for next year, so I have to wonder what the potential playing time situation for Kimbrough would be there. In any event, I certainly wouldn't begrudge her for going to Minnesota if they offered. However, while I have no inside info, I still think that Roebuck has a decent chance if it comes down to UND and one or two mediocre dI programs hundreds of miles away.

Speaking of UNA-DSU, it seems some people never learn about the quality of midwest football compared to the south, at least as it pertains to dII: Give me a break.

A couple other games of interest were UNO getting handled by a traditionally average Western Washington program in a game that perhaps wasn't even as close as the 10-point margin of victory would suggest. It's interesting that the talk out of Omaha coming into the season was that this was perhaps the best defense they've had in the Behrns era, but they've been lit up twice in four games. The other game of interest was MSU-Mankato hammering the supposed second-best team in the NSIC--Concordia-St. Paul. That should pretty much end the chirping from certain NSIC fans that occurred after Concordia beat Augie and UMD. It certainly appears right now that UMD is the worst team, perhaps by far, in the NCC. How they only managed to beat Moorhead, who appeared through three weeks to be making a bid for the worst team in all of dII, is beyond me. Bubba can't be having much fun right now.

My understanding is that he is hurt, although I don't know to what extent. It may not happen this year, but eventually he could be a very good receiver with his hands and height. I understand he was impressive last year as a red-shirt.

This is going to be an extremely young team. Assuming Beck red-shirts, 8 of the 12 available players will be freshmen or sophomores. It will be interesting to see who steps up to be the second and third scoring options behind Boese. Judging by her high school credentials, I have a feeling Guinn may be an immediate impact player.

I am pretty familiar with the situation in St. Cloud as my sister has lived there for several years. What always strikes me when I visit is how St. Cloud has no local television stations, due to its proximity to the twin cities. That means no highlights or features on SCSU sports on the local news. Also, while it does have a newspaper, I assume a lot of people read the Star-Tribune instead. What this means, in my opinion, is that a lot of people in St. Cloud are completely ignorant about what is going on with SCSU sports unless they were already big fans. I think that it's this media void, rather than all the other entertainment options in the cities, which really hurts SCSU's visibility even in its own community. It probably follows that this lack of media coverage, and fan support, is used against SCSU in recruiting by other NCC schools. With all of that said, I still think it was very short-sighted of SCSU to have built a new football stadium with essentially the same capacity as Selke, which was the smallest in the NCC by quite a bit (I know UMD's is pretty small, too). I don't know what the answer is with regard to increasing fan support, but I don't think the problem is necessarily unfixable. Unless there simply wasn't any more money available, I have to think it's easier to build a 7000 or 8000 seat (roughly) stadium to begin with rather than having to add on later. It certainly won't get any less expensive as time passes.

The women's basketball roster has been updated at fightingsioux.com, and a notable omission is Jami Glick. Does anyone know whether she's just sitting out the year to rehab her knee, or whether she's permanently done?

And I have no doubt that UND will be moving up within a few years. My point is more that SCSU's or UNC's traditionally meager attendance figures are their own fault, rather than a byproduct of being in a particular NCAA classification. St. Cloud in particular is a pretty big community, and the school has a bigger enrollment than UND. It also draws well for both hockey and basketball, so it's a little hard to understand why it shouldn't be able to draw 8000-plus for football, obviously assuming that it had built a facility that could have handled those types of crowds.

Division II football has its issues, to be sure, but I'm not sure I'd make that kind of a generalization. If I'm not mistaken, the UNC-NDSU game wasn't exactly a huge draw despite the fact that it was a good matchup, but I wouldn't use that as an indictment of I-AA football as a whole.

To put things in a little different perspective, at least we didn't build a football stadium that only seats a little over 4000, like a certain one of our NCC/WCHA brethren!

That's really disappointing since I think a lot of UND fans were planning on going to this game. If ever WDAZ or the FSSN would consider televising a regular season road game, this would appear to be the ideal one considering it's relatively close and it looks like a great game on paper.

I would say it's a list of all the division I teams/meets/tournaments on UND sports schedules this year.

I read that quote with some amusement, also. I give them credit for not letting the Sioux just run over them between the tackles like I thought would probably happen, but that's small consolation when you give up well over 400 yards of total offense and 34 points.

He didn't play much until the game was in hand. In the fourth quarter, he played quite a bit with the second team offense. He's one of the two deep guys on kick returns, but of course there haven't been many kick returns yet for the Sioux. On punts, he's the second deep guy on those relatively few punt returns when there's more than one guy deep.

Does anyone else think Dressler should be the primary punt returner? To me, it seems pretty clear that not only is he faster and quicker than Groeschl, but I believe he probably also has more experience fielding punts from his high school days than does ex-quarterback Groeschl. Groeschl had one bounce off his face mask yesterday for a turnover, and he just doesn't look that comfortable back there. I've been impressed with Dressler from the few times he's handled the ball so far, and it would seem that in order to make it worthwhile to have taken his red shirt off, he should at least be utilized the fullest extent on special teams.

Not surprisingly, the CW coach was really ticked off about the fake punt according to the Herald. I'd say it was probably something that shouldn't have been done. UND has a reputation as one of the classier programs around and there's no point jeopardizing that. Could it have been an audible? It will be interesting to see if Lennon addresses it on the show tonight.

Austin Pennick was evidently in town for a visit yesterday. I saw him with some of the Sioux players at the football game.

It's probably not a big surprise to anybody, but according to both Sweeney on the channel 8 sports last night and today's Herald, Bowenkamp didn't take any snaps at practice yesterday so it looks like Belmore will again get the start tomorrow.

According to the blurb in last Thursday's Herald, she is going to take an official visit to UND, along with Iowa St., Northwestern and possibly Minnesota. I don't think Minnesota will offer her but you never know. UND offers the opportunity to play close to home, for a very strong program and in very nice facilities. At UND she knows she'd be playing for a winner, whereas Northwestern is terrible and Iowa St. seems to have fallen off since the Megan Taylor, et al. days. As long as she's interested enough to visit, I'd say there's still a chance.

Central Wash. was good two years ago, as they went undefeated during the regular season, including a win at Montana St., before losing to UC-Davis in the playoffs. However, despite coming into last season highly ranked, they fell back down to earth and had a very mediocre season. They're 1-1 so far this year, both games being against Montana NAIA teams. I will venture to guess they they have nowhere near the talent of Delta St., and just as the Sioux had something to prove against Mesa last week, it should be even moreso for this game. I think the Sioux will make a big statement on Saturday. I would look for something far more similar to the 2000 game at Memorial Stadium than the 2002 game.

My understanding is that Gagner was not seriously injured last week, which obviously is very good news. He apparently had some kind of a heat exhaustion-type situation. He should play today.

Certainly NDSU football enjoyed more success prior to the opening of the Fargodome than since, but just as it's unprovable what role the Alerus has played in UND football's tremendous success in 2001 and 2003, it's unprovable that the Fargodome really had anything to do with the fact that NDSU hasn't won a title since 1990. I just can't buy the argument that the Alerus hasn't helped UND football, even if it's just as a recruiting tool. In today's Herald, for example, in an article on the hogs, Mitch Braegelmann from St. Cloud said that he chose UND over St. Cloud St. due in part to facilities. And before anyone says anything about Selke, I believe that plans for the new stadium in St. Cloud were already known when Braegelmann was a senior in high school in 2002-03 so it's not like it was simply a case of anything seeming better than Selke was. While the more sentimental of us UND fans may very well miss Memorial, I really don't think it was going to be impressive to some 18 year old kid who hadn't grown up going to games there. At least to an outsider, it just looked like kind of a dump. Not to say I didn't like it, but objectively I can see how somebody else would not have seen its charm. And considering the competition for players, especially as you get farther away from eastern ND (the Cities and Wisconsin especially), you need every advantage you can get. EDIT: I just found this quote which further supports that even opposing players are pretty impressed with the Alerus:

There's probably not much of a point to this debate since the proverbial train has left the station and UND football will likely be playing in the Alerus for the remainder of our lifetimes. However, a couple of points in response to your post. First, it's not like the money that paid for the Alerus could have been used for something else. Money to refurbish Memorial would have to have come from either the state (highly unlikely) or through donations. It was unlikely in either case. As for what role the Alerus had in the 2001 and 2003 seasons, it's really unprovable either way whether it greatly helped or helped very little. However, especially as it pertains to last year, there were probably some key players who would not necessarily have come to UND had the Sioux still played at Memorial. Facilities do make a difference in many cases, and Memorial really was not a recruiting asset. The best source of information on this would, of course, be Dale Lennon, and I believe he's on record as saying that the Alerus has helped recruiting.

Although I definitely have a soft spot in my heart for Memorial, I don't miss the metal and wood bench bleachers and decrepit bathrooms. The Alerus isn't perfect, but I think Dale Lennon would be the first to acknowledge that it has helped recruiting, and there's no denying that two of the three seasons played there have been the two most successful in UND football history.