UND92,96

somebison: You have to admit that it would be pretty funny if NDSU managed to get into the Big Sky (along with Idaho) and left SDSU to fend for themselves after all the talk about being travel partners. That might actually be enough to create a REAL rivalry between NDSU and SDSU.

I think 99% of the reason that there even was a press conference was to field all the "why isn't NDSU on your schedule" questions at once. Some people seem to have misconstrued the reason there even was a press conference as if it was to tell the world "heh, look how great our schedule is." True, it's a very good schedule, but if it weren't for the whole NDSU issue, it would have simply been announced via a press release like every other year. If an 11th game is added, great, but I don't think they wanted to delay the inevitable any longer, i.e. to confirm that NDSU would not be on the schedule.

There had been some talk earlier about NDSCS and ex-NDSU linebacker Tyler Morrow transferring to UND. Does anybody know whether he decided to play another year at NDSCS? I didn't see his name on any school's list of signees, and I believe he does have another year of juco eligibility.

This was just posted on allcanadagridiron.com:

While it's not that big of a deal in the scheme of things, the fact that Marissa Leighton only got co-NCC player of the week despite scoring 64 points on the weekend is a joke. Some freshman from USD whom I've never even heard of and who scored 24 fewer points than Leighton somehow warranted equal billing in someone's estimation. For whatever reason, the conference seems to have a very hard time awarding the player of the week honor to just one player in a given week.

I agree. I'm almost positive the actual crowd was more like about 3000. But let's face it, I don't think they have exactly the most accurate methods of counting at Hyslop. At REA, you know the figure should be pretty exact, but at Hyslop, who knows where they get the numbers from?

SDSU has actually won three of the past six games in Brookings between the two teams. It's the recent games in Grand Forks that have all been complete blow-outs, with UND winning the last six games by an AVERAGE of just under 27 points.

I have a feeling that any attempt by the legislature to get involved in college football scheduling may end up in Sports Illustrated in their weekly "This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse" segment. For those unfamiliar with that particular segment of SI, here's an example of a recent one: a Catholic high school in Pennsylvania recently ran an ad for exotic dancers in its girls' basketball program.

Rypkema and Lindahl are really headed in opposite directions right now. When he's not in foul trouble, it doesn't look like anybody in the league can guard Ryp one-on-one once he gets the ball on the low blocks. If he could make free throws, he'd be unstoppable. Granted, the post play in the NCC is really down, but Ryp appears to me to be by far the best offensive post player in the league. Lindahl, on the other hand, has completely disappeared the past two or three weeks. I have no idea what happened to him since he was on his way to being an all-NCC selection at the halfway point of the conference season. Between Lindahl, Jacobson and Jahner, I'm not sure who played the worst last night. The best lineup right now would appear to be Ryp, Wells (for defensive reasons only), Johnson, Austin and Dahl.

In another interesting matchup last night, Kimbrough out-scored NDSU signee Ali Sonstelie of Sacred Heart 33-17 in an easy B-G-MR win.

It was definitely a great performance by the women last night. Leighton and Boese are the best one-two punch in the league. There are also some definite parallels between UND's home games with SDSU in both football and women's basketball. On the road, it's almost always going to be tight, but at home, the games are nearly always blow-outs. It's been 7 or 8 years since SDSU has come within 12 points of the Sioux at Hyslop, and many of those games have been very one-sided, including a 24-point win last year and a 38-point win two years ago.

Kimbrough out-scored Langen last night 19-11, but Kittson Central won the game by two. Langen had been consistently scoring 25 per game over the past several weeks, so evidently Kimbrough must have played quite well defensively.

And now this little gem from Jeff Kolpack: Weenie? Nice word, Jeff. Somebody get this guy a thesaurus, and quickly.

He's still listed on their web page as being on the football coaching staff.

This was in the Herald recently:

As long as we're talking about mythical, pre-1973 "championships," we can't forget about UND's 1966 midwest region college division title. Quick, somebody tell Roger Thomas to get that banner ready!

Lennon hires ex-Augie assistant to coach db's, according to this link.

Apparently UND is supposed to keep playing NDSU until some hypothetical future time when UND starts to lose consistently and NDSU unilaterally determines that yes, the scholarship differential has officially taken effect. Then, and only then, would they consider it acceptable for UND to bow out from the series.

I can only assume that Anderson realizes that NDSU has also never even come close to filling the Fargodome except for when they play UND, either.

Nobody has speculated that there's something wrong with the SDSU women's program. I merely speculated that the only possible reason I can think why Oien would freak out over something so seemingly innocuous is because SDSU has lost at least one high-profile athlete to another NCC school. If you have another theory, please feel free to share it because as Corella correctly pointed out, athletes and coaches from opposing schools do speak with each other after games quite regularly, and without officials from those schools having a fit about it. I see nothing wrong with what Glas did, nor would I have any problem with any of the SDSU coaches talking with any UND player after this weekend's game.

Yes, that occurred after the Oien/Nagy/Glas incident. My understanding of it is that Lindsay Draayer signed an LOI with SDSU in the Fall of 2002. After that, her sister transferred from SDSU, and Lindsay apparently sought and received her Release from the LOI. She then signed with UND last spring. I don't believe it was ever explained in the Herald, but I know for a fact that she signed an LOI with SDSU (I remember reading the press release on the SDSU site), so they must have granted her request for a Release.