UND92,96

It looks like the Sioux need to prepare for a Doug Flutie-type quarterback. UNA qb Will Hall is just 5'8", 184 pounds but completes 70% of his passes and has thrown 25 td's. Unfortunately for us, UNA looks like a short passing team, and that's been the kind of team we have the most trouble with. Couple that with the fact that they will likely have by far the best speed of any team the Sioux have faced in a long time. To the extent there's any good news here, it's that both of UNA's close games this year have been on the road. They won by seven points at both Southern Arkansas and Valdosta St. I doubt they've played on artificial turf this year, and if we can get a good crowd, I doubt they'll have played in as loud of an environment as the Alerus can be. But there's no question UND will have to play its absolute best football to have any sort of chance to win. It's been awhile since UND has been a big underdog at home, so it should be interesting. We can't ask for anything more than a shot at the top-ranked remaining team in our house.

Actually it's 10 of the last 13. UND won in '93, '94 (twice), '95, '96, '98, '99, '01, '02 and '03. NDSU won the playoff game in '95, and the '97 and '00 games.

It didn't look to me like there was a particularly large Winona contingent there yesterday, but it's hard to estimate how many there were. Maybe a couple hundred.

I don't believe that anybody who knows football has done anything other than be complimentary to Winona St. They must have one of the better coaches in the country to be able to accomplish what they have with so few resources. However, instead of living vicariously through Winona St., perhaps SW St. and some of the other NSIC schools could improve their own programs. I think the NSIC will continue to have a credibility problem if Winona is able to cruise through the league year after year with few if any serious challenges along the way. With UMD leaving, Winona's road just got that much easier. It would seem that Concordia, Northern St. and maybe Bemidji St. are trying to get better, although they are still a ways off judging by Concordia's performance two weeks ago. As for SW St., Wayne St., UMC and MSU-Moorhead, that's another story altogether. Those teams are brutal.

Bowenkamp's injury is supposedly just a bruised lower leg, so I would expect that he'll play. I'm pretty sure he's been practicing all week. But even if he doesn't start, I have a lot of confidence in Wilson. He can play. He wasn't great last week, but he hadn't played in over a month and probably didn't get all that many reps with the starters in practice the week before the Pitt St. game. Now, with a half of football under his belt and a full week of practice, he should be ready to go.

This article is in the Winona paper today. This is my favorite quote: I guess he was playing in a different game from the one I was watching. It's one thing to not get blown out, but let's not go overboard here. Generally speaking, when you score a touchdown with 25 seconds remaining in the game to cut the lead from 21 to 14, it's not "almost winning." They didn't even turn the ball over once, so they can't even use the Pitt St. excuse of "you just got lucky that we turned the ball over so many times" (as if the turnovers were completely unforced). Winona made some big plays and scored some points the last time around, but when you give up 42 points and over 500 yards of offense, your defense peformed very badly, and you certainly did not deserve to win. Obviously, we'll see in a few hours what today's game brings, but I'm getting sick of reading revisionist history about a game from two years ago which has no bearing at all on what happens today. If the Sioux don't play well today, then they can certainly lose. But I do believe that UND is considerably better than UMD and Emporia St.--both of whom played the Warriors to within seven points AT Winona in the past two weeks.

I certainly don't know enough about the GPI to argue its merits, but it's somewhat interesting to note that Northern Colorado is at number 14 despite the fact that six of their nine wins were over dII teams (and all weak ones, at that). Their record against full-fledged I-AA's was just 2-2.

Uh, guys...obviously you can talk about anything you want on this site as it pertains to UND athletics, but this issue has been absolutely debated to death over the past few months. Nothing we say is going to affect whether the series continues or not, and nothing anybody says is probably going to change somebody else's opinion about it. It seems bizarre to me that we are a few days removed from a national quarterfinal game and this whole "should they or shouldn't they continue to play NDSU" thing is dominating conversation. The Nickel has been won (again). For the time being anyway, it would seem that discussing the playoffs should be the priority, and not debate over somebody we're probably not going to play for at least the next few seasons.

I agree that the gap is narrowing. However, I think the obvious factor that will keep the top football teams from the NSIC from being able to compete year in and year out with the top of the NCC is the large scholarship differential. I believe it said in the Fargo Forum today that Winona is funding 11 scholarships, or less than one-third of what the NCC is funding. Obviously, they're doing quite well with what they have, but in the long run I don't believe you can recruit competitively in the same geographic regions as the NCC schools while only able to offer a fraction of the scholarship money. Certainly you will find the occasional diamond in the rough or get lucky with a guy who was overlooked for whatever reason and turns out to be a star, but it's tough to do that consistently. If it is at all feasible financially, Winona should consider fully funding its football program and joining the NCC as UMD is doing. There's obviously an open slot right now in the league, and they would be very competitive. I'm sure it's easier said than done to go from 11 to 36 scholarships, but I can't believe it's impossible for them, either.

In 2001, Winona was a completely unknown commodity, and I think there was a certain amount of over-confidence on the part of the Sioux since everybody outside of Winona was saying how the game was going to be a complete blowout. Winona did some unconventional things offensively and it did cause some problems for the Sioux. We must remember, however, that it wasn't only the Sioux defense who struggled that day. The Winona defense provided very little resistance to the UND offense in that game which sometimes gets overlooked in retrospect. It seems everybody remembers the 28 points we gave up instead of how the UND receivers were running free for most of the game without a db anywhere in sight. This time around, there won't be any over-confidence and I fully expect that Bubba Schweigert will have the defense ready for anything Winona will throw at them. He's one of the best defensive coordinators around and he will have them ready to go. I also think it has been beneficial to UND that there are so many teams in the NCC who throw the ball a lot. Winona hasn't had many difficult road games the past few years, and the ones they have had have often been struggles, i.e. Concordia-SP this year and NDSU and UMD last year. I have to believe that UND will be deeper and a little more talented and physical overall, which along with the home field advantage should give the Sioux a good chance to win. The team has worked too hard all year long to give anything less than their best when a trip to the national semi-finals is on the line.

I don't think it's a matter of being down on the I-AA system as much as it's pointing out the inherent flaws in both systems.

I agree that the student section was great on Saturday. It certainly helped that the 40-50 football players who couldn't suit up for the game were in the front few rows.

I don't believe the I-AA system necessarily puts the top 16 teams in. Eight conferences get an auto bid, which allows a team like Montana St. to get in despite its five losses. If they are one of the top 16 teams in I-AA, it doesn't speak very highly of the division. The Big Sky must have been really down this year. The supposed top two teams from that league both lost at home to essentially division II teams. True, UNC is technically I-AA but they probably put the same team on the field that they would have had they still been division II. The I-AA system would have gotten IUP and Catawba in, but I don't think NDSU would have been in anyway with three losses and only eight at-large bids from around the country. In any event, it's a moot point.

Your feelings regarding televising games are well-known, but there is absolutely no question that television coverage hurts attendance. It's simply common sense. It doesn't matter if you or anybody else thinks that it shouldn't--it does. It's human nature that a lot of people would prefer to watch the game from their own living room if given a choice in the matter. My feeling is that road games should be televised. I think they should be televised during the regular season, too, but that's another story. Home games should not be televised unless 10,000 tickets or more have been sold by Thursday or Friday. Not televising a home game with poor ticket sales is hardly unprecedented. Look at the NFL, for example. If a game isn't sold-out 72 hours in advance, it's blacked-out locally.

I certainly respect Winona's offense and their team, but in reality Pitt St. averaged more points per game and more yards per game this season playing a far more difficult schedule. Winona averages about 230 yards per game passing, but those numbers may be a bit misleading considering there are a number of very poor defenses in the NSIC this year.

Not that there was really any doubt, but this link confirms that UND is hosting next week.

I looked up the box scores from the web page of each host school.

Like UND, it appears that Winona was the beneficiary of a pretty favorable home schedule. Their only road challenges were at Concordia-SP, and a quasi road game against Northern St. in the Metrodome. I am very happy that the Sioux were able to run the ball effectively yesterday against a very solid defense. Pitt St. basically sold-out to stop the pass, but it was at the expense of stopping the run. I know Duluth ran the ball quite effectively against Winona a few weeks back, so I would expect to see a heavy dose of Adam Roland on Saturday. I have to think that the Sioux offensive line is pretty confident in their run-blocking right now. I also doubt very much that Winona will be able to generate anywhere near as much of a pass rush as Pitt St. was able to do. Whether it's Bowenkamp or Wilson, I think the passing game will bounce back next week.

Not that it's any consolation, but the UND-Pitt St. game yesterday had the second-highest attendance of the eight playoff games: Grand Valley St. at Bentley (4433) Edinboro at Saginaw Valley (3907) Carson-Newman at Valdosta St. (3247) Southern Arkansas at North Alabama (7132) Central Ok. at Mesa St. (1961) Tarleton at TAMUK (9500) Emporia St. at Winona (3115) Pitt St. at UND (7160) Half of the home teams, including UND, had attendance BELOW their season average.

The 2001 playoff games had attendance as follows: Winona St. 6700 Pitt St. 8222 UC-Davis 11,696 (this was the "official" number. The Alerus certainly appeared full, however, so this number is probably not really accurate.) The Winona game was probably not helped by the fact that everybody thought it was going to be a huge blowout, and this likely kept a lot of people away. The Pitt St. game was over the Thanksgiving weekend, I believe. I don't believe either game was televised locally. The UC-Davis game was televised but fortunately, there was enough hype by that point that people showed up anyway.

Yes. The previous low was, believe it or not, the St. Cloud St. game with a little over 7600. Not coincidentally, that game was televised, too. Four out of the seven home games this year have been on tv. I'm sure it will be five of eight after next week. Not only does it keep the crowd down, but we have to sit through all those stupid tv timeouts! I hate those! I don't care if they televise these games outside of the Grand Forks area, but they absolutely should not be televised locally. With the Thanksgiving holiday this week and one fewer day in which to sell tickets, it's going to be a big challenge to even get 7000.

While the MIAA had a lot of success in the 90's, I imagine they're ready to try their luck in another region starting next year. Since NW Mo. St. won the national championship in 1999, the MIAA has a dismal 1 win, 6 loss record in the playoffs. Not good.

The crazy thing about this game was that generally, UND's strengths are throwing the ball and stopping the run. The Sioux usually struggle to run the ball and to stop the pass. Today, we didn't do a great job of throwing the ball or stopping the run, but did run the ball well and generally stopped the pass well. The one trend that really held true was Pitt St.'s propensity for turning the ball over. It's a miracle it was as close as it was with seven to's.