UND92,96

Quite frankly, I don't know exactly what transpired at UNA in the mid-90's, but I have heard some things from people I trust that do not jibe with the "official" version coming out of Florence. I believe there's a worst-case scenario, which is what I have heard, and a best-case scenario, which is what you are claiming. I wouldn't be surprised if the truth lies somewhere in between. In any event, it's all water under the bridge now.

I heard on the basketball post-game show last night that ticket sales have been going very well, and that they are expecting a crowd much bigger than the Pitt St. and Winona St. games. Hopefully, at least in the 11,000 to 12,000 range. If that turns out to be true, the total attendance for the three 2003 playoff games will be almost identical to the total attendance for the three 2001 playoff games.

The offense is pretty much a 50-50 run and pass mix. In terms of success, the pass is more effective. There are a lot of different formations. In reality, Lennon is known much more as a defensive coach as he was a defensive assistant at UND from '88 to '96 before leaving for a couple of years to become a head coach at NAIA University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D. Lennon's predecessor--the current a.d. Roger Thomas--is largely credited with turning the UND program around from a pretty dismal decade in the '80's. Thomas put together some very good staffs which included Lennon. Other than a disappointing 5-6 mark last season, UND has consistently been a good team from about '90 to the present. During that time period, there have been six conference titles, eight playoff appearances, four national semi-final appearances, and one national championship. Aside from last season, UND has finished in the top three in the conference every year from 1990 to the present. Lennon has played a large role in the success of the program over the last dozen-or-so years.

Please keep in mind that when we refer to "strength of schedule," it's referring to the term as it's defined by the NCAA. Various quantities of power points are given for games depending upon whether it's a win or a loss, the winning percentage of the opponent and whether the game was home or away. We are by no means trying to say that your league is weak. The reason UND's strength of schedule index is considered higher is because your games against non-dII opponents result in very few power points. It's not necessarily fair, but that's the NCAA for you.

Bravo, Wyobisonman! I only hope we can expect more of these astounding observations from you on a dII football board even though NDSU has supposedly moved onward and upward. I guess I keep forgetting that UND's 11-1 record should probably have an asterisk attached to it since wins over your team, SCSU, UNO, SDSU, etc. don't really count for anything. The Crookston game, to borrow from the words of the immortal Tony Stauss, should trump everything else, and officially result in UND's schedule being considered weak.

Who UNA has beaten? Wait a minute, isn't that a subtle jab at the teams UND has beaten, e.g. NDSU?

I agree. With regard to the whole speed issue, let's keep in mind that relative to midwest region teams, the top teams from the south probably always have a speed advantage. And yet, the South has managed just one national championship in the past seven years compared to five for the supposedly big and slow teams from the midwest. Funny how that works, huh? Let's face it, while I'm sure North Alabama has a very good team and very possibly better than UND, it's not as though we're playing Miami here. There are enough I-A and I-AA schools in the South, not to mention northern schools recruiting in the South, so that any true superstar is probably not going to be attending North Alabama or any other dII school unless none of the big boys wanted them. The talent discrepancy will not be as big as some believe, and playing at home will even the playing field somewhat, as well. Don't think for a minute that the UND players are going to be at all intimidated on Saturday.

I can't say that it was or it wasn't, but judging by RT's comments on the post-game show yesterday, he wasn't aware that it was likely that UND would host, let alone a done deal.

Throw in the towel? No. Acknowledge that the Sioux are the underdog? Yes. If the Sioux would have played the second half like they did the first half yesterday, then I would probably be a lot more optimistic about our chances next Saturday. But because UND looked pretty poor for almost the entire second half, it's human nature to be skeptical about our chances against a team likely far superior to Winona St. But no matter what happens next week, it has been a very good season.

If I had to guess, I would say that the deciding factor here was that the NCAA didn't want a team to potentially win the national championship without ever leaving its home field. UNA plays its home games at Braley Municipal Stadium in Florence, which of course is the site for the championship game. Yes, I would be upset if I were a UNA fan, but I would venture to say that if the Alerus were hosting the title game, and UND was in the same situation as UNA, the same thing would happen. We've seen similar things before here at UND. For years, the womens basketball Elite 8 was at the site of one of the participants. Not coincidentally, that changed immediately after UND won its first title at home in '97. I have even heard that the reason the NCAA didn't want Rochester (MN) to host it again like they did in '01 was because it was too close to ND, and it would be too big of an advantage for UND (or NDSU) because they would have so many more fans than any of the other schools.

It's certainly possible that UND will lose badly, but there's a reason games are played on the field and not on paper. I hate to bring this game up again since you guys talk about it constantly, but if a non-playoff dII team like NDSU can win on the road against a supposed I-AA power like Montana, then anything is possible. That's why we play the games. Even with a loss next week, I'll take an 11-2 season, an NCC title and a semi-final appearance any year.

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.