UND92,96

He's now at Western Illinois.

I suspect only people in their 40's or older will understand this comparison, but barring a major turnaround this season is feeling very much like 1985.

This kind of result has happened three times in the last nine games. It's completely unacceptable.

In terms of the Alerus era, I would rank the worst losses as 1. Sioux Falls (2009); 2a. Montana (2013); 2b. Central Washington (2002).

Rains looks imminent here, but hasn't started yet.

This isn't 2014 recruiting, but there's a local 6'5", 290 pound 9th grade OL with a vaguely familiar last name to keep an eye on in the coming years: http://www.grandfork...icle/id/273078/

Per a Tom Miller tweet, Goodman is injured. Also, no quarterback starter has been named yet.

McFeely blog on the demise of the UND defense compared to the dII years: http://kfgo.com/blogs/so-many-opinions-so-little-time/953/unds-defense-what-went-wrong/

To further illustrate the point, even a head coach promoted from within a year and a half ago--where UND probably could have still gotten away with paying relatively little--is getting paid quite well by Big Sky standards (Travis Brewster).

It seemed like a much better win at the time. They finished 4-7 that year.

According to a tweet from CatGrizInsider (retweeted by Dom Izzo and several others), he has a separated shoulder.

Montana State just announced that McGhee (qb) is injured and will be out until sometime in October--meaning he won't be playing against UND.

I saw Rich Wilkie at the game on Saturday. Not sure whether his son was with him or not.

Given their youth, they will both make mistakes. But what strikes me is that Mollberg put up 259 yards, 2 td's and led 3 scoring drives in less than a quarter and a half against an above average defense. That's pretty impressive. It's possible Bartels may be a better "game manager", which might be fine if UND had a better running game and defense. But under the circumstances, I think you have to go with the better playmaker. In my uninformed opinion, that's Mollberg.

I think most feel he has the better physical skills, and more potential. I guess Bartels just had a slightly better pre-fall camp.

Boxscore: https://www.nmnathle...DB_OEM_ID=13500

Will we ever see Jameer Jackson as at least a part time TE?

I would really like to think that Kotelnicki being in charge will result in the run defense getting back to competence in the short term, and hopefully eventually back to dominance in the long term. If we see a repeat of last year, I guess the talent level really is just that deficient at present, because I trust that he knows what he's doing.

I'm not going to make a specific prediction, and I will freely admit that past results do not necessarily predict future ones, but for whatever it's worth, SDSU hasn't been wildly successful against current Big Sky/former Great West teams in the past four or five years. Last year, they beat a not very good Davis team in Brookings 12-8. In 2011, they beat a decent SUU team in Brookings 29-28. In 2010, they beat a UND team that could not complete a pass to save their life 21-0 in Brookings. And in 2009 they lost at Cal Poly 17-15, and blew a huge lead at Montana in the playoffs, only to eventually lose 61-48. Now granted, maybe they really are just that much better now than the past five years. Or maybe not (way too early to say). But I have a hard time predicting them to come into the Alerus and blow out UND given their recent track record against other current Big Sky programs. Sure, it could happen, but there's also not a lot of precedent for it.

The thing that strikes me most about this game is that it may be the first time in the 12-plus years of UND playing football in the Alerus that the home team is considered a big underdog. Of course, it will also likely happen three more times in the next month or so.

No kidding. The last three games in GF--UND 114, SDSU 16.

Terry Vandrovec just tweeted that 5dimes has SDSU as a 9-point favorite.

I agree that timing is probably the biggest factor, along with continuity and competency of the head coach--which may explain why timing did not help UNC. Still, I can't help but think that being the only regional FCS program to still play outside is generally a recruiting disadvantage, especially for any recruits from outside of the immediate area. That is probably one of the reasons UND was able to win recruiting battles for kids like McGill and Sparks, even while not being playoff eligible at the time.

I'm curious as to theories of how SDSU has managed to have more success as an FCS program than in dII?

It's interesting to me that Bubba's SIU defense held Zenner to under 50 yards last year. That's not to say that the UND defense will do anything close to that on Saturday, but at least it shows what is still possible when the 3-4 is run properly.