UND92,96

28 Sac St. 31 EWU final 7 UC-Davis 21 N. Arizona final

As bizarre as UND's decision was to run up the middle on 3rd and 3, perhaps as odd was Montana's decision to throw a long pass with a little over 5 minutes to go in the 4th quarter and up 34-31. The incompletion stopped the clock, and played a big role in Montana going three and out and only running a very small amount of time off the clock. I felt that Montana's clock management/play calling in the last five minutes was terrible.

Kind of an unsung hero today was Blair Townsend. I believe he had more receiving yardage today than in the rest of his career combined.

A fun, but incredibly frustrating at times, game to watch today. If I were Mussman, I think I'd tell Breitbach that he's not allowed to call a run between the tackles on third or fourth and short the rest of the season. It just doesn't work this year.

Hard to say. But I will admit that when Mussman said that a fifth-year senior was suspended, I was kind of hoping it was Merserau. If somebody had to go, he was probably the most expendable, as he has struggled badly this year. I assume Butler is now a number 2 at safety? Or maybe Ivery?

Good question. His tweet stated "UND announced the suspension". Exactly how it was announced I have no idea.

The suspended player is Merserau, per Dom Izzo.

Someone tweets on his behalf. I believe it was Karvinen last weekend.

Now 7-6. Nelson just led an impressive scoring drive.

0 Minnesota 7 Wisconsin 9:21 left in first quarter Interesting that true freshman Philip Nelson got the start at qb for the Gophs. Some may remember that Joe Mollberg's recruitment by Minnesota essentially ended when Nelson committed.

If Goodman doesn't play today (he's doubtful according to Wayne Nelson's Herald article), hopefully the UND defense responds better than the last time he didn't play--EWU.

For those as interested in UND football history as I am, there are some parallels between the Pat Behrns and Chris Mussman eras. Both were promoted when extremely popular coaches left for higher-paying gigs. Both had ups and downs in their first four or five seasons, before seemingly having breakthrough 8-3 seasons. In the following season for Behrns, UND went 3-8 and he was let go. I don't really think UND will finish this season 3-8, although obviously it's not completely out of the question given the defensive struggles, which may actually get worse given all the injuries.

I have to assume that if RT still wanted to coach, he'd be coaching somewhere already. It's been 14 years since he last coached.

Is speed, or the lack thereof really the main problem right now for UND's defense, or is it physicality, or the lack thereof? Both NDSU and SDSU have good defenses, and to the best of my knowledge virtually all of their players are from the upper midwest.

I would submit that our best chance of recruiting hard-nosed, tough linebackers is in ND, MN and WI, not SEC country.

I think it's a possible combination of that, and perhaps too much focus on athletic ability rather than attitude, temperament and productivity at the high school level when recruiting defensive players. If you were to run today's defense through an NFL combine-type battery of tests, it would almost certainly grade out much higher than 10 years ago. But in terms of hitting, attitude and toughness, things appear to have regressed. Just my possibly ill-informed theory.

In the second year of the transition, with relatively little defensive talent, UND held current Pittsburgh Steeler running back Baron Batch to 32 yards on 9 carries in the Texas Tech game. And there are other examples of UND performing admirably against talented backs during the transition. Something just isn't adding up here. You don't recruit for four years with considerably more scholarships, and somehow end up less talented than when you were at 36 scholarships. That's why I'm not convinced that the problem is primarily that there simply isn't enough talent.

This is perhaps the most baffling part of the defensive ineptitude, given the fact that at least prior to the injuries to Brenneman and Benjamin, the defensive line of this season is essentially the same one that ended last season (after Bellmore was injured). I just can't comprehend why things have gone so terribly wrong this season.

Tom Miller's column on the abomination that is the UND defense: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/247005/group/homepage/

Has anybody heard whether UND is looking at RB Kedon Sweetney (what a great name!) from Warroad? He's got decent size at 6'0", 190, and has over 1200 yards rushing through six games. I guess he transferred to Warroad prior to the school year from Winnipeg, where he also put up big numbers at his previous school.

Yes.

UND won first set 25-19.

Wayne Nelson just tweeted that McGill is out for the season with a knee injury.

2012 UND run defense, by the numbers (division I games only, unless otherwise noted): Allowing 274.4 yards per game; Allowing 6.18 yards per rush; Currently ranked 108th out of 121 FCS teams against the run (includes SD Mines stats--would be several spots lower but for that); Four of the five dI opponents exceeded their per game average vs. UND, with EWU exceeding theirs by 120 yards. By way of comparison, prior to this season UND had held four of five FBS opponents to less than 150 yards rushing, and had given up on average 150 yards per game, and 4.45 yards per rush vs. FBS opponents.

I was just responding to the bolded part of darrell's post. Given how the defense has performed this year, certainly there's some valid reasons for criticism. But whether Muss has the requisite experience against "big time" opponents, whether it be as a coach or player, would be pretty far down the list, IMO.