UND92,96

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.

Not to say some criticism isn't warranted, but in all fairness, Mussman played at Iowa State (back in the Big 8 days), so he does have a pretty good idea of what it's like to play against that level of competition.

Although I believe UC-Davis would likely beat UND if the two teams played this year, that's really not the point I was trying to make. Rather, I believe the problems with the UND defense, particularly the run defense, are not simply a function of the increased difficulty of the schedule compared to the transition years.

Not disagreeing, but it seems UND is having more difficulty with the increased difficulty of the schedule than the other ex-Great West teams. Look at UC-Davis, for example. UND beat them on the road last year, and Davis was not expected to be very good this year. But despite not having a good record so far, they have turned in very respectable performances against good teams, losing by 4 at South Dakota St., by 8 at Cal Poly and by 7 against Montana State.

According to tweets from at least one person supposedly "in the know", Idaho is now leaning towards staying in the WAC rather than moving to the Big Sky, believe it or not: https://twitter.com/TheMattPetersen

I wonder if the WAC will also add UT Pan American and Houston Baptist soon?

I had forgotten this until today, but guess who was coaching against UND when Chappell had his 300-plus yard, school record rushing game back in 2007? Current EWU head coach Beau Baldwin, who coached Central Washington that year.

From the Forum article: http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/376144/

I think power rushing and defense suit Lennon fine. The question I've always had is whether it may be problematic from a recruiting standpoint to take a bunch of coaches from the Dakota's, and have them recruiting well outside of their traditional areas. Some can adapt quickly to a new area, such as Luke Schleusner knocking it out of the park in Illinois last year, but maybe for others it's a bigger challenge? I just can't believe it's an X's and O's problem for Lennon, Bubba, DeBoer, etc.

Personally, I think Kill may be a bit overrated. For one, he didn't do anything great as a dII coach. Secondly, I believe much of the talent at SIU when he was there had been recruited by his predecessor. Ditto at NIU. I don't pretend to know why things haven't gone well for Lennon the past few years, but he didn't all of a sudden forget how to coach. Maybe it just isn't the right fit. It happens to very good coaches at all levels of football.

There were a number of de-commits that season, but they mostly didn't follow Lennon as far as I can recall. IMO, besides Lennon himself, the biggest loss was assistant coach Eric Schmidt.

Kyle Cavil is the only one I can recall. He had committed to UND prior to Lennon's departure, then de-committed and signed with SIU.

Against the four division I opponents played so far this year, UND is giving up 270 yards per game rushing.