UND92,96

The Herald is resuming its weekly live chats tomorrow at 3 o'clock.

From a purely selfish perspective, I wish USD were in the Big Sky. But I can't really blame the USD athletic department for things which were quite possibly completely out of its control. I think it would be a mistake to discontinue playing them, particularly in football and basketball.

SFI's defense progress report: http://siouxfb.areavoices.com/

Any idea of the estimated cost of the facility with all of the above-described features?

Tough to argue with this predication based upon the fact that UND was 0-4 in the conference last year, was last in scoring offense AND scoring defense in conference games, lost Murray early, and has a questionable, to say the least, quarterback situation right now.

http://siouxfb.areavoices.com/2011/07/21/roster-release-thoughts/

Yes. He was hired in January. Mussman will be coaching the o-line this season. According to a tweet by SFI yesterday, Love's replacement has been hired, although no names were mentioned.

Interesting column in the St. Cloud Times today: http://www.sctimes.com/article/20110717/SPORTS04/107170005/DeLand-column-Huskies-left-only-questions?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Umbrella|s

Also, SFI tweeted that UND is NOT out of the running for Mollberg.

According to Kolpack, UND has offered 6'6", 240 pound TE-DL Tucker Nordby from Harvey, ND. Also, according to a tweet by SFI, there are a couple of late additions to the recruting class of 2011.

According to a tweet by Dom Izzo of WDAY (citing something called goldensports.net), Joe Mollberg will commit to NDSU if an Iowa offer doesn't happen.

Since we won't be in the same conference anymore, and we may not even be playing them next year, this may not be particularly relevant to UND, but for whatever it's worth USD has suffered a major personnel loss: http://www.wissports.net/article.asp?pageID=1&newsID=21665&sportID=1

Very sorry to hear that. Good luck to you and all the people in western ND going through a very difficult time.

From what I understand, the staff is recruiting for 2012-13, and at least one offer has been made already. So I think we can safely assume that scholarships will be made available following the 2011-12 season, even though on paper there are none available until 2013-14.

Jake was talking to Texas A & M, but will stay at UNI: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/203527/group/homepage/

St. Cloud Times article on a couple of UND signees from the St. Cloud area: http://www.sctimes.com/article/20110510/SPORTS03/105100018/Prep-baseball-Pitching-future-UND

My big issue is the whole idea of potentially having a five-person, fifth-year senior class where at most one is a starter; two or three of them likely never play regular minutes; and the fact that by all of them staying for a fifth year, that could mean that no recruits are brought in for 2012-13 because all the scholarships are already taken. If this is indeed what ends up happening, it will have been an egregious mistake by Jones in managing the distribution of scholarships among the classes. You should never have a year where you have no scholarships available with which to recruit. I don't believe it ever happened when UND had 10 scholarships as a dII program. I can't imagine why it should happen with 13 as a dI program.

I think Wilmer and Allard will be a part of the regular rotation next year, and as such I believe they would come back for a fifth year. If any of the other three members of that class work their way into the lineup next year, they would be in the same situation. But I just can't see carrying all five scholarship fifth-year seniors if they aren't playing. I've been following UND basketball for a long time, and frankly I can't think of many players on scholarship who stuck around for four or five years and weren't a part of the regular rotation for their final two years (excluding injured players).

I was thinking along the same lines. I honestly don't believe any of the current group of red-shirt sophs will be brought back for a fifth year UNLESS they are actually part of the regular rotation next season. Just my opinion.

UND has reportedly offered Olathe (KS) East DE Matt Baltimore: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/04/26/2828757/if-olathe-had-a-football-draft.html

This is from today's Herald article:

I don't think so. As I recall, the plan was always for Benton to be a walk-on his first year. The only way a scholarship opens up now is if somebody leaves. And at this point, it may be too late to add a likely contributor anyway. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but if the plan is to award Benton a scholarship for 2012-13, I assume it would be Mitchell's. Doesn't that mean that there are potentially no scholarships available to bring anybody else in for 2012-13?

Benton and Austin Antwi (that's his full name I guess) have signed their LOI's: http://www.fightingsioux.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=13500&ATCLID=205140255 Also, regarding Gentry:

In the weekly live chat on the Herald site, I asked whether recruiting was done for this year, and Wayne Nelson answered that it was, and that everybody is expected back next year. I'm not sure about the wisdom of this course of action, i.e. not adding any new big kids to the roster, but I guess we'll see next year. He also indicated that Austin is expected to be an impact player right away, and that Gentry and Benton will likely red-shirt.

Kolpack just tweeted that NDSU has offered, as well.