UND92,96

Congrats to Greg Hardin on his record-setting performance: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/175357/group/homepage/

I think UND is in kind of a tough spot at quarterback until one of the two true freshmen is ready to take over in a year or two. Landry is obviously a senior, and has been very up-and-down. Goska is a junior and a talented runner, but unless UND goes to some sort of veer-type offense, he's probably not the full-time answer, either this year or next year IMO. Nichols played 9-man football, and is a good athlete, but may fall into a category similar to Goska, i.e. is he enough of a passer? Hendrickson is another talented athlete, but has had to switch to receiver, and seemed to be more of a runner (albeit a very good one) than passer in high school. No quarterbacks were brought in with the 2009 recruiting class. So that leaves Demler and/or Comes as the quarterback of the future. Hopefully at least one of them is ready to contribute as early as next year. Not to make excuses, but another thing to keep in mind is how few fourth and fifth year players there are right now who would have been considered very good NCC players (and these players were recruited before Mussman was even the head coach). I count maybe six or seven, and all but one or two are on the defensive side. I believe that's in large part due to the circumstances surrounding the recruiting class of 2006, insofar as UND hadn't made any formal decision regarding whether to stay dII or go dI. That uncertainty hurt recruiting. And as far as the class of 2007, it had no possibility of post-season (other than for the few who played as true freshmen), and there has been a very high attrition rate from that class. Throw in the class of 2008 and Lennon's departure in the middle of the recruiting season, and the handful of decommitments, and it becomes clearer why UND has such a young team right now.

New roster has been posted: http://www.fightingsioux.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=13500&SPID=6388&SPSID=58566

According to the NIU web site, there's no TV.

Fair points. But since Idaho did average 164 ypg rushing last year, has a huge (but largely inexperienced) offensive line, and may not necessarily want to show a lot of their playbook against an FCS opponent, I wouldn't be surprised if at least in the first half, they come out and try to impose their will with mostly a power rushing game. That's where I feel like UND should match up quite well. It will be interesting, that's for sure.

I'm not really into making specific predictions, but I think it will be a relatively low-scoring game. I'm not sure about our ability to score a lot of points because of the uncertainty at the receiver positions, and by extension the passing game. But I don't think we'll give up a huge amount of points, either. I expect a pretty close game.

Based upon the inconsistent defensive performance of the past three years or so, I can understand why several people are predicting that Idaho will score in the 30's. But with a renewed commitment to the 3-4, Mannausau now apparently calling the shots (and very familiar with the traditional UND 3-4), and pretty talented and experienced nucleus returning, I think the UND defense may surprise a lot of people this year. My hope and expectation is that the Sioux defense will be getting after the quarterback a lot more than what we've seen in recent years.

Thanks in no small part to the oil boom, North Dakota still has the lowest unemployment rate in the country: http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/10-states-with-ridiculously-low-unemployment----and-why-535377.html?tickers=^dji,^gspc,spy,dia,udn,edv,uup

UND falls to Drake in five games: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/173696/ Still, it was a very good performance this weekend.

Well said.

I realize you were being facetious, but as you probably know a substantial portion of the mineral rights were severed from the surface rights years ago, and are now held by descendants of farmers/ranchers who haven't lived in western ND for many years, if ever. I know several UND grads who fall into that category, and I'm sure some NDSU grads are in a similar situation.

I suppose I could look this up myself, but do you happen to know whether most mineral rights in Wyoming are held by the state, or by private landowners? The reason I ask is that I'm curious whether there are a lot of "oil millionaires" in Wyoming, and whether a sizeable amount of money has found its way to the university in the form of donations from these people. In ND, I'm expecting that in time, UND and NDSU may be the beneficiaries of large donations by alums who own land in the oil-producing parts of ND.

Hard to believe JBB could be way off in his 'appraisal' of something... (sorry, inside joke).

http://www.sctimes.com/article/20100818/NEWS01/108170031/SCSU-may-give-football-the-boot

UND has received a verbal commitment from Warroad's Lisa Marvin: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/172403/group/homepage/

Feel free to add... Alerus pro's -climate-controlled which encourages attendance by the oldest and youngest of fans in particular -impressive to recruits, particularly from warm weather regions who may be less-than-enthusiastic about playing outdoors in late Oct. and Nov. -increased noise factor which can greatly aid defense -"dead air" which gain be draining to team unaccustomed to it -beer can be sold and concessions in general are probably considerably higher than what they would be at Memorial con's -off-campus -not readily expandable should that become necessary -turf which needs to be easily removable (precludes use of field turf?) -some purists just don't like indoor football -revenue shared with city Memorial pro's -on campus -tradition -field turf -elements can be big advantage against teams unaccustomed to wind/cold weather -keep all revenue -more easily expandable than Alerus con's -would require major renovations (seating, rest rooms, concessions, press box, etc.) -weather can be a big problem for attendance later in season or even early in the season if it's raining (see Central Washington game in 2000 as example) -likely a recruiting drawback for kids from south and west in particular -no beer sales allowed for state-owned facility--concession revenue likely takes big hit -less parking? (perhaps new ramp has alleviated this?)

9763, per SDSU web page.

Regarding SDSU, the stars really aligned for them last season, as they had probably their best team ever, together with a great home schedule which included UNI, SIU and NDSU. They also had the good fortune of unseasonably warm weather for the November 7 game against SIU, with a temp in the 50's. However, even with warmer-than-normal temps for the conference-title-deciding game against SIU, attendance for that game was roughly 3000 fewer than their season average. Also, in 2008, they had crowds of 6117 and 3276 for home games in November.

Here's a season preview from fightingsioux.com: http://www.fightingsioux.com/ViewArticle.d...TCLID=204972964

New roster has been posted.

Judging by most of the teams in the Summit, it appears being tournament-eligible doesn't necessarily make it all that much easier to recruit high-quality bigs. It would be nice to find another Vonesh, Gardner, T. Johnson, Behrens, etc. though. They may not have been dominant at the dI level, but they'd have been pretty effective IMO.

Grandall steps down: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/arti...group/homepage/

I honestly don't recall any sort of press release for a men's track or cross country signee in the past 8-10 years.

I understand that Cal Poly is traditionally good. But objectively speaking, based upon last year's performance and who is returning, would you honestly pick them in the top-15 preseason?

It seemed like Poly was pretty solid in the first half of last season, but starting with the UND game they struggled quite badly. Granted, they may have had some injury problems, but they seemed really undersized on the offensive line, and couldn't stop the run very well, at least in Great West games. I think they have as good of a chance as anybody to win the Great West, since the conference appears so wide open, but picking them at 14th nationally seems like a bit of a stretch IMO.