UND92,96

These are the regular season attendance averages since 2006: 2006 9,578 2007 10,790 2008 10,167 2009 8,539 2010 8,154

Lennon's first real recruiting class wasn't until 2009, making most of them red-shirt freshmen right now. The 2008 recruiting class would probably be half Lennon and half Kill recruits. But there's little question that this season has been a setback in terms of him moving on to a better job anytime soon. I'm sure there will be some pressure next season to get back into the playoffs.

I've brought this up several times before, but in 2008 we had probably the worst home schedule ever, and also the best per-game attendance average ever. People showed up presumably because of the momentum which had been built up over the previous 15-20 years. Fans were used to seeing a winner, and were willing to show up notwithstanding the extremely unattractive schedule. Now, the momentum has been lost, and I'm not convinced that a better schedule alone will make people come back. It may very well take a win or two similar to the UNI win in 2006 to generate a buzz again. And of course, that's easier said than done.

If this were any UND team of 1999 to 2007 (other than 2002), I'd like our chances of at least keeping it close. This year? I don't see it happening. Just too many weaknesses on both sides of the ball.

UND defeated NJIT today to clinch the Great West title. Congrats to Coach Hardee and the team.

Just got back from the game. Obviously a very disappointing performance as I really thought coming in that this was a very winnable game. Offensively, it really hurts that we simply don't have a very good passing game, although at least Hendrickson made a couple of very good throws. Goska seems to have more poise and possibly makes better decisions, but Hendrickson seems to have so much more upside with his speed and arm. I guess you play them both the next two weeks and see who moves the team better. I strongly suspect that unless somebody really emerges, we'll see a transfer brought in to compete for the starting job next year. Defensively, there just seem to be too many breakdowns in coverage. Far too often the receiver is 10 yards behind the corner. At some point somebody needs to be held accountable for this glaring problem. About the only area where I feel we're definitely on the right track is special teams. Coverage was good, and there were several good returns. Kotelnicki seems to be doing a good job.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm happy with the Big Sky, and I hope the Big Sky presidents are still happy with UND despite our lack of travel partner in the eastern Dakota's. With that said, IF--and I repeat IF--the Big Sky is no longer happy with adding UND as an all-sports member due to travel concerns, it would seem that the logical way out of it would be to give UND a football-only bid, a la UC-Davis and Cal Poly. That's the one and only way Kolpack's suggestion makes any sense whatsoever.

Agreed. The way Viverito went about this was a bit shady. It's clear they only wanted one more member at most. So why are the Stu Whitney's of the world acting like UND was the one that did something wrong here? That's what I find so baffling. That's understandable. The politics in SD are clearly different from North Dakota, and you need to do what's necessary to avoid ticking off the board and the politicians. I'm sure we'll all be fine. While the MVFC seems stable for now, I still wonder about where the Summit is going to look for new members in the future? Should be interesting.

You are a class act, Yote 53. I think you're seeing the big picture far clearer than many others in South Dakota right now. Now that things have settled down a bit, and people are hopefully getting over the initial surprise over the abrupt change of events, I hope the UxD's continue to play each other. Let's not have a repeat of the UND-NDSU and USD-SDSU situations from 5-6 years ago.

For some reason, I just can't let go of the article Jim linked yesterday from the Terre Haute paper, in which concerns over adding a flight to the football budget for Indiana State were apparently significant both when the xDSU's were added, and again this week. And then I compare that to the NCC adding UNC (a flight for everybody except UNO, and for basketball and volleyball, too), and then the Washington schools as affiliate football members. If it wasn't a deal-breaker for a dII conference, why should it have been such a big deal for at least two members of a prominent FCS conference? Seriously, if a long-time FCS program can't afford to fly two or three times per year, maybe they need to re-think whether they can even afford to be playing scholarship FCS football. To put it another way, if SIU is so strapped for cash, where did the money come from to pay Lennon big bucks (by FCS standards)?

Kolpack just tweeted that it looks like USD to MVFC.

Whomever this info was allegedly leaked to should be ashamed of themselves for making us wait this long.

When I read that a press conference was scheduled at USD tomorrow, I just assumed that it would be to commit to the Big Sky. I figured no announcement at all this week would be a bad sign, as that would seem to suggest further discussions with the MVFC. Had I not heard Faison tonight, I'd probably still be thinking that. But now, I'm not so sure...

To paraphrase, I believe he said something to the effect that "I'm not sure USD will be able to commit to the Big Sky". And it just seemed like his tone was different from how it was in interviews Monday and Tuesday. I hope I just interpreted his words differently from how he intended them. I guess the big question is whether he's actually spoken with USD a.d. Sayler in the past few hours, now that it appears that some sort of a decision has been made.

Faison is on the coaches' show right now. He doesn't sound quite as confident that USD will be joining the Big Sky as he did a few days ago.

USD has called a press conference for noon tomorrow per TV tweet.

This USD student newspaper article was linked on the USD board: http://www.volanteonline.com/sports/usd-athletics-to-announce-home-of-coyote-sports-1.2391581 I can't see the MVFC possibly making that quick of a decision at this point, so if there truly is a press conference either tomorrow or Friday, it still appears that all signs point to USD to the Big Sky.

Surreal is right. At times it felt like this day would never come, but it was well worth the wait. Nice job Faison, Kelley and staffs, and nice job to star2city for predicting this all those years ago!

Was there any mention of what this will mean from a Title IX standpoint? Unless another women's sport is also going to be added, it seems like the only other alternative is to cut a sport (men's golf?)

In this case, I think it was because the number of students was just so alarmingly low. If there were more than maybe 30 students in the student sections, I'd be surprised. I've never seen it anywhere near that bad since to the move to the Alerus from Memorial Stadium.

UND's win over NW State is looking a lot more impressive now than it did a month ago.

I'm a bit torn on Goska's performance today. He certainly didn't do badly, but the concern about him has always been whether he can be an accurate passer more than about 10 yards down the field. Aside from one throw to Sutton, he didn't really show that ability today. Coincidentally or not, Hardin was largely a non-factor. Next week should be a much bigger test. He's going to have to show that he can get it done with his arm, or UND will be facing a lot of 8-in-the-box defenses.

Season preview from the Herald: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/181278/group/Sports/

Actually Walker was a high school recruit. The Northwestern transfer was named Tony Stauss I believe. UND has played against some good FBS transfer quarterbacks in recent years, including Zach Miller (UNO by way of Nebraska) and Mike Reilly (CWU by way of Washington St.). The Southern Utah quarterback this year is a BYU transfer.

I thought that was interesting also. My take on that is if none of the older quarterbacks look like they can seize the starting job for next year, it may be prudent to bring somebody in to compete with the two freshmen. Of course, in the years I've been watching UND football, which goes back to the early 1980's, I don't believe we've ever had a transfer quarterback actually win the starting job. Bringing in an FBS or juco transfer has been talked about a number of times, but it never really seems to work out.