UND92,96

Judging by Mussman's comments on the coaches' show last night, not only is Hendrickson moving back to quarterback, he'll be the number 2 behind Goska.

It will be very interesting to see what the offensive game plan is on Saturday. To date, when Goska has played it has seemingly been quarterback keepers about 80% of the time. Clearly that won't work long term. Will we seem some option? Can Goska be accurate on short and intermediate passes? If Murray can't play, can Sutton and Miller pick up the slack?

From the most recent Sioux Football Insider blog:

I know Landry has been the target of much criticism in the past couple of seasons, but this is a sad way for any senior to go out. Good luck to him with his future endeavors.

Yes, both are red-shirting.

I would certainly hope no red-shirts are pulled at this point in the season. I'd like to see Goska play, and run some option rather than pull a red-shirt. You also have Hendrickson who could switch back to QB, as he hasn't played much at receiver. Best case scenario is to rotate Goska and either Nichols or Hendrickson, and wait until next year to put Comes or Demler in there. If nothing else, at least we'll know by the end of the year if any of the non-red shirts has any chance whatsoever to be the starter next year.

I agree that on the offensive side, an upgrade in talent could be enough to get the ship righted. However, I question whether a defense which has struggled--at least against the pass--for roughly four years will be able to replace as many starters as we'll be losing, and somehow manage to get any better? I'm not sure wholesale staff changes necessarily need to be made, but at least some job title changes may be in order?

I think it goes back to what has been said before about Mussman's pay--while he may not be highly paid relative to other FCS head coaches, he's getting paid fairly well given his lack of experience and track record as a head coach. I suspect the same can be said of our coordinators. But yes, I agree that IF a change were made, at least in any of the coordinator positions, the pay should go up so as to attract quality candidates.

I don't disagree that the pay needs to be whatever the going rate is. However, I believe UND pays better than USD, and they managed to bring in a pretty good DC in the off-season from USF.

IMO, Goska should be moved to WR for his senior year, and let whomever prevails in spring ball between Demler and Comes be the starter next year.

To break down the 14-14 record a bit further: 6-1 vs. dII/III/NAIA 8-10 vs. FCS 0-3 vs. FBS I have said it before, and I'll say it again: Mussman deserves another year, and I believe he will get that. However, some things absolutely need to change in order for him to have a long career as a head coach at UND: -Fix the pass defense. Yesterday showed that the current version of the 3-4 still works pretty well against running teams. The problem is, most teams aren't running teams, and our pass defense has mostly been terrible over the past four years or so. How to fix it? I can think of a start, but whether Mussman is willing to take the necessary action remains to be seen... -Upgrade the offensive line talent, and find a few more legit receivers, as we currently only have one. I think Townsend will help next year, and hopefully at least one out of McGill, Ivery and Carrasco can step up. As for the line, retention of recruits has been a problem for several years. It's frustrating because offensive line should be one area where there's sufficient talent in ND/NW MN/WI to put together a decent group year after year. The line does not appear to be as good now as it was in the 1990's/first half of the 2000's.

Game Notes: http://www.fightingsioux.com/downloads2/390682.pdf?ATCLID=205014877&SPSID=58640&SPID=6399&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=13500 I see where there was no offensive player of the game chosen for the SUU game. Probably a good decision.

Wisconsin o.c. Paul Chryst was mentioned as a potential candidate the last time around. He didn't hurt his chances for a head coaching job last night.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/105131979.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU1yDEmP:QMDCinchO7DU I wonder if Maturi will get the chance to screw up another hire?

SIU now 3-4 on the season. I am extremely surprised.

Sioux Football Insider's post-game analysis: http://siouxfb.areavoices.com/

Although there were some decisions made by the interim a.d.'s that I strongly disagreed with, not paying Mussman more than necessary was one thing they got right. He got a nice raise from his o.c. salary, and I'm sure he was happy with it. If he has a high degree of success, he'll get more money. I also agree that if a change were made, the pay would be considerably higher. Ditto for the men's basketball job should that open up in the near future. Faison proved with Hardee that he's not afraid to pay the going rate for the right person.

I don't know about averages, but I believe the highest-paid FCS coaches are between $250k and $300k. Richmond, Delaware and James Madison are supposedly among the highest-paid.

Aren't they still technically co-coordinators, but now Mannausau actually calls the defense whereas Kelling did the past three or four years? FWIW, they're still listed as co-coordinators at fightingsioux.com, although that info is admittedly not always 100% accurate.

I tend to agree that if Lennon were still here, with this exact coaching staff, things still wouldn't be all that great. However, on the other hand, if Mussman had Lennon's currrent staff at SIU here at UND, I think you'd see a much better product on the field. With that said, I believe Mussman should get another year even if we finish 2-9, but Faison needs to see that the certain changes are made on the staff.

If you look at where the SUU program was as recently as 2007--a season in which I believe they were winless and were hammered at home by dII UND--they were essentially starting over as a program at the same time UND started its dI transition. It certainly seems like they have done a better job. And while they are located much closer to major population centers compared to UND, they're also probably only the fifth-best college football program in the state of Utah, and have minimal media attention, tradition and probably money compared to UND.

I was going to make a similar point. The fact that attendance for Homecoming and Potato Bowl were both sub-par compared to most past seasons strongly suggests that fan interest is on a downward slide. Six horrible performances out of the past 15 games will have that effect, I guess.

Just to clarify, Kotelnicki is not presently one of the co-coordinators, but does have collegiate defensive coordinator experience.

Maybe I'm way out in left field here, but honestly if I were Mussman, I'd do the following immediately, and see if it results in any improvement over the last five games: 1. Take over the offensive coordinator duties himself. He's the best offensive coordinator on the staff. 2. Let Kotelnicki take over the defense. At least he had some success as a coordinator at the dII level. Let's face it--it's not like things could get any worse.

Well, we know they're going to throw, and throw often. We know that the UND pass defense has not been a strength for some time (I'm still trying to figure out exactly why that is). So one big question is: can we at least avoid giving up the big play, and make them drive it down the field so that we at least have a shot at a turnover or sack to put them in third and long situations? I'm not expecting miracles, but I'd sure like to see some improvement from the pass defense. The fact that it continues to be an issue year after year is becoming more and more frustrating. Offensively, things are looking up with having three big weapons again instead of two. Avoid turnovers, and UND should be able to move the ball well. Hopefully the running game can chew up a lot of time, to keep their passing attack off the field as much as possible.