Lefty - UNO Fan

Fortunately being a male I don't know what blod clots look like, but I do agree that red jersey and red pants could be mixed up some. The UNO logo is nowhere as big a knock off as the ND. Notre Dame you know.

Do you have any idea what you are talking about? UNO is not getting their football program cut. They finished 3rd in the 2006 Director's Cup last year and are fine. Also, why are some Sioux fans mocking the new UNO helmet? It's not terrible. Nobody from Omaha ever makes jokes about the UND black and green color scheme. UND may very well be looking for a new mascot/logo soon yourselves.

Just thought I'd pass along a little information for anybody who is curious. UNO returns 9 starters on that offense that gave the Sioux fits including all 5 offensive lineman although 1 graduates with a year of eligibility left and may not return. Unfortunately 3 of the 4 DBs that gave up all those completions against the Sioux are back too. Should be more fireworks next year.

Congrats on the fine season Sioux fans and representing the NCC well. I look forward to next season and coming to Grand Forks for the last time probably ever.

Thanks UND Fan and Redwing. I may make it here once in a while. UNO's message board is dead and the D2football.com board was down. That's how I started here. I don't know if calling the Sioux defense "soft" was respectful or not, but I at least try to be objective.

No punts, 1 turnover, and 1 failed 4th down conversion plus over 300 yards rushing and 7.6 yards per carry. If a team had a bunch of turnovers or failed 4th downs, I could easily see them losing, but that's not the case here. It's a testament to how bad UNO's defense is or how good UND's offense is depending on how you want to look at it.

The Sioux D is not as bad as today. Sometimes there are just bad days for defense and UNO is the best rushing offense in D2. The option game was another sore spot for UND. There are some things you see that are related to scheme, effort, physical stength, speed, and mental toughness. Coaches and players can correct scheme, effort, and mental aspects. From my perspective, some of UNDs tackling and getting manhandled on the front 7 seemed to be physical issues that are much tougher to fix in 1 week. UNO was able to get to the edge pretty easy today and GVSU is probably faster than UNO. Enger and Wolff were non-factors except for the screen pass that Wolff sniffed out. If he didn't do that, there was a lot of room ahead with blockers. That may have been the biggest defensive play of the game that nobody talks about. The Manke interception was easy because Miller threw it right to him even though the receiver was behind him. As far as which offense is better in the playoffs, that's just preference. An option offense takes away a lot of a defense's ability to blitz in different ways and is usually better in the red zone. But I'm sure we'd agree that you'd really like your D to stuff the run.

You are right...I was referring to the D2football.com board and the Sioux fans in attendance. Most of the penalties happened when UNO had the ball (i.e., UNO offense and UND defense). Also, you are right about the critical times. UNO got 4 first downs by penalty. The PI saved a TD so that one was a "good" penalty.

A few interesting statistics after looking at the box score: - Only 5300 in attendance rather than 7500 that I guessed - I think this is low - UND's 4 leading tacklers were all DBs - UNO average per rush was 7.6 yards & 7.2 per play overall; UND 3.4 yards per rush and 5.7 yards per play - UND was 22 for 31 passing - Time of possession: UND 30:31, UNO 29:29 - Penalities: UND 6-48 yards, UNO 6-49 yards

I posted this on the D2football.com message board, but thought some of you who could not see the game might appreciate thoughts from a UNO fan. First off, congrats to the Sioux and their fans. It must be nice to get that monkey off your back. UNO playoff curse continues and changed from an 800 pound gorilla to a 900 pound gorilla. As far as strengths and weaknesses and margin of victory go, the result is what I expected....a close Sioux win by a late FG. However, what I did not expect was how glaring the defensive weaknesses for each team would be and how dominant each offense would be. Here are some random thoughts. - What a beautiful day for a football game. About 58 degrees and mostly sunny and just a slight breeze. Pretty good for November in Nebraska. I would guess there were about 7500 people in attendance with probably 1800 Sioux fans. Outstanding support for the Sioux and decent support for UNO. Omaha should really be ashamed for the turnout given there is no Huskers game, nice weather, big time implications, and no TV. I mean we get 23,000 in a mid-week College World Series game on TV with LSU and Stanford who nobody cares about anyway, so why can't we draw in these circumstances? - I met some nice Sioux fans and there was a friendly atmosphere. However, it was a little sanitized because all the banners had to be removed and no cheerleaders or dance team or mascots. The band could not dress in uniform either and was a little shorthanded. Not quite the same college atmosphere that I love so much. I enjoyed Marching Mav Member ruining his vocal chords on the U-N-O chant again. - I will say this, Sioux fans really like to complain about officiating...a lot. Then I see it on the board too from people who were not there. There cannot be a penalty on every play and yes sometimes your players do things wrong too. I suppose that is conditioning from having some bad breaks and blown calls in the past, but I really see some paranoia about officiating and the NCAA conspiracies. Just an outsider's perspective. - I will not play the "what if" game. UNO could have easily won this game if the defense even had some resemblence of a backbone. However, UND could argue the same thing. UND won because of special teams. The Sioux made it's only FG attempt and blocked UNO's only FG attempt. That's the difference in the game. - The UNO edge in total offense is deceiving because the only reason UND did not have as many yards as UNO is because they had a better kickoff return game and did not have to go as far. Neither team's defense could stop anything. I believe UND was 12-of-16 on 3rd down conversions and at least 7 of those were 3rd and long. UNO's offense was probably about the same except not as many 3rd and longs. That's what's frustrating because UNO had lots of chances to force punts just by holding the Sioux to short completions. I believe there was 1 punt by each team (UNO's won't count in the stats because of running into the kicker) and 1 turnover by each team where the QB just threw a long pass up for grabs. Otherwise the only "stops" were UNO at the half and UNO on downs in their last possession. - Speaking of UNO's last possession, they were down by 3 with about 2:50 left on the clock with 2 timeouts and UND had not stopped them yet. The Sioux fans definitely were not comfortable, but the defense did it's job along with UNO getting a holding call to wipe out a good Miller scramble. I would have preferred UNO not to throw on that last drive and just stick with the option and power running game, but the penalty forced them to change that scheme some. UNO holds too much and needs to improve that in the off-season. - The UNO pass defense is just plain sorry. In the first half UNO had 3rd and long several times and only rushed 3 and dropped 8 while UND had 4 receivers and 6 in pass protection. Of course UNO did not get any pressure, but with a 2-to-1 advantage in players downfield, you would think that UND receivers would be covered well. Not so, they were running wide open down the middle of the field. It's not like Manke placed some really nice balls that only the receiver could catch. In the second half UNO blitzed a little more figuring that if they can't cover anybody then they may as well pressure the QB. It didn't work much better. It is very frustrating to watch from the stands and wondering what UNO's safeties are doing. - UND receivers made 2 really nice catches to keep drives alive. Dressler caught one that would have hit him in the feet to get a first down inside UNO's 10. Then Trenbeath made a one-handed catch of about a 40 yard pass despite getting interferred with. - UND's defense was not much better in terms of open field tackling. UNO backs would routinely run right through the first tackler. I could not believe how easy UNO gashed the Sioux defense. A lot of people said that UNO was too predictable and 1-dimensional. Well UNO did not do anything different and everybody knew what was coming, but the Sioux couldn't stop it anyway. UNO did run a TE screen for about 15 yards, but that was about the only thing UNO did that was not normal. This will sound harsh and I didn't think I'd ever see it, but the Sioux defense is soft. - As I was watching, I was thinking that I don't like either teams chances against Grand Valley State. UND can't tackle and UNO can't cover. I think that UNO would have a better showing in Allendale than UND just because I like teams who run the ball and stop the run in the playoffs, especially in bad weather. That does not mean I think that UNO is better than the Sioux. If they were, UNO would not have lost at home. It's just my preferrence on playoff football. I will be rooting for the Sioux, but I hope the Lakers don't see this game tape.

As far as an outsider's perspective, I'll give you my take. It does not seem small time to me. In fact, I would love for UNO to have a sports network. There are 4 TV stations in Omaha plus the PBS station in Lincoln and none of them are televising the game either with 2 weeks notice. That appears small time to me. Perhaps the GF station thought they could get a feed even if they didn't get the bid. We all just got done celebrating Thanksgiving and counting all the many blessings we have. Just to be born in this country makes you better off than 90% of the people in this country. I'd just ask you all to stop and think about how fortunate you are to have an issue like this to be your main concern today.

Each of us is only in a good position to know our favorite team's players since we usually only see the other teams once per year and sometimes not even that much. So a lot of my opinion's are based on how that player did against UNO, which may not be a good indicator of the entire season. However, Ullsperger is only #27 in the NCC tackling statistics. From what I saw, he might be the emotional leader of the defense and does do a lot of talking on the sidelines. http://www.northcentralconference.org/spor...ts/CONFONLY.HTM

You are wrong about both interference calls. I saw them in person too and they were not flagrant, but they were legitimate. Our newscasts here in Omaha have actually been playing the clips of the end zone call from a sideline camera and there was contact (not much) with the DB with his back to the ball. The officials are going to call that every time if the DB is not looking back. On the sideline play, the UNO receiver caught the ball right on the sideline. You can't tell if he was inbounds or not, but it was close. My guess is he came down out of bounds. Again though, the ball was thrown to the sideline rather than upfield and the UNO receiver stopped running his route and the DB ran into him while trying to catch up and he was not looking back at the ball. UND got screwed by the officials last year in the Alerus Center and you could make a case that UNO held the Sioux a lot this year. However, those PI calls were legit. Anybody can watch this game on the CSTV archive.

Miller actually played a little WR last year and caught a TD pass. He's 6-4 and 215 and could be an excellent WR if he were to play another position. I thought Reilly would be the all-NCC QB. I was surprised to see Ullsperger make 1st team. I only saw him once this year, but he missed a lot of tackles mostly on Miller in the open field. Hence my comment on the other thread about the Caniglia curse. Maybe UNO's equipment manager will return his jock strap back after he lost it in October.

UNO's streak of playoff meltdown's has to end sometime too. I actually picked UND to win by 2 on the D2football.com website because Hellevang is pretty good now after a slow start.

If the game were in Vermillion, I'd say it was a coin flip. However, USD is not a great road team and I think they have very little chance.

I meant UNO had a better defensive front 7 than USD. There is a Comfort Inn on 87th and Dodge, which is pretty close to UNO on 60th and Dodge. Their phone number is (402) 343-1000 .

This absolutely right. UNO converted a fourth and goal and UND kicked a FG. My comment about the QB was not intended to be inflammatory, but if UND does that well they win. UNO's mobile QBs have given the Sioux fits in the last 10 years in Omaha. Ed Thompson, Kwanzi Watts,Seth Turman, and Brian Masek have all had decent days against UND in Omaha. UND9296 is right on with his assessment. USD has the better offense, but UNO has the better athletes on the defensive front seven. The Sioux should not score more than 27 points.

How about learning how to tackle a QB in the open field?

There is a parking garage on the east side of the stadium where tailgating is allowed. There are several hotels (Holiday Inn, Hampton Inn, DoubleTree) on the 72nd Street exit on I-80 that are all fairly close to the UNO campus. I'm not sure about the crows. The Huskers play on Friday so the game won't be competing with them, but the holiday might affect turnout some. The weather should be decent. I'm hoping it's a big turnout.

I don't know how playing Winona gets the Sioux ready for UNO other than just to simply play. The 2 teams are not similar at all. I welcome the bye week to heal up. Every team has nicks and bruises this time of year. It appeared that the bye week helped UND before playing UMD.

All these arguments make sense if the regional rankings and the playoff selections are made by the same people on the same criteria. Clearly they are not.

The D2 football board is down so I thought I'd come on here and discuss this from a UNO fan's perspective. UND got jobbed by the committee. I don't know how else to put it. Pat Behrns was on the NW committee, but I don't believe they allow a member to participate in the discussions of their own team. I know UNO had the head-to-head and SOS advantage as well with non-conference games against NW Missouri and Nebraska-Kearney. However, UND earned the #2 seed. They only lost 1 game and it was on the road against a good team by one point. UNO lost 2 road games badly. I don't understand it, but I'll take it. The Mavericks are much tougher at home. The one thing I have read on the D2football.com boards is that the regional rankings don't mean anything in the playoff selections except to determine if earned access applies and who hosts the 2 semifinal games. The NW committee was made up of reps from the conferences and not the NCAA itself. I don't think it was retribution, but probably the SOS and head-to-head and perhaps the UNI game not being given any weight. Look forward to seeing you in Omaha. UNO had 2 weeks to get ready for the Sioux last time and I'm sure that the Mavericks will put that time to good use again. After October 14th I said that UND missed it's last chance to end that terrible streak in Omaha, but I was wrong...thankfully.