Matt

I took the timing of the article to mean he's come to the opinion which so many NDSU fans have espoused here- that NDSU just doesn't need the game. Presumably Bakken disagreed with that premise before? I'm just not sure how many UND fans he speaks for anymore.

I couldn't bet on this team vs a ranked team if I was using someone else's money.

Yay hockey!

A new take from Ryan Bakken: Face it, NDSU doesn’t need UND http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/273703/

They've always been on "equal footing" when they've played. You do not get to look back and say, well Behrns didn't do well so they weren't on "equal footing". Neither does ndsu. They like to blame scholarship reductions for a lot. Fact is, every time they've taken the field they've been on equal footing. More often than not, UND coaches and players have performed better. This "equal footing" stuff is bull s**t.

something tells me this king will not like UND eating crumbs from his table.

From the looks on the sideline last week, not sure they were.

I enjoy jokes at the expense of the AC as much as anyone, but what I don't find quite as funny is the thought of our guy Muss recruiting "toe to toe" with Bohl. Having this ESPN infomercial to push demand is downright frightening.

Heard Bohl on with Jack Michaels. Bohl said he's got recruits calling him to talk about GameDay and ndsu. So there's that.

And in ND/NW MN on KVLY

If we aren't counting rampant steroid use, then yes, the others were clean as well. (Please, newbie bison trolls don't bother. It was before your time.)

I agree. I'm not sure how you could possibly rate anything outside of the receiving corps as "outstanding" right now, let alone come to that conclusion on a full recruiting class. We won't know that answer for another couple of years. I'm still waiting for the coach that gets up to the podium for the recruiting presser in the first week of February to announce, "this class stinks, we got killed out there." They all declare victory.

People have gotten way too thin skinned about this. I've always felt if you get offended by an opponent saying you suck, you've got the wrong nickname.

Has there ever been a gameday which has gone "very bad"? If so, I don't recall and neither does google. It may not go how ndsu fans/admin exactly want it to go, heck-I'd say they are already at that point-but from espn's perspective, I'm sure it will be just another stop.

Serious question: does Muss usually skip the Wednesday radio show before a bye or just after home blowouts before a bye?

Someone brought up the style of play earlier and I think it is worth more discussion. I really thought the traditional UND style of "run the ball/stop the run/throw with efficiency" would set UND apart in the BSC. Clearly the program (I say program rather than team as it is more than just this team) has gone away from that. They've become so bad at those fundamentals I can't help but think it has become a reflection in recruiting philosophy? Did Muss panic after watching the offenses in the BSC and decide he needed to turn this into an old WAC program?

It is worth being repeated, both Bohl and Vigen were absolutely blasted all year by their fans, even coming off the '06 and '07 years. Muss' doesn't even have that equity built up, so I'd say the heat he's taking now is fairly reasonable.

Take it easy, my only point there was we will have our hands full not only with teams 1-3, but on the road at PSU and NAU don't look like wins either.

The part where the focus is 4-13 rather than 6-13.

Teams 1-3? We lost to NAU at home last year, I see less of a shot of winning that one on the road. Portland State? It took record performances (at that time) to beat their freshman QB in our place by one score!

It seems as though that is another area of regression as I've read back through as much pre season analysis as I could find and that was supposed to be a solid to improved unit this season.

When this team gets spanked by MSU and EWU, what will the confidence and determination be like by the time they head to PSU and UNA? I think that home game vs Sac State will be a massive gut check. If they don't get some confidence out of that to take on the road, this season could absolutely devastate the program.

It's perfect! We will have to rave about how great it is that the city of fargo and the state of ND are getting showcased like this.

Won't make it easy for students to go to the gameday set, then get back in line at the fargodome to get their tix. I don't buy that it was all ESPNs decision though. I have no doubt that's what they asked for, but I'm sure ndsu put up no complaint. Holding an event like this on the ndsu campus, under ndsu control and decision making is one thing. Shutting down all of downtown, with the city of fargo resources which will now be required to pull this off, that's quite another. And that isn't something that ndsu could even say "yes" to in the first place. ndsu admin would have had to go to the city for permission to do it, since it is under their jurisdiction. Had ndsu wanted to, they certainly could have said that logistically downtown isn't feasible on such short notice and a campus or dome site would have to suffice.