Bison06

NDSU has had home and homes with Montana, EWU, Weber State and has Delaware upcoming. When Montana and EWU have 4-5 Home and homes signed “that’s a lot”, but when NDSU does it they are not playing tough enough FCS OOC games? You must see the double standard you’ve laid out here, don’t you?

I’ve had a different experience and so have many people I know.

I’ve met him in person more than a few times, his persona online is in many ways more palatable than the real life version if you can believe that.

They definitely had some close ones during their playoff runs where any advantage the other team might have taken by being in their home stadium may have tipped the scales the other way, but as you’ve conceded, playoff home games were earned so you can’t really fault NDSU for that. Either way, if you look around the FCS landscape you don’t see a lot of OOC games bein played between “elite” schools in general. It’s not just NDSU. Take a look at JMU and SHSU and JSU or even Montana and EWU. They aren’t exactly lining up killers in their OOC schedule. Everybody schedules pretty similarly knowing their conference schedule is full of juggernauts and it’ll all work itself out in the end since FCS has a true playoff.

I don’t necessarily disagree with any of the above, but it’s not an opinion that NDSU has a better road record in the past 6 years than they do at home. They have both an unbelievable home-field advantage AND somehow have a better record away from that home field. I know it’s not a popular take around here, but NDSU has been virtually unbeatable everywhere, they just happen to lose slightly more at home than they do on the road. Since 2011, NDSU has lost 7 football games. 5 have been in the FargoDome, 1 was at Montana and 1 was at UNI.

As far as message board conversations go, this is an interesting one, but I have a question. Are people questioning NDSU's scheduling methods for the sake of calling out inconsistencies in the fan-base's language of "no one will play us" or are people somehow suggesting that NDSU's strength of schedule hasn't been up to par. If it's the first, then I don't know the details that go one behind the scenes of who we've tried to schedule or who we haven't. But if it's the second one then I would suggest everyone take a huge step back and look at NDSU's schedule or the past 7 years and take an objective view of the overall difficulty of their schedule. There wasn't one year that NDSU "avoided" someone on the way to their championship so I hope that isn't what is being suggested by questioning NDSU's scheduling methods.

Coming into the year NDSU fans knew the OOC was a little bit of a stinker, two legitimate cupcake games. What couldn’t be anticipated was that they would be followed up with the worst two teams in the conference the next two weeks. If Indiana state and Missouri state were sprinkled in later weeks the schedule rounds out quite nicely this year. Overall the degree of difficulty this year is insane. It’s just backloaded.

Damn, read it too fast, thought I had you there

First 5? Careful, one of those teams is gonna be the champion of your conference.

My answer would be exactly the same. Sure you’d get some uneducated clowns saying you beat up on cupcakes(see above conversation for exhibit A) but anyone who knows anything about football at this level would know that you don’t demolish EWU at home if you aren’t the real deal.

If UND had blown out EWU on the road the way NDSU did, you wouldn’t hear a word from educated FCS fans.

I think Youngstown is overrated this year, we’ll see this weekend, but I think their defense is suspect after losing two draft picks on the DL. I think they’ll miss the playoffs. We’ll see on the other two.

You keep imposing unrealistic expectations on NDSU. Two points: 1. Scheduling isn’t easy and you can’t just pick the teams you want. The other team has to want to schedule the games as well. 2. NDSU plays in the most difficult conference in FCS, my gosh look at the murderer’s row they have the next 5 weeks. They have to be realistic and pragmatic about scheduling when the ultimate goal is a national championship. Some people wouldn’t be convinced NDSU is playing good teams unless they played JMU followed by SHSU followed by Jacksonville State in their OOC schedule, that’s just not realistic. UND has followed a similar scheduling philosophy as of late, nothing wrong with laying out a schedule that is designed to help a team be ready to peak when it really matters, playoffs.

OOC FCS teams on the road, during the regular season, when venus was in the 3rd house and the opposing qb was left handed and there is a democratic president and my friend steve is wearing his lucky underwear? How many qualifiers do you need before you are satisfied? The answer is they are 2-1 in OOC regular reason FCS road games. All against Big Sky opponents. Weber, Montana, Eastern Washington. Unless I missed one.

Why is everyone so eager to see NDSU away from the Dome? They have a better winning percentage on the road than they do at home since 2011.

No doubt they are doing something right, we’ll see how it plays out, but as of now I don’t see a deep run type of team. I think they lose to SDSU and NDSU due to style of play.

Fair enough. What is your take on them repeating almost exactly what happened the week before and almost losing the game as a result this time? My take is they don’t have a running game outside of Streveler and they’re defense is susceptible in a lot of ways. The reason the offense hits the pause button at times is they only run a few plays for Strveler and coming out of halftime other teams are scheming to beat those plays and they don’t have any alternative offense to turn to. I think they are very good, but I see them losing 2-3 games the rest of the way and winning a first round game in the playoffs and then getting bounced.

I’m not the one yelling

You don’t really believe it happened after the game do you? Hahaha

Deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Injuries are real, they affect the outcome of the game, I’ve always been consistent on that. I haven’t been one who has been critical of UND’s injury situation. You’re the one who has inconsistent logic here. Injuries to UND’s starters matter, but a throwing hand injury to the most important player on the team doesn’t? You can’t have it both ways, so which one are you gonna go with?

Actually, I heard he broke it at the turf the night before when he punched a homeless elderly man who asked him for some spare change. The nice guy thing is a massive cover up in a joint effort between the stare if ND and the NFL to take us all for millions. Thanks Obama.

With a QB with a broken wrist.

Ok...also they gave up 21+ unanswered points two weeks in a row. They clearly have the ability to put up big points, but they also have the ability to completely fall asleep for quarters at a time. Today they didn’t score a point for almost two full quarters before kicking the game winning FG. I’m not saying they are trash, they are clearly very good. But the way they’ve played at times leaves a heck of a lot of questions in my book. Edit: whoops, just 14 unanswered this week.

You two just can’t get enough of my opinions around here can you? When was the last time you saw a championship team have 27 unanswered points against them? Crown USD if you want to, I know it makes you feel good, but I see serious flaws in their game on both sides of the ball and I believe they will get exposed when it comes down to it.

I have never used Marajuana, though I have a similar view on recreational use. However, the law is the law. We can agree or disagree with the law, but if the law is on the books and you break it, you can’t argue with the punishment.