Bison06

A college football team simply cannot b stacked with depth at every position, offering an additional scholarship to a certain position necessarily takes one away from another there are only 63 to go around. So you say bubba and crew are going to emphasize the defensive backfield to shore the position group up. Which position group will they be taking scholarships away from to emphasize the defensive backfield?

So if you're saying NDSU will be in the top 3 for teams you would pick to win the championship next year, how can they be slipping?

But that's my point, they have to be competitive in the big sky for the next four years too.

It wasn't? You'd find about 19k people in fargo every Saturday that would say different. QB talent, o line was down, d line was down. If it wasn't talent and depth at our important positions what was it?

Do you mean to tell me that nothing we discuss on this board has any actual consequence with what our favorite teams do? Why didn't somebody tell me, I could be accomplishing much more important things with my life than hypothesizing on the future of football at two little known FCS schools in nowhere America.

It's also likely that NDSU's final loss will be in the regular season and the season will end with me on the field in Frisco, TX. Thinking that they're falling from grace is something I've been reading on this board since 2011. I suppose eventually you'll be right so it's a smart position to take.

I can see that and know bubba and Schmidt's history and understand fully why UND fans are optimistic for the future based on what is being built and who is building it. Just thought it would be an interesting discussion point to see how UND would handle the unique challenge of building a team that is successful in two different conferences simultaneously. It took NDSU a couple of years in the MVFC to build a team that could compete week in and week out, maybe UND will do it faster.

Fair, but if you watch the CAA it's built very similar to the MVFC.

First of all, that's not a direct quote so you quoting me as saying "real talent" is already a stretch. Secondly, depth is about emphasis on a position, which is what my point has been this entire discussion. NDSU emphasizes certain positions due to the nature of how they are built. Because of that they don't take chances in recruiting with certain positions. O line and d line are two good examples. They offer many scholarships and bring many guys on campus to compete, some of them work out some of them don't but they don't leave it to chance by only recruiting one or two guys each year. Opposite example would be wide receiver, this is not a position of emphasis for NDSU, they don't allocate a lot of scholarship money to it each year. Probably why you have seen so many walk on receivers have success over the years. Nobody is disrespecting your players, I'm saying the coaches need to emphasize recruiting certain positions to compete in a different style of football.

Maybe I misunderstood the reason you mentioned that a non-MVFC team won the finals this year. What was your reasoning for mentioning that?

Wow, that's one hell of a stretch your taking there. Why go that direction with the conversation? I never mentioned for a second that any of your players weren't good enough to play at NDSU...sheesh

And two of the four national semi finalists/one of the finalists came from the MVFC...just a reminder.

I'm not saying they were a doormat, but their record was what it was.

I think you and I have different definitions of depth. Having players at the position that can come in is not depth. Depth is the guy backing up the starter isn't a large drop off and in some ways bring a different part to the game that the starter can't. NDSU's d line a couple of years ago was a good example, they had 4 DE that were almost interchangeable, Emmanuel was special, but when he needed a break his back up could provide a serious boost of pass rush that was better than what a tired Kyle Emmanuel could provide. I realize you have a front seven that can stop the run, but could it still stop the run if 3 starters were on the sideline getting a break on some random 2nd down in the 3rd quarter? Depth isn't just players, depth of real talent is what I'm talking about and I don't believe UND has the depth of talent yet, at certain positions to hold up against the MVFC style of football. I could be wrong, but that's what I see. By the way, that isn't a slight at UND, it's just the way football teams are built. if NDSU were building its team to win the big sky, I would expect the team to be much deeper in the secondary. Our starters are solid in most cases, but the backups need a lot of work.

Again, your running game was solid in the big sky, I don't think the way it's currently built would have the same success week in and week out in the MVFC. Maybe I'm putting too much weight in the NDSU/UND game a couple of years ago, but UND had zero push up front and then the very next week ran all over Davis. Adding backs like JJ will help, but having an offensive line that can move a stout defensive front is the biggest weakness I see from UND.

Different styles of football put strain on your team in different ways, meaning fatigue and injuries at those positions. Competing one gang against it is very different than playing against it every week. Your offensive line will need more depth and your front seven on defense though very talented will also need more depth of talent IMO.

USD was 4-7 last year, I'm not sure I'd classify that as competing fine.

I'm not saying it'll be a problem, but it's certainly a focus difference. If you think that the team is currently built to compete week in and week out in the MVFC, I'd say we disagree on that point. I'm not saying it's better necessarily, just different. UND's offense specifically is not ready to compete on a weekly basis.

I think the UND coaching staff may find themselves in a bit of an interesting recruiting position these next few years. As we know, nearly every team is built to win its respective conference. Conference teams are who you play the majority of your games against so it makes sense to build your team to beat those teams specifically. What's interesting is the style to win the big sky and the style to win the MVFC are very different and IMO require a different approach in building your team. e.g. In the big sky, your defense better be able to handle 5 wide on a consistent basis, meaning you'll likely want to have a lot of depth in your secondary. In the MVFC if you see 5 wide it won't be all game so you probably don't need quite the depth in the secondary. In the MVFC you'll get more of a steady dose of the power running game and will likely need a much deeper front 7, especially the d line. NDSU has won championships on the back of a defense that is built from the front back and their d line depth has been amazing these past 7 years. How do you think the UND coaches will approach the task of staying competitive in the big sky for the time being, but also knowing that their team will need to be built differently to compete in the MVFC year in and year out.

Makes some sense. Football players are football players, but UND and NDSU also run very different defenses. The offenses are similar enough that they could recruit the same players a lot, but the defenses are different enough that it is reasonable to think they may not value the same players in recruiting all the time.

I agree, he clearly had leadership qualities that were special, but some of those throws left a lot of people scratching their head. Easton also doesn't have a receiver like Ryan smith to bail him out with a circus catch and a run after catch to move the chains like Brock had consistently.

You're really reaching for this one. Not every team can be better than the previous year's team. This past year in my mind was already going to be a team that was looking to replace some great players, corners were both green, offensive line was replacing NFL talent and then of course there's replacing Carson wentz, all that was before our two best and possibly most important defensive players went down for the season and the team still made the national semifinals, lost to the eventual champion and beat the other team in the championship in the regular season. The 2014 team wasn't as good as the 2013 team, did that mean they were slipping? I realize for a UND fan it is comforting to think NDSU's run might be over, but all indications are that NDSU is primed and ready for another deep playoff run next year so don't hold your breath.

I think that's a fair criticism, but to be fully fair I think at this stage in his career people were saying that and much worse for Brock. A lot of people, including myself, believe the 2011 championship was won in spite of Brock not because of him. If Easton is going to take it to the level of the previous two guys, he definitely has a long way to go starting this fall.

Given that the "used to be" in this case is arguably the most dominant run in the history of college football, falling from that peak doesn't necessarily indicate a fall from dominance. This years NDSU team was easily the worst of the last 6 years IMO and still made the national semifinals. I, as do most others, expect next year's team to be better than this year's so we'll see how that goes for them.

Yes, Iowa state has a lot of problems in the football department. With the budgets these teams have you'd think the AD's would be able to make it work. Though in a zero sum game like football, someone has to be the worst team in the conference.