Bison06

In fairness, last year for them was the first year with a brand new coaching staff and they certainly looked better than previous years. They certainly weren't the best representative of what the MVFC offers up for competition, but they seem to be moving in the right direction. 4-7 is still 4-7 though.

Is there a projected depth chart somewhere heading into spring football?

Thank you

If I pull up UND's roster on their website right now are those class years updated or is it still showing last year's juniors and seniors?

I wonder sometimes if people read the thread or if they just come in blind and comment with zero context because of posts like this.

That's understandable and I agree to a point, though I believe that EWU would have been a real problem for UND last year had they met up.

It's not known as a passing league but that doesn't mean teams can't pass well. You just won't need the depth at corner and safety in the MVFC that you need in the big sky.

Yes UND has stopped the run, but the pass defense was so bad that it was easy for teams to just stop running the ball at some point and beat you through the air.

If you say so, I guess we'll see how it plays out.

There was never going to be another (fill in the blank) until there was. EWU will continue to find elite WR in the pacific NW, I think we both know that's true. Ive sat in on strategic recruiting meetings, trust me when I tell you these are conversations coaches have. It's all about winning the conference. Big 10 teams are building themselves as we speak to beat Michigan and Ohio state, SEC teams are practicing this spring to beat Alabama. Why do you think conferences tend to have teams that are built similarly if they have been conference mates for a long time. If Alabama ran the spread offense, teams would immediately be emphasizing pass rushing DE and lockdown corners in the sec, because alabama is built on the front seven being stout, so is every other sec team. Big 10 football was slow and methodical for the past 15 years, now urban Meyer brings Ohio state the spread and low and behold the rest of the big 10 starts to emphasize speed over power. It's not a mystery man, just look around and you'll see it.

This is just how conferences work. Teams build themselves to beat their conference mates. Originally, NDSU built a team that could beat UNI so they could win the conference. They were the stud in conference so it's the way it goes. I would be willing to bet you any amount of money, that when bubba and staff look at UND's team, they ask themselves what do we need to do to beat EWU, the class of the big sky and then they set out to do it.

So it's interesting that bubba is shoring up the defensive backfield, do you all think that might have anything to do with the fact that to win the big sky you'll have to beat EWU? Because if I look at your defensive backfield competing in the MVFC I wouldn't say the need to improve it is nearly as important. This has been my point since the beginning, of it were 3 years from now I doubt UND would be as concerned about shoring up the DB group, they won't find a Cooper Kupp and his crew in the MVFC.

Losing tends to do that to 19 year old young men. Seems like an effect rather than a cause.

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.