Bison06

Is boltman going to end up being a QB at UND? Watched him play a couple times this year and was very impressed, but kept thinking he would be a much better fit as a safety at the college level. I'm sure the coaches will get it right.

The vast majority here is interesting. Just bored with the talking point that one side has an inferiority complex or superiority complex or one side misses the other more than the other side misses them etc, etc, etc. It gets rolled out by UND and NDSU fans alike. Its more than possible to be interested without being obsessed and to be have an opinion on an outcome without "missing" the other school. For me, it's akin to an NDSU fan saying UND "followed" NDSU into division I. It's a lazy and childish thing to say and holds no merit.

So if I have an objective view that UND and it's fanbase would be best served by having traditional rivals on their schedule who are significantly closer for their core fanbase to be able to travel to away games, significantly closer for parents of players to be able to travel to away games in many cases, all while saving UND money on travel costs, that means I miss UND? What a boring narrative, get past it.

Now I'm on board. Missed the nuances of the metaphor the first go round.

Your metaphor is flawed. A quilt eventually becomes one cohesive entity. His patches are scattered on a table in a random order and there isnt a needle or thread within a mile radius. In any event, the whole thing is entertaining I suppose. The biggest question I have and many others do as well. Why are UND fans going to all of a sudden flood the turnstiles at UND athletic events for an FBS no name team, when they aren't currently doing that for teams that in many cases are more of a household name in the upper Midwest? FBS isn't some magic dust that all of a sudden excites people to support your athletic teams. Playing traditional rivals and teams your fanbase has actually heard of has a better chance of doing that. Summit and MVFC would be the best option IMO.

Ok, but to be fair, given the timing that prediction wasn't really very difficult to see coming. His timelines have come and gone and come and gone over the course of nearly a decade with nothing happening. You have to admit it's become very clear that he's making significant logical leaps. It would be one thing if he presented it differently. But, he presents it as fact and anyone who doesn't make the leaps with him is labeled an idiot. When he presents the information in that manner it becomes a joy to watch his predictions fall through.

I've yet to see something he has predicted come to fruition. Which of them have actually happened?

If we can determine when the next jubilee year is coming, I'm sure we can begin to establish a timeline for all of this. 2016 must have been more of a joyous year than a full on jubilee year. My Ayurveda practitioner told me my third chakra has been closed for some time and my wind meridian is blocked, I think it's my fault none of these things are happening. On the next blood moon I'll make a sacrifice and see what I can do to help things along.

I'm not sure why you are trying to make the point that NDSU was fortunate to be in the position they were this year with me. I actually agree with you. Given that NDSU played the majority of their season without their 2 best defenders(at the two most important positions in our defense) I'd say they were very fortunate and it is a testament to the team depth that they played as well as they did. Especially given that when coming into this season, most knowledgeable Bison fans expected this year's team to be a step back from previous years.

Every team's fans claim victories like that, in fact there is a whole website set up to be able to do that. Nobody who knows even the smallest bit about football is serious when they bring up those conversation. It's just for fun.

Thanks for the response. To your first point, I agree Richmond was a legitimate team, but as has been said on here literally thousands of times, there are no moral victories in football. There are so many ifs and momentum conversation surrounding games. I believe you when you say that if not for that one play UND might blow them out, I've played in games where I felt like one fluky type play changed the complexion of game completely and then things spiraled out of control. But at the end of the day when evaluating a season, W's and L's are the only stats that really count for anything. I think most would agree. So when it gets said that if not for a couple of plays UND might have run the table this year, it's just as easy to say that a couple of plays going the other way and UND goes 7-4 again and might be on the outside looking in on the playoffs. Also, to play devil's advocate further, it's important to remember that Richmond was playing with their 3rd string QB who was starting his second game ever, I believe. Look, in reading back on a few of my posts these past couple of days, I realize that I've come across as really downplaying UND's success this year. I was actually very impressed with UND at times this year, I feel like the defense was very good and the offense complimented the defense very well. Where I have questions, and I figured many of you would to which is why I asked the question, is when looking at your regular season schedule and realizing the only two "signature wins" on that schedule were against teams who laid an egg in the playoffs, does that give you doubts on how far UND had come? Pretty harmless question, but once a question is asked, people tend to be offended by the context of the question. Like I was somehow trying to belittle UND's success and worse yet from a Bison fan. The truth is I do that every year when teams make the playoffs, even NDSU. Given how college football is set up, meaning the majority of a team's games are in conference, it can be easy for a team to look either better or sometimes worse than they were depending on the relative strength of the conference. The tough part is, you don't know how solid your conference is until the playoffs most years. Anyway, bottom line, I was impressed with UND this year as were many others. My only hesitation is, given how the Big Sky performed in the playoffs, maybe UND isn't as far down the road to competing for championships as many believe. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but the good news is we won't have to wonder. Next year will tell the story more completely. Schedule is a bit tougher and then the playoffs are the ultimate equalizer. FCS football is great compared to the pretend playoff the FBS has. Sorry for the long post, doing my best to respond since I contributed to starting the firestorm this weekend.

What in heaven's name are you blathering about in the first two paragraphs of your post? Hope all that made you feel better. If I'm breaking any rules by being here, nobody from the moderation staff has let me know about it. Until they do, I'll assume my posts are within the site regulations.

NDSU bias aside, the media hasn't been about reporting the "news" objectively in decades. Maybe they never were. They'll talk about whatever gets people clicking, sharing, reading and talking about their content. And yes, people can get paid to post on twitter if they have enough followers. Same with facebook, instagram and YouTube.

Yeah, super weird that people who rely on clicks from the public and viewership from the public would talk about a topic their readers are interested in.

It goes both ways Darrell. USD could've been a loss, weber and Montana state both could have been losses. winning is what matters. Good teams find a way to win tight games.

Did you watch the game? Fargo media isn't the only entity that talked about NDSU a lot yesterday.

If that logic held true, with the Bison beating up on pretty much everyone in the MVFC the last 6 years, wouldn't the MVFC have "been down" during those years?

Played a lot of football and follow the game very closely. Many on this board have "knowledge" of the game, this word is being singled out...why?

Dont think of it as an interest in UND, it's just an interest in football and this is a good place to have good discussion. Logistically, this site is mobile optimized well and has a great landing page to view the latest discussions. Bisonville, among other reasons that site had fallen out of favor for me, requires a download of an app called tapatalk to post normally, not my style.

Can we just dispense with this juvenile idea that it somehow takes effort to click to a different webpage? Like somehow I'm going out of my way to travel by UNDs house so I can see if you're home. I have a smart phone, I know it's new technology, but maybe by chance you've heard of it? It allows for multiple browsers to be open at any given time. There is a discussion on this website that I'm interested in, I couldn't care less what this site is called or what college affiliation the owner of the site has. You have a thread dedicated to discussion about NDSU and yet don't expect NDSU fans to comment? This has been going on for years, I find it odd how many on this board seem to find it hard to reconcile these facts.

Fair enough. UND definitely looked better this year than years past.

Most people looked to the Weber game as a signature win for UND in 2016. I agree with you they weren't very good. But if that's true, doesnt the take away some of the cache' of beating a playoff team in your mind? In my world a win is a win and you can only beat the teams they put on your schedule, but if those teams end up not being as good as you'd once thought, it has to make you wonder if your record isn't accurately reflecting how great your season was. This isn't a shot at UND either, it's just why I love the playoffs. You don't have to wonder if you are better or worse than your record, you just let the playoffs do the talking.

I hear you, but I've also been on the other side of that conversation and Richmond was probably thinking if they had shown up in the first half they would have blown UND out. The result of a game stands as it's own evidence IMO, anything else is usually observer bias, in my experience.

I'll trust you, as I said, you'll call a spade a spade and if you believe they'll be competing for the conference title and then some next year, I'll defer to your knowledge of the program. Because I believe you will be honest I'll ask you: how did the big sky's performance in the playoffs change(if at all) how you felt about UND's season?

I trust your football knowledge, you always seem pretty level headed on these things. QB play for you guys is a big reason I have a hard time thinking you'll take a huge leap forward. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, but I just think his inaccuracy makes it hard for UND to consistently move the ball on good teams. its all speculation of course and infinite variables can change between today and next august, bubba does seem to have the team on the right track, but the big sky in the playoffs really made me take a hard look at UND's schedule and question how far UND really came this year. Not sure any of us have a conclusive answer to that question. UND laying an egg in the playoffs against a team that got absolutely destroyed by the team that you claimed a co championship with certainly made me question how UND would have matched up against EWU. I don't like the transitive game logic, but when one team loses and another team destroys that team it makes you pause a bit.