Bison06

I'm a little nervous about the safety position. Less worried about the D-line and linebacker positions. I saw enough in mop up time last year from these guys to know they will be serviceable and with experience have the potential to be great. The athleticism of the guys replacing the two safeties is great, but that doesn't always translate to a player understanding the system. Hopefully it doesn't take them too long to figure it out.

I agree with this. This offensive line, on paper, could be one of the best in recent memory. We'll see if that translates to success on the field. I think Morlock is solid, but doesn't have that intangible quality that makes a running back great, or at least hasn't shown it yet IMO. Frazier hasn't been given consistent carries to be able to show what he truly has. Running backs in my experience need a little bit of a rhythm to really show what they have and to be able to make the right decisions. This was a problem for Crockett early on. He would only get carries sporadically and felt like he needed to hit a home run with every carry. That lead to him not hitting the hole where the play was designed to hit. I think this logic applies to both Morlock and Frazier, we really haven't seen what they really have yet. I don't know much about Dunn, but the people who have seen him play seem to think he is going to get the starting job. Which is surprising to me given what we have coming back. As with all things, we'll see I guess.

Finally some real football talk from NDSU fans in a thread about UND and NDSU, and you think it should be taken elsewhere?

Honestly, the best team NDSU has played in the most recent championship run was Illlinois state in the championship last year. The only thing Georgia southern proved in that game against NDSU in the semifinals was Jerrick McKinnon was the best player on the field that day. If the system was what gave NDSU fits, what happened the year before when NDSU completwly shut them down?

If you want to piss into the wind and waste your time pointing the few exceptions that prove the rule, have at it.

Football teams' offense, defense and special teams are not played in a vacuum, they affect each other. So to say Georgia Tech doesn't win championships, but it's not the offenses fault is flawed logic IMO. It's because of the offense that they will never be a serious contender for the national championship. Sure you can put up points, but it takes time and you have in most cases no passing game. If a veer team is trying to come from behind, the game is essentially over in most cases. Having the "3 yards and a cloud of dust" type of offense has it's advantages. Keeps your defense fresh, controls the TOP, but it's fatal flaw is it's lack of consistently being able to pick up explosive type plays(over 20 yards). When a veer team is getting consistently tackled for losses, which can happen a lot if they run up against an assignment sound team, they are constantly "off schedule". Veer teams don't have a lot of high percentage plays for converting a 3rd and long. None of this mentions the ultimate fatal flaw of this offense, especially in today's game, recruiting. Players want to play in a pro style, multiple type offense. They want to be able to showcase their talents in a way that has NFL scouts taking notice. Good luck trying to recruit quality receivers who will spend 90% of their career as glorified full backs.(Megatron was an anomoly) Everyone who has had criticisms of the veer/option offense is absolutely correct IMO.

Not to split hairs, because you make a valid point, but 18 points is nearly double 10 points. This is why matchups are so important in this game. Who knows why UND played better than their season average against a good Montana team. Maybe the coaches had a great gameplan, maybe UND players just played better that day, maybe UM had an off day. How many examples of comparative scoring/stats having no correlation when comparing two teams do we need before everyone just stops bringing this up in a discussion. There is absolutely no correlation to how teams played against common opponents and how they match up against each other. NONE.

Couldn't agree more. At NDSU we had nutrition counseling from our strength and conditioning coach as well as a summer menu and grocery shopping list. My guess is the S&C coach at UND has something similar in place. The summer requirements for workouts are not THAT demanding. 1.5 lift daily and 1 hour 7 on 7 drills a few nights a week. Players should be able to make due with no problems. Get a job and buy some eggs. Couldn't have said it better myself.

It is intentional. I agree that the scholarship reduction was part of the decline. Where we differ is what the scholarship reduction did. It didn't show NDSU had poor coaching or ONLY won because they had the best players. When you play a game with certain rules for a long time, you get used to winning a certain way. When the rules change, any rule, teams have to adapt to the new rules and find a new way to win. NDSU it seems, was slow to get back to an elite team. Maybe NDSU coaches were used to having a certain amount of depth at certain positions due to the extra scholarships, maybe having those extra scholarship players in practice everyday pushed the starters to be better. Who knows. Also, as others have noted, you can't stay on top forever. It isn't as if they went from winning championships to being the worst team. Looking back at the records from the "dark years" NDSU still beat UND 5 out of 10 times in the 90's. And as I said, if NDSU wins that god awful game in 2000 at Delta State(I know, big if) we are possibly talking about going 10 years in between NC's, instead of 21.

I agree, different levels, different conversation. But the point is still there. The great teams have both. Great coaches and great players. A third more intangible thing is also necessary for a great team to come together toward a common goal. Maybe NDSU got fat and happy with having the best players, who knows. But what I do know, is when the scholarships were lowered, NDSU wasn't as dominant. It can't be a coincidence.

No, it's both. If you give Phil Jackson UND's squad and you give Brian Jones the '93 Chicago Bulls, the Bulls win 100 out of 100 times. Also, it isn't always as if you are lining up against your third choice. Recruiting is an inexact science. You think Billy Turner was better than the guy who played LT for the Gophers during Billy's time at NDSU? Probably. But at the time they were being recruited maybe the other guy seemed like less of a risk. Who knows, if the Gophers had one more scholarship, maybe it was earmarked for Billy. He then gets into camp and beats out this other guy. Who knows.

It is a very interesting question. But in all honesty, when looking at the "dark years" for NDSU, there were still some very good teams in there. They just never won it all. If NDSU wins the championship in 2000, we're having a very different discussion about these "dark years".

I think that is exactly the point I made, NDSU won a lot of games because they had better players. You "give" some of those better players to the other teams you play against and now NDSU isn't as good. What I don't understand is why some see that as a knock on NDSU. It would be very similar to the lack of real salary cap in MLB. Its rare for a team outside of the top 10 in payroll for that year to win the world series.

Let's use the example of college basketball, If overnight every team in the country had 5 scholarships total, don't you think the best teams in the country would be most affected negatively? In the short term you instantly have the best teams unable to offer their 6-10 scholarship players who play a very important role on their team and those players are now playing for their rival. A team like Kentucky or Duke this past year simply doesn't exist if they cut those scholarships to 5, in the long term the balance of power stabilizes and the cream eventually rises to the top again. Let's bring the same logic to football. I don't remember the exact numbers, so if my numbers aren't perfectly accurate forgive me. For the purposes of this example, I will use only the NCC conference. Let's say there were 10 teams and each team is allowed 45 scholarships. That's 450 total scholarships players available for the conference. Ranking the NCC teams at that time, NDSU was at or very near the top every year, so they were more likely to get a player they offered than say...morningside. If those 450 scholarship players were ranked in order, NDSU at the time probably wasn't offering many kids outside of the top half of that ranking system. So anywhere from 1-225. So now drop number of scholarships to 36 for each team. That's only 360 total available scholarships for the conference. Now a kid that would have been an NDSU player in the old system(45 scholarships) is just outside of NDSU's ability to offer them because they are now out of scholarships. So some of the kids who would've have played for NDSU if they had a scholarship available are now playing for another school within the conference against NDSU. I won't go as far as to say NDSU got the pick of the litter when it comes to every recruiting battle(kids choose schools for a variety of reason, not all of which include football tradition), but NDSU was getting MORE of the best players than any other team at the time. When you cut scholarships for everyone, it creates more parity. This seemed to throw NDSU for a loop for a while for some reason, but they eventually figured it out.

No one here cares that the team you recruit against, and will forever and always be compared to, is currently on the best run in the history of FCS football? Keep telling yourself that Darrell. You're just as bad as the NDSU fans you disparage for saying the rivalry is dead.

Even if/when NDSU becomes less dominant than they have been on the last 5 years, that doesn't take away what they accomplished during those 5 years. I guess my point is, don't wish for NDSU to get worse, because it won't have the affect you think it will. NDSU fans will forever and always be proud of having the greatest 5 year run in the history of FCS football.

Didn't qualify academically.

I also find this explanation odd by some of NDSU's critics. Name someone other than Billy Turner that should have been offered by U of M that played a significant role in NDSU's success.

While that explanation for Bohl's tenure might have worked through '09, how does it account for 2010-2013?

I didn't imply that it did, doesn't mean Wyoming wasn't counting on him to play a role on this year's team.

I agree with letting him play the rest of the season, but I can honestly say I wouldn't let him play against me either if I was in Bohl's shoes.

Fair point, but keep in mind the situations are reversed in that situation so it doesn't apply to me saying any coach in that situation would respond the same way. FCS transferring to FBS vs. vice versa. EWU is supposed to and will very likely lose to Oregon by a large margin. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but EWU had no power over where a player transfers after he graduates, or am I off on that. Wyoming losing to UND(or any FCS for that matter) would be a disaster for what Bohl is trying to build in Wyoming. He isn't looking to give UND a player that might help them win the game.

As much as people are upset with Bohl for not signing the player's release, I'm not sure any coach would respond any differently in the same situation. Given UND fans are excited to get this player on the field, my guess is he would be a contributor in the game against Wyoming. No coach is going to want a player leave, only to turn around and hurt your team in the first game of the year. It sounds like he was a walk-on for Wyoming, but for all UND fans know Wyoming was counting on him to play a role on their team and may be a bit salty that he decided to go to a team Wyoming plays.

And we were having such an honest conversation before that.

This post speaks to my point. For a team to win by 10-14 points and that is somehow an embarrassment, that's why NDSU didn't want to play this game for the last decade.