Devils

Always thought our defense lacked speed big-time, and size up front. Offensively hopefully the WR add an ability to stretch the field we haven't seen much of other than Bo.

This thread reminds me of the time I saw Phil Martelli speak in 2004 or so. He was the longtime basketball coach at St. Joseph's in Philadelphia and they were a #1 seed that year and made the elite 8. He won many coach of the year honors that year and he said in the talk I saw "do you think I just figured out how to coach this year, that this was the best job I've ever done as a coach, that's bs." His point was he had great players (mostly Jameer Nelson and Delonte West who both had successful NBA careers) that year and it all came together. Coaching is important, but put any coach somewhere with little talent on the team and it will be a struggle.

Seems it's been several years since I've seen a 'wow' play from a WR, outside of Bo.

Wouldn't the Higgins kid be taking Feeney's scholly? Aside from Erkmann, Rucker, McNeal, and maybe Sutton I don't think there's many departures from the defense that would be harmful. Hopefully don't lose any more OL.

Who are FBS drop downs that have helped us the past, say, 5 years? I can't hardly think of any.

There's risk with any hire of course. Wonder what percentage of fbs head coaches are fired within 4 years (some quick Googling put it around 30%).

Have a hard time seeing Schmidt, at ~46 years old, going from FBS coordinator to FCS.

Langama from Maple Grove had 243 and 2 TD in their 6A title game win last night, hope he makes it to campus.

I've been lukewarm on blaming it all on Bubba the last couple years. But with him being a defensive coach and the complete deterioration of the defense over the last few years, it's pretty obvious we need to try something new. The lack of talent on that side of the ball is striking and has been for a while now. Side question - how often do FCS head coaches get canned? I don't claim to follow a ton outside of UND but it doesn't seem like it's real common. Imagine buyouts at the FCS level are tough to swallow, can't imagine many programs have a million bucks to throw away. Can hope Bubba just hangs it up and maybe they come to a settlement where he takes on another role in the athletic dept for a few years as I'm sure it's hard for him to walk away from 750k.

Can't be surprising with being uncompetitive against ndsu and then embarrassing losses to 2 bad teams.

I'm not sure we have a defensive player that would start for the SU's. 1 or 2 tops.

I remember during the Montana game they showed highlights of when we beat them in 2018 or whatever and our receivers looked so much more physical than what we've had the last few years. For being a supposed speedster, I can't remember Dennis catching a pass over 10 yards.

As some have mentioned, the game went as many had feared. Couldn't match them physically at the line of scrimmage and our offense isn't dynamic enough to move the ball consistently against good teams. A QB like Miller is going to pick you apart if he can just stand in pocket forever, and that's what happened. Our offense feels like a HS offense a bit where the passing game is so inefficient and relies on hitting a random big play or two. Going to be difficult against the better valley teams with that style. We got ragdolled a lot out there on both sides of the ball. Sure hope Smith isn't out long term.

I'm usually pretty patient but I think what we have seen is going to be what we get from Romfo. Hard to believe that's the best we can do with 3 or 4 scholarships used on QBs. 5 for 13 against a non-scholly team for Pete's sake...Not real impressed with our receivers outside of Bo either, but the throws have been pretty rough.

Going forward, it is good to see that running the ball should be a strength. The O Line has looked good, hopefully them and Ziebarth can stay healthy. Would be nice to see Seidl get a few more touches in space, I think he's easily the closest thing we have to a gamebreaker. As good as we could be running the ball, the passing game is going to have to develop. 11/24 for 97 yards isn't going to beat many teams and teams will figure it out if we are one dimensional much longer. Appears Romfo can throw the slant route and not much else at this time. Just need him to be at least mediocre. And he's going to have to use his legs, to go through the first half with him not having a rushing attempt is ridiculous. Might be trying to keep him healthy but he might as well be on the sideline if he doesn't run. Not sure what got into the defense. 1st quarter they looked completely outmatched and in the 2nd half they really made Montana uncomfortable. Was incredible to see how much pressure they got on the QB, hopefully that can continue. MT has some pretty questionable play calling but we put them on their heels. Our d backs really need to learn how to turn their head around and find the ball on deep routes. Got away with a DPI or two in the first half. Finally did it once or twice later in the game and swatted passes away. Overall, I think if we play MT 10 times we probably beat them once or twice. We just found a wave and rode it.