SooToo

Agree with this wholeheartedly. UND needs to get experienced quickly at a number of positions -- and you can add RB now -- and the abysmal 2011 schedule may be just what's needed. Interesting to see if Garman will play as a true freshman. On another note, I caught the news today when I tuned in briefly -- first time in months -- to the noon sports show on 740 in Fargo. Don't know who the host was. Unfortunately, he announced the hour would be "wall to wall" NDSU pimping but interrupted the schedule to "break the news" of Murray's dismissal at UND -- all in a celebratory tone and repleat with sound effects. Heard a little of McFeeley yesterday on 790 as well, ranting about the Douple story and asking why Grand Forks media wasn't digging up the details of Kristo's injury. He went on to broadly infer, on the air, that Kristo was drunk. What a vindictive, classless organization Radio Fargo-Moorhead seems to have become ... but maybe its a stipulation of the contract with the AC.

OK, I'll make it a third. Reading other message boards, I think SS.com has by far the most negative posters whether the subject is the football schedule, the city of Grand Forks, UND leadership or coaches, or almost any other topic ... except hockey.

Good Lord. What part of "never" can't you accept? In this case, it would appear the term may only apply to the date at which you will accept Faison's denials to a poorly written story containing absolutely no direct confirmation of a premise laid out in its opening paragraph. Much ado about nothing.

I'm willing to be convinced. Can you provide any fact, any direct quote from this story or any other source to show that Kelley or anyone from UND pushed the Summit to say the nickname decision was prohibiting consideration of UND's application to the Summit? Don't think you'll find it . Instead, many seem to want Kelley to prove a negative, expecting him to show he did not work against the nickname. And if you think journalism at the level of The Forum is exempt from shoddy reporting, faulty reasoning and just plain bad writing then, well, I might have a bridge I could sell you.

Really? Hey, as we used to say in the newsroom, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. There is nothing -- n-o-t-h-i-n-g -- in this story to back up Kolpack's claim in the lead that Kelley or anyone at UND asked the Sumit "to publicly come out against accepting the Fighting Sioux as a member until the controversial mickname and logo issue was resolved." NO ONE is quoted in the story, either directly or indirectly, saying this. Douple doesn't say this anywhere within the story. I realize this is an opportunity for every nickname die-hard to rail against the guy in charge when the Fighting Sioux name was lost but honestly, this is the kind of reading comprehension and hysterical, Chicken-Little response I would expect over at Bisonville. And I hope Star doesn't practice law; I didn't know that "allegations would prove Kelley to be a dishonorable liar." Unless, of course, you made up your mind long ago. Amazing responses to a complete non-story.

What a complete and utter non-issue. Kolpack's article is a mess -- can't tell if this is an example of bad writing, bad logic or if there's another agenda there. The lead on this story states that UND asked Douple and the Summit "to publicly come out against accepting the Fighting Sioux as a member until the controversial nickname and logo issue was resolved.." Three paragraphs later he states this would represent "a 180 degree reserval of what has commonly been reported for more than 2 years; that Summit League officials insisted the nickname issue be resolved sooner than the NCAA-imposed deadline." So which is it? What's the contention? Did UND push Douple "to publicly come out agaist accepting the Fighting Sioux?" Or did Kelley et al ask the Summit to "insist" on an earlier resolution of the issue? The interpretation of all the quotes/intervews in the story -- and probably the answers themselves -- changes drastically depending on the actual questions asked. If Kolpack asked the president's office if they pushed Douple to "publicly come out against accepting" UND with the Fighting Sioux nickname, then of course, Peter Johnson's emphatic denial is absolutely correct. Douple was quoted repeatedly during this process saying he wouldn't present UND's application to the league's presidents until the Sioux nickname controversy was settled "one way or the other" -- and I heard Bill Goetz on Mac Talk hesitantly admit the league wanted the name "gone." No where in the article does Douple deny he wanted the controversy ended before considering UND. If the issue was whether UND administrators pushed for an earlier resolution .... what's the point? Numerous board members, including Grant Shaft from Grand Forks, have detailed all their attempts to get approval -- or at least some answers -- from Standing Rock officials. Tribal leaders ultimately said they would never bring the issue up for consideration. As pointed out here ad nauseum, we could have waited until hell freezes over and still not had a positive outcome on this issue. And Bin has it right: Douple was never quoted in the news pushing for an earlier resolution -- he just bragged about the multiple schools interested in joining the Summit. (I wonder what ever happened with them anyway.) Faison frequently was quoted on the advantages of early decision on the issue. At the very least, waiting may have delayed joining a conference by another year. Anybody see the 2011 football schedule? Hard to figure what prompted this story at this time. Does Kolpack have an agenda, or is this just how the world looks through those green-and-yellow glasses?

No disrespect to Paul Ralston, but if they must replace Hammer -- and Sean Johnson sounds in the Herald as though they'd like to find a way to continue utilizing him -- I hope they recruit agressively for a replacement. UND football has benefitted from having high-profile football broadcasters over the last decade in Ed Schultz and Hammer. There are a number of "retired" sportscasters in the valley who might have an urge to dabble again in sports and would provide, I think, better visibility to UND football, including Scott Peters and Brian Shaun, late of KVLY, Steve Halstrom ( ) and a couple of others whose names escape me at the moment. Don't know for sure that they would be better but probably would bring more attention/notoriety through their association with the program..

$60

I have a single ticket available for Saturday night only. Lower Bowl, sec 114, row H. Leave a reply here or PM me.

Jones is doing his recruiting via Twitter?? Really, I can't imagine that will work out very well. IKIK

Waaay off topic, Wyoming, but I noticed you locked a topic -- coincidentally it was about a regular poster here -- over at B-ville today because of "petty, personal !@#$." With that new standard, aren't you afraid the whole place is going to implode?

My first answer would be bargaining power, as in "none." Although it certainly appears USD has had much more success in getting quality opponents to their house.

Yup. Definitely better looking schedules. I have no idea what NDSU was paying out for one-time opponents then (were they all home and home?) but the landscape's not the same for 2011 as it was for 2007, in terms of availability of OOC opponents. See Taylor's annual struggle filling in your schedule's two OOC games. What I DO see in the XDSU schedules for 2007 is lots of help from your future conference mates (3 games for SDSU; 2 games for you), the product, IIRC, of the Gateway's decision to drop Western Kentucky from the schedule one year early after Western notified the league it was jumping ship. No such option for UND next year. Good point on using next year to go on the road and build in some home games for future schedules. Unfortunately, I suspect the same people whining about the weak schedule now would be complaining about the lack of home games under that scenario as well.

Couldn't agree more. On all counts. Those wondering how "gene taylor gets all those teams" haven't been paying attention to the AC's annual struggle to fill two home FCS OOC games, the cost and the quality of opponents available at a single-game price of $100k +.

Your money. Obviously your choice. But will that really help a program you clearly support? No doubt a brutal schedule. B.R.U.T.A.L. I'll attend the games that fit my schedule but can't imagine this does anything to build interest among casual fans, especiailly with the team down south coming off a playoff run and returning a very good team next year. Are we simply economizing for our last transitional year, booking low-cost teams and hoping fans have their eyes on the Sky? The only positive -- and its a stretch -- is that perhaps a softer schedule allows a new quarterback and what again will be a very young team a chance to gain some game experience and perhaps build some confidence. A winning record in 2011 -- and I sure hope we will have one -- might be something that could be used to fuel some excitement, advertising-wise, going into the first year of the Big Sky. I agree, though, I'm not sure how a soft schedule next year realistically prepares this team for a full FCS slate.

.... Festivus! (Only makes sense for those who were around for Seinfeld) And I suppose someone should point out, regarding the "obsession" driving this thread, that the topic was started by .... a jackrabbit troller.

Always nice when the neighbors stop by for a visit.

Interesting. I noticed on last Sunday's "Sioux Extra" television broadcast that Mussman's appearance was uncharacteristically brief for an end-of-season wrap up, and then only in an interview recorded immediately after the SDSU game. Among other comments he said his staff was committed to building the team primarily with 4- and 5-year players, adding that "I hope we'll be able to continue" doing so. Wondered at that time whether that was an indication of his impending departure, as he obviously sounded like someone uncertain about his future.

No criticism of NDSU, just the glowing media coverage it inevitably will garner. It's a shame the NCAA chooses to award an autobid to a conference that offers substantially less than the maximum number of scholarships while other worthy teams -- including Great West champ Southern Utah -- are left out in the cold.

What a joke. Meanwhile Montana is sitting at home. Maybe they should have moved Minnesota-Duluth into the FCS playoffs. Doesn't the NSIC allow almost as many schollies? Nevertheless, it will be proclaimed by the local media as another historic D-I moment for NDSU, just like that first FCS game and victory against non-scholly Valporaiso.

I agree their transition has been impressive given their DII history -- yet another testimonial to the advantage they enjoyed by being in the first wave of Dakota schools to make the jump to FCS. Overall, though, I don't think their early transition was all that different from ours. (Yes, you've FORCED me to actually look it up ) In their last year of DII, SDSU was 7-4. In 2004-05, their first transitional year, they were 6-5 including wins against at least 3 division II schools. In year 2, they again posted a 6-5 record, including wins over non-scholly Valporaiso and Wisconsin-La Crosse and then-hapless S. Utah. UND's record in years 1 & 2? 6-5 and 6-5. Year 3 is where you can see a contrast: SDSU improved to 7-4, despite a home loss to La Crosse. As we all know the wheels fell off for UND in year 3 with a miserable 3-8 record. SDSU went on to post a 7-4 record in '07 (For point of comparison, they beat S. Utah at home by 25 points; the Sioux, in their last year of DII, beat them by 27 points on the road). They followed with records of 6-5 and an impressive 8-3 last year before falling back to earth this year with a 5-6 record against a tough schedule. We'll see which way UND is headed next year. If anything, comparing records show just how irratic inexperienced and thin transition teams can be. Pretty early, I think, to make a final judgment on UND's transition.

In short, yes. NDSU and SDSU had the advantage of being first into the transition. They didn't have a real conference or playoffs, either. But they could tout their programs as "Division 1" and were recruiting regionally almost exclusively against program that remained D II or worse, like UND, were uncertain about their future direction. I can't count the number of post recruiting interviews I read with players saying they liked both UND and NDSU but made a choice based on the Division 1 move by the ag schools. More than 1 player who had some UND roots or leanings ended up in green and yellow because of this. UND and USD, during transition, have recruited against established FSC programs right next door. No doubt NDSU's transition went phenomenally well in most sports. But before you give Bohl too much credit, remember that most of his early success was accomplished with "D2" recruits who had NO DIVISION 1 OFFERS and were signed by the previous coaching staff, one of whose members now is an NFL defensive coordinator. SDSU? Haven't reviewed their record but I don't recall great success. I DO remember a home loss to a division III team.

Thanks for the reminder. I didn't recall Klancher as a second-year starter. I do remember, however, my satisfaction in going to a Fargodome restroom at half time, after Klancher came in for an injured Clay Wagner and promptly threw a looong TD pass, and listening to an old geezer in a team-maker's jacket complain that they knocked out the starter "and the new guy's better than the first one." As (almost) always, we won.

I remember when the AC bolted from the NCC and BB coach Rich Glass wished his SU counterparts "good luck"in the jump to D1 ( thus inviting the endless wrath of Bison zealots for this "insult"). He noted that a lot of coaches don't survive that kind of transition. The football record sucked this year and the end-of-year performance was abysmal -- largely because we lost our QB. But the last two recruiting classes -- particularly last year' -- are encouraging. Basketball has been down for years, but the performance so far this year already seems to exceed the predictions on this forum, and we've got some freshmen who appear to know how to play the game. Both Mussman and Jones finally have something to offer recruits -- a strong conference and a chance for playoffs. After struggling through the lean years, don't they deserve at least a little time to show what they can do with a level playing field?