jdub27

Is UND looking better than they have or is Fargo U playing below where UND has been?

UND with a 3 at the buzzer to go into the half up by 6.

UND looking good in transition. Wolters drawing fouls left and right. UND up by 3 with a minute to go in the first half.

UND shooting well from the outside. SDSU can't hit anything. Wolters is keeping SDSU in the game, he is as good as advertised, but not getting any help. UND up by 8 with 4 minutes to go, on a 10-0 run.

They are both one bid leagues no matter how you slice it. Last year, the Summit as a conference had a higher RPI than the Big Sky yet Montana got a higher seed than South Dakota State. You are talking about the difference between a 13 and 14 seed or worse pretty much every year.

I agree with the majority of your post and think your analysis is spot on in most places, but this stuck out to me. I think Cameron was underrated due to the rugby style of kicking he used most of the time. UND was 16th in the nation in Net Punting yards, mainly due to teams not having a chance to return punts. Take out his shank against SDSoM and UND slips into the top 10. It wasn't pretty to watch most of the time but it didn't give the other teams a chance to return the kicks and he only had 3 touchbacks on the year out of 50+ punts. I think he had the leg for some boomers, but sacrificed personal numbers for the team. You very well could be right that Meindel will be an upgrade, but I think calling Cameron's season mediocre at best is inaccurate.

Weston Dressler played WR not RB. Garman and Miller play RB. Not the same.

Crowd wasn't sure what to think, didn't real feel like UND won the game, but second half was much better than the first. SUU's coach is going to be sick when he watches the film but neither team played their best. Credit to UND for taking advantage, making the stops when they needed to and pulling out the win. Muss made a few calls that he would have been crucified for had they not converted but they were the right call and worked out. Good win, now a week off to heal and go out to Greeley and finish the year with a winning record. I didn't watch the SUU/EWU game last week but I assume they played quite a bit better last week than this week... Also want to add, as much as I've been critical of Mackey, myself and everyone around me could not figure out how he was called for PI on that 3rd and long. Maybe it looked different from another angle, but looked to be a pretty poor call from where we were.

I just assumed you had that locked up multiple times over a while back.

I almost wish they would turn one of the end zones into reserved spots. Put up a drink rail and people can purchase that spot. Twofold reason - 1)There is obviously a demand as the ends are almost always full and 2)The people currently in the end zones have seats which sit empty and make attendance look worse than it is. Not all that different from the drink rails in the club seating at the Ralph. At this point in time, I don't think the idea is necessary, but at some point, it would be a way for them to sell some more seats and get a better price than a SRO ticket would command. Again, attendance is a long way off from needing this, but an idea nonetheless. I hesitate to suggest doing this on both ends for the reason homer describes, sometimes people want/need to get up and it allows them to still see the game.

You may be right, but how the courts see it may be changing soon. I think the point was how the "professional" world sees it.

His bio says he redshirted in 2009, so it could be a possibility.

I'd give them the benefit of the doubt this time if it is only his first issue. But your underlying point is well taken.

He's been on the sideline in street clothes all year. No updates probably isn't a good thing, but with three games to go, maybe he doesn't even risk it and hopes to get a medical redshirt (if another year is something he's interested in).

The first three football games were all night games. The next three were/are scheduled at 3pm, 2:40pm and 1pm. The first one was homecoming and there were other events including women's volleyball that night. The second one (last weekend) had a women's hockey game scheduled that night. November 3rd against SUU, there is a men's hockey game that night. Out of town people enjoy the ability to attend multiple events when the come to town. Are you suggesting that they should have multiple events going on at once or that they should just work out so that there is only one athletic event in Grand Forks per weekend? It is tough to have the other events before the football game as many people are tailgating (though they did do this with WVB before the Poly game). Not saying that the women's volleyball game during homecoming (attend: 984) or the women's hockey game last weekend (attend: 1,414) drew a ton of people, but there is a contingency that like to attend both and attendance would have been lower had those games been during tailgating. Also, not sure on the logistics of scheduling dealing with other teams travel and conference rules, switching may not be a possibility in all cases.

Good to see even the injured players for NDSU are still managing to stay in the news.

I was impressed that he made those throws knowing he was going to get smacked in the mouth. I would like to see how many QB hits UM had. Hanson was picking himself off the ground more than you'd like to see, yet he hung in there to until the last second to make those throws. Takes some guts to stand in there against pressure like that.

40% chance of rain/snow mixture has me a little nervous, though a slippery field could hurt the defenses and running games. Looks to be very little wind, so that should help with our passing game.

The tailgating this year has been a step up over previous years. The addition of the Tailgating Village has been a big success. The student's tailgate lot has had a good turnout every week until this past one and I suspect that the weather had more to do with that than anything. Kudos to the Athletics Department and Marketing Department on what they did this year but don't get complacent and waste the positive momentum.

4. Already being done this year and from the looks of it, quite sucessfully. Deeks, Dickey's and the Ground Round have spots to sell food. As of right now, I don't believe anyone has license to sell alcohol in the tailgating lot other than the Champions Club tent.

For fans, driving is significantly easier in the MVFC/Summit. Destination wise, I'd give the Big Sky the nod. For players, I would assume it is a wash at worst. I can't imagine sitting in a bus for 10-12 hours is better than flying for 5-6 with a layover or two. I'm not sure the amount of busing vs. flying each school does though, so maybe it doesn't matter. If you want to talk viewing, despite being in Central/Mountain/Pacific time zone, the Big Sky is head and shoulders above anything the MVFC/Summit offer. Almost all games are offered for free over the internet on Big Sky TV. There is no comparison at all.

What part of my factual statement is elitist? I would agree there were points in time NDSU (along with a handful of other schools) would have been accepted into the Big Sky. My comment was that there were times NDSU wanted desperately to be in the Big Sky but they were turned down. In hindsight, it worked out for NDSU in the end, but at the time there was a lot of nervous people. The attitude shown by NDSU towards the Big Sky is evidence they are still slighted by the rejection. The constant proclamations of how the MVFC is head and shoulders a better conference over the CAA and Big Sky (despite no real track record showing anything remotely resembling that) is real clear evidence of that. With the leadership of that conference, I would temper my expectations (and I won't even get into the Summit....)

Needs to clean up some pretty blatant drops. Also needs to tighten up his route running. Not sure he has the size/speed needed to play in the NFL, but if he keeps working hard, he will probably have a shot to play somewhere after college.

Yet the Big Sky is the conference NDSU wanted to be in and was turned down...

Pretty rich coming from the most closed-minded person around here.