UNDvince97-01

I understand what you are saying, but.... It's ok to put "Big Sky" logos on the turf but not "UND"? Is there another potential future Big Sky Football tenant that we aren't aware of? It just makes no sense to me. Why would we half-ass this type of project? Do it right the 1st time.

Unless my eyes are already deceiving me, it has Big Sky logos on each side.

I would let Brian Faison know your feelings on this. I tend to agree with most of the comments here.

Not stoking the coals here, just giving my worthless opinion on this. All I can say is that I am glad this forum is being constructively critical of our staff for being too aggressive in recruiting high school student-athletes. I would MUCH rather have it this way rather than being critical for not being aggressive enough. Lets say we have 50 offers out already. Like others have stated, probably half of those 'early' offers will end up going to FBS schools. The other half will be divided among the top 10 FCS schools that recruit in the region - of which 3 or less will ultimately be in the running on signing day. If you do the math, that doesn't leave many for each school. If we were to get just 10 of these hypothetical 50 early offers, the coaching staff would be ecstatic I'm guessing. And if they want to get the 20-25 they get each year, they still have to go get 10-15 more kids. The numbers say we should be offering way more kids early - presuming we have enough info to properly evaluate and justify the offer. The kids love the early attention and sometimes it holds water for them when they make their final decision. I hope the coaches get criticized for offering too many kids. That's a good thing. It also drives up the competitive market for these kids as there are only so many scholarships to go around. It also would be nice to have to tell kids "no" wouldn't it? Also, it creates a 'first come, first serve' atmosphere for the recruits: "We've got 3 scholarship offers to QBs this year. First one to say yes is who we are taking in this class...". Some FCS schools are very lazy in recruiting. School X sees that School Y has offered a kid, so they offer him in turn without doing their own homework and only because of the recruiting competition. Trust me, it happens all the time. This is a non-issue in my opinion. Mussman, Kotelnicki and the staff have this thing right. Keep offering away....

I'll go out on a limb and say we get at least one verbal after this weekend. From what I understand, there will be a TON of recruits on campus again for the spring game Junior Day.

Josh Kotelnicki has taken over recruiting the Twin Cities area and will do a great job there. I also believe Kotelnicki is now the recruiting coordinator, having taken that responsibility over after Tim Belmore's departure.

Thanks for the updates everyone. Haven't been this excited for spring ball and the start of the football season in a long, long time. You can definitely feel that something "different" is in the air right now.

Agree with Sic. Run the ball on offense. Stop the run on defense. Sprinkle in an efficient passing game when needed on offense. Bend but don't break against the pass on defense. Win the special teams battle. This formula is PROVEN to be successful against Big Sky teams.

That's what I thought. Please, carry on with your un-informed belligerent opinions as usual....

I'm curious what you specifically think Mannausau has done wrong or is doing wrong as a coach? What would you do differently? Are there certain philosophies or techniques that you see that are flawed? Situational playcalling? Coverages, fronts or blitzing packages? How about nickel and dime? Personnel? Please let me know which it is. I know I'm curious and I'm sure many others on here are as well. Thanks in advance.

IMO, Jackson is the type of WR you don't want to pigeon-hole into any one spot or position. He's got the ability to go outside against smaller corners and go up and get the ball using his bigger body in the red zone and other "possession" situations (get to the sticks). He's also the type of guy you can line up in the slot and cause serious matchup issues with. Who knows, he may end up as a TE eventually. I think it will all depend on how he progresses physically with his size and speed. I'm excited to see how he develops this spring. The mental part is sometimes the toughest for young WRs.

Lechler is for sure. I was just telling the truth is all.

If true, looks like Lechler wanted to be a farmer and Arp wanted to own the farm....

Maybe this was already mentioned somewhere, but I just noticed that Montana is currently tied for the Big Sky Conference lead at 8-1 with their only loss coming to Weber St in Ogden, whom they are tied with for 1st place. Can't wait until UND gets into the BIg Sky Conference schedule next season to see how we stack up week in and week out.

If I were a betting man, I'd say he's going to ndsu......he's an agriculture kid. I'd be very suprised if UND can land him because of that, although I hope they do.

You missed the point. Dom Izzo said Marcus Horne soft verballed to ndsu, supposedly per Horne's HS coach....as of yesterday, Horne himself told Travis at WSN firsthand that he NEVER did soft verbal to ndsu. This fall, Dom or Kolpack (can't remember which) reported that Mollberg had given ndsu his "FCS verbal" if he didn't go to the Big 10. A couple days later that was refuted by Mollberg himself in the paper....we know the end result. I can't remember what the source was for the Mollberg to ndsu "FCS verbal" in the article. This is my point. It's one thing to have a kid change his mind and decommit to another school, which happens a lot nowadays, but it is entirely another to be flat-out wrong about your initial report. At best, it's irresponsible journalism......at worst, it's ndsu propaganda from the Fargo Forum and WDAY Sorry, I'm back on topic now.

There's a little Twitter battle/disagreement going on between Travis from wissports.net and Dom Izzo at WDAY regarding a supposed "soft verbal" from Marcus Horne to ndsu, who just committed to Michigan State. First Mollberg, then Horne.

Yes, he is.

IMO, I'd be happy with 4 playmaking wide receivers in this class if we can get them and they are worth it. Position changes are always an option for athletes like that and the odds of all of them making it and staying on the team all 4 or 5 years as WRs are probably pretty low. Plus we could end up losing current players to grades or injury etc. Attrition is just a reality nowadays. I guess I don't have a big problem with it. Finding great playmaking WRs can make an average QB look pretty good. Maybe next year they don't take any WRs or only 1? Lets be fair and honest, our offense hasn't exactly been lighting up the scoreboard lately. The QB and WR positions in this class should definitely help the future of the offense. I'm interested and excited to see how we "close" on the end of this class before signing day.

Someone must be hacking his login on bisonville or SiouxSports.com.........all the time......

Oops. Nice.

I'm sure Lance Orender is going to land on his feet somewhere and will do just fine. Based on his earlier tweets, it would seem he really didn't want to be at North Dakota, which wasn't in the best interests of either side. I want kids that WANT to be at UND and so do the coaches. The coaching staff probably did what they felt was best for the team moving forward. If they had reservations about a juco QB from California wanting to be here, then I don't blame them one bit for doing what they had to. They are looking for a leader at the QB spot. I have to think the staff had a QB fall into their laps late in order for them to follow through on pulling the offer on Orender based on the recent SFI tweet. Good luck to Orender. He will learn from this and be fine wherever he ends up.

If UND goes 7-4 next year and misses the playoffs, look directly to Brian Faison's office for accountability on this. He knows the consequences of scheduling the Mines game. This game limits the room for error for UND next year in their 1st season in the Big Sky and FCS playoff eligibility. 7-4 will no doubt be tough for UND to get to next year, that is a given. So maybe this point eventually becomes moot. The worst part is that the coaching staff and players would be the ones being punished for it. This game takes away the power from them even if they win it handily like they will. Goal #1 is to make the playoffs every year for the CHANCE to win the National Championship. This game hurts UND's chances in reaching that ultimate goal. I simply do not and will never understand this decision by Mr. Faison, who otherwise does a great job overall 'managing' the UND Athletic Dept. from what I can tell.

Just my opinion... but I think this Orender signing is a very bad decision for many reasons.

Luke Schleusner recruits the state of Illinois for UND and is doing one hell of a job. I believe he has some connections in the state from his time as a GA in Macomb at Western Illinois. I'm anxious to see what the signing day results will look like from Illinois when it's all said and done.