Feff

Well the Waldorf game looked about as expected, UND looked pretty good against an overmatched team. Some great plays by Huff that were highlight reel material, and Anderson was, IMO, the best player on the court. Great vision, control of the offense, and knew when to take it himself. His defense was solid too. I was really impressed by his play today. The depth looked pretty good and I liked what I saw from the two freshmen and you could see them start to get more comfortable later in the game.

I was at the men's basketball game and wondered what happened to everyone posting here. Just went completely quiet after the live chat comments.

I wasn't following the stats or really even looking at them. Just watching the game they seemed to come away with a lot of rebounds, especially offensive rebounds that lead to a fair number of second chance points. If we actually were only 2 rebounds different then I'm shocked. Seemed a much greater disparity when watching.

Honestly I think a combination of too much downtime and the travel caused our girls to be flat. It's been 10 days since their last match and they had too much time to sit and relax. UVU is a good team and showed it. We'll just have to beat them in the tourney, as I think the tourney champ will come down to these two teams again.

Ladies lost tonight 72-54. Saw some issues tonight, had a bit of trouble with a full court press at times, were weak on the defensive baseline (gave up a number of layups this way), and got dominated on the boards. Saw some better shooting tonight and again liked the combination of Evers and Wall on the court at the same time, especially with a zone defense. Will be nice to possibly see more of that.

This is uninspired. They look way faster than us. They lose again to Sioux Falls and Muss is gone

Easy to see which team showed up to play. How can UND not be motivated for this game?

This has been tough to watch so far. Our offensive line is getting pushed around, we look uninspired so far, and already giving up big plays. Plus why the hell is this on tv if we can't even fill half the stadium? Black it out!

Evers looked good overall, just a bit wild and forced things at times. I expected to see a bit more out of Wall but this was only the first game. I like the pressure defense we put on but we gave up too many quality looks inside. We are definitely hurting right now in that we don't have a go to scorer in the clutch. We also don't really have anyone that can create their own shot at this point. Williams looked good and I like what she brought, especially only being a freshman. I think she could develop into that go-to person for the Sioux this year, but it's going to be a bit of a struggle early in the season. One thing I think hurt us in this game was our poor perimeter shooting. Most of our points came in the lane or via the free throw line. Not much was made from outside, either jumpshots or three pointers. Hopefully it was just a bad shooting night and not a sign of just poor shooting.

Really wish we could have fast-tracked the volleyball team, would have been great to see these girls in action in the NCAA tourney. I really think they could make some waves there.

That's definitely the big question for me going into the season. Last year you knew exactly who UND would try to get the ball to late in the clock or whenever they needed a score. It's not necessarily a matter of having someone skilled enough to be able to score in those situations, as much as it is having someone with the desire and courage to step up and create in those situations. If we find someone to give the team that, I think this team could do some very good things.

My problem with this, look across the field at the season ticket holders and there are plenty of empty seats there as well. It doesn't look as glaring because they are spread out, but the fact of the matter is that season ticket holders either don't buy or don't show up either. Move the students, you'd probably get even fewer to show up and then still probably still not sell out those sections.

Just saw this come across on Jayson Hajdu's Twitter in response to the Windsor article: "Entering '11-12, UND & Windsor had each produced 15 NHLers since '04. UND holds edge in GP (2648-1199), PTS (1345-384), YRS in NHL (53-36)." "If raw data isn't your thing, "They develop pro hockey players in North Dakota." -- Pierre McGuire, NHL analyst and former NHL coach." ""There's no better place to go in college hockey in terms of a pro factory, a pro mindset, a pro mentality." -- TSN analyst Bob McKenzie" "Facilities? "It's everything people have said about it, it's one of the most beautiful buildings we have in North America." -- Wayne Gretzky" Pretty damn convincing rebuttal if you ask me.

Coaches trying to get too cutesy/tricky coming out of the bye week you think?

Got back from the game and some of my thoughts: 1) Our defense played pretty well for the most part. We played well against the run (which was CP's strength) but once again our pass defense bugaboo reared its ugly head. Too many times receivers just running by our corners or no defender within 5-10 yards. Both their touchdowns came on blown coverages and without those we still had a shot at winning. Then again, they just missed out on several more big plays that could have seen us lose by quite a bit more. 2) This game was an example of what happens when a team shuts down our running game. Miller still ran well, but there was just too much inconsistency with our running game to rely on it exclusively like we have in past games this season. 3) I didn't like the coaches trying to force Sutton back into things too early. It was clear to see that he was a step slower than earlier in the season and aside from one run, he really didn't get much done. The running game has been working with Miller and Garman, yet I think Garman was put in for just one play today. 4) Unless there can be some major improvement by Bradley over the last part of the season or in the off-season, the coaches have whiffed on this pickup. Today was just terrible to see, both for his decision making (both interceptions were just ugly) as well as his actual throws (many of which were way off target). Goska showed quite a bit of senior grit by coming in and almost salvaging the game, but he also showed the reason why he isn't the starter to begin with. 5) Dropped balls. How many times this season have we had dropped balls, especially at crucial times in the game. Notably in today's game, Hardin's drop on that final drive was a real killer. Catch that, we keep the momentum, we are deep in their territory and we've got a legitimate shot at winning. With all that said, we were still in the game late in the 4th with a chance to win. They scored on two big plays, we settled for field goals. 1st and goal within the 1, we need to score a touchdown there. That's inexcusable. But it is what it is. A tough fought game, but still a loss.

I'm genuinely excited for this game, finally a decent team coming in and challenging us at home. Hopefully the crowd should be good and we get to see a great game. I haven't missed a UND football game in years, and I talked my wife out of going to a cousin's house warming just so I could go to this game! (To be honest, she wasn't keen on going to the house warming either)

I agree that the Alerus is a good facility for where we are at right now. Renovate and expand Memorial 15-20 years down the road after we've built the program to a point where it can actually fill a larger stadium. But I remember 2001 on our way to the national championship. The Alerus sold out, people packed in and roaring. Pitt St. and UC Davis never saw what was coming to them when they stepped into that building. The noise was deafening, you couldn't even hear the person right next to you, and we only got louder with every false start that was called on them. THAT is a football atmosphere! THAT is what the Alerus is capable of providing for our team. Don't forget how big of a factor that played in the early 2000's duo to the product that's been on the field through this transition.

As a current student at UND, I think I should point out one fact that is currently the reason for the low student turn-out: it isn't a big social event, hockey is. Sitting in the student section for the hockey games, sure you hear people that are into it and that genuinely understand what is going on in the game, but you also hear and see those people that don't have a clue and wouldn't know a goalie from a center. They go to the games because that is the thing to do and the culture of their chosen university. It is expected that people show up to hockey, and then when other people start yelling or cheering, they in turn start to yell and cheer without even knowing why. UND football is not the same social event as hockey is, for whatever reason. Despite the efforts that UND has gone to to attract fans to the various sports (and this is for more than just football, other sports are majorly lacking in student fan support), the fact of the matter is that most students are only attracted to hockey because that's the attitude of Grand Forks. On a more positive note though, while sitting in the student section for hockey this weekend, I heard some good chatter about the football team, comments like "Oh hey, the football team is ranked? I didn't know that" or "I heard the football team is supposed to be good this year, maybe I'll go check it out." Just a couple things I heard and hopefully we can actually get a good crowd for homecoming, and if we win that game, I think you will see students continue to return to the remaining games.

They aren't as good as Fresno but can UND get motivated for them like Fresno? I really don't have a good feeling going into this game as SUU has looked terrific this year and has one of the best QB's in FCS this year, which does not match up well with the weakness in our defensive backfield.

Some of my takes from the game: Our line is built to run block and it's what they prefer and are good at. They do not like to pass block and they are not very good at it. There should have been no reason Bradley should have been feeling any pressure unless they were blitzing 6 or 7 and then he should have found easy completions in man coverage. This did not happen really. Bradley did not throw a good looking deep ball all day. They were either underthrown, let hang up, or forced a great catch by a wide open receiver (McGill). Defense looked great early on in the game. Corners are still suspect and still give up yardage. Against the BHSU receivers, they should not have had problems but were often several yards away when the catch was made. Closed nicely and made solid tackles, but should be able to break on that ball when it's in the air and make more plays on the ball as its getting to the receiver rather than after they have already caught it. Safeties are solid and made some nice looking plays. Would liked to have seen the 1's keep their intensity throughout their playing time in the second half but you could see them with visibly less motivation. Benjamin got pushed around quite a bit in the second half and that's hard to believe given how he dominated against Fresno just the other week. All in all it was a win, but I come away not all that impressed. We already knew we could run the ball, we proved that against Fresno. I wanted to see what could be done in the passing game and am still not convinced on what we have at this point in the season. Also I kept wondering throughout the game if Mussman told the OC to simply go vanilla or what. How many times did we run out of singleback, two tight end, two receiver sets?

I think we have talent, I just don't think the coaches are putting them in a position to win (except special teams). I don't buy the fact that we are losing simply because recruiting is hard to do in a transition. All you have to do is look at the team down in Vermillion to see that is blatantly false. Their recruiting has been just as difficult as ours, but somehow they have the ability to beat a BCS conference football team (even if it was just Minnesota), and now they've beaten one of the top teams in the FCS just a weak after that team proved it was capable of going toe to toe with a Pac 12 team. So I don't buy the crap that we don't have the talent or are unable to recruit the talent due to lack of conference or being in the transition. Mussman has been given so many breaks over and over throughout this transition. When does it become apparent that he's not the coach for this team?

Yes they serve beer at UND volleyball. And you can't go wrong with the pretty girls in tight shorts!

It actually seemed that when we did some of the best was when we blitzed, too many times with a 3/4 man rush the Drake QB had plenty of time to look around. We blitzed, got pressure and forced him to either run for minimal or no gain, or else force a tougher throw then he wanted. Our offense was just totally vanilla and lackluster for the most part. Sutton ran hard and the line gave him some good holes to go through. Miller looked good as well. Right now we are a run-first team but we all expected that early in the season and the hope is that Bradley develops and gets a better feel for the pocket. Several times he moved out of the pocket and put unwarranted pressure on himself. Yes he didn't make any bonehead turnovers or try to force the ball anywhere, but some of the sacks were on him and not the offensive line. I think he shows promise, but it's still going to take some time to develop him. Hopefully we see more in the Idaho game and they get pumped for it. Hopefully Mussman opens up the playbook some and gets creative.

Any word on who the starting QB will be going into the year?

I think I'm out of the loop a bit, what Big Sky fiasco?