UND-FB-FAN

What could have been… Best of luck (including to former player and DC Eric Schmidt) in the FBS national championship game.

BB and FB need new coaches. X’s and O’s matter, and obviously so does recruiting in college athletics. Inspiration and leadership goes a long way. Chaves needs to do a better job. UND Athletics is stale with no championship expectations other than with hockey.

Bubba won’t have the boys ready for the FBS game. Take the money and lay down, as per usual. the above is a nice little tidbit though

Unbelievable …ffs

True freshman receiver, will take time to learn the game (plays, route running, connection with ? QB, etc.), but at that position, can get on the field early with his athleticism. Will he fun to see how he develops with “new” strength and conditioning program.

Correct. I think the staff has the right idea in mind, as far as what they need to recruit, but they just can’t actuate it. The debate is whether it’s due to a deficiency of resources or intrinsic inability. My guess, it’s likely a combination of both.

Delusional ^ (ignores statistics; proceeds w/ subjective rationalization) Football > hockey. Deal with it.

I agree. Just needed to finish my responses. The distractions and arguments are largely a byproduct of what UND athletic leadership and football has done to itself. We all want to see UND football win, but yet, here we are. Don’t worry; I’m done posting in this thread unless it’s strictly about recruiting.

Football is more popular than hockey. FCS football is definitely similar in popularity to the entirety of collegiate hockey. Period. FCS football is still football. Doesn’t matter if pee wee, high school, college or pros. It is what it is. Profits are going to be hard to come by with collegiate athletics anywhere in North Dakota - not enough people. Hard to argue with delusionists. Can spin it anyway you want to fit your narrative. I’ll stick with the realists.

Fargo’s investment in football has paid off and will continue to pay off. UND’s uninspired maintenance of the status quo is not working, relatively speaking. Football is more popular than hockey. Hockey does allow for some differentiation for UND and Grand Forks, but it’s most certainly not enough by itself. Fargo has a monopoly on communications like you said, with Grand Forks having no voice. It will be hard for UND to bounce back unless they look to be aggressive in areas where Fargo holds an advantage (from a collegiate athletics standpoint, that’s football and basketball for starters). Maintaining just hockey is going to leave GF/UND at the status quo, which means Fargo (including NDSU athletics) ascending at a rate well beyond that of Grand Forks and UND athletics. But, well, there’s always hockey … The culture of constantly criticizing those with big ideas and novel plans is a dangerous one, and it typically always leaves those in that culture well behind in the end. Example: see division I approach back in early 2000s As for coaching staff and 2024 recruiting, more resources would certainly be nice. In essence, my point is that there does need to be more resources for UND football to grow, so I agree with you on that. But transitioning to different coaches is just the reality of change and progression in college athletics. UND will need to do this, sooner rather than later, to take the next step. Sorry if that hurts some of your feelings due to personal relationships. I digress. On to 2024 recruiting. 2024 very likely is going to be a rough season. Hope I’m wrong.

… and now someone is really trying hard to derail this thread …

With firings (and subsequent hires) then maybe recruiting and/or future seasons would be worth talking about.

At some point, we need a clean slate. Preferably sooner rather than later. New culture. New ideas. You either change the culture or the culture changes you. The past ten seasons have been okay, but could’ve been so much better. Bring in some outside influence and get this thing rolling.

Difference between good and great. Look just to the south. NDSU - and now also SDSU - desire greatness at this level of football. UND (including its fans, supporters, and administration) is content with good. Expectations matter.

It’s all relative in sports and competition.

All that matters. Shut ‘er down when you get there. Staff don’t like the spotlight. Bad attribute to have …

Correct. They also have a track record of doing it so others want to join that coach. Recruiting is important, and good coaches are good at this, partly because their track record speaks for itself. Are we at that point? Of course not. After 10 years, our current staff is seen from the outside as average at best, and unable to get out of their own way when opportunity presents itself to take the next step. One step forward (beat NDSU), one step back (shut out the next week). One step forward (make playoffs), one step back (lose at home after uproar about not hosting home playoff game the previous season). One step forward (seeded playoff team in 2016), one step back (lose at home right away in 2016 when seeded, follow it up in 2017 with losing season). One step forward (MVFC champs in pandemic year), one step back (losing season in 2021, the next season). So many examples of why this staff epitomizes mediocrity. Back to your original point; a good coach can identify potential and enhance it. That is also what good teachers do. The football “teachers” at UND aren’t finding and developing enough diamonds in the rough. Consistency is lacking.

There will likely be *changes* after 2024.. I think we’re in for a rough year in 2024, since it was inexplicably felt that extending an average coach after a losing season (2021) would somehow work out …

NDSU at the same place as UND right now … not in the playoffs/championship game. Recruiting TBD Facts are facts … but they can be tough to fathom if you’re an NDSU associate …

49-24 63-50-3

Doesn’t matter what we want at this point. Coaching staff is staying together for 2024. Fork in the road coming up though - does the team get better or worse? I see the latter with subsequent changes thereafter, but we’ll see.

2024 might be the final nail in the coffin. We’ll see.

And that’s why they’re labeled “raw but talented”. There certainly is risk that one or both of them don’t work out, but it’s worth the risk given athletic potential. They just need to buy in and transform into DI football players. The new strength and conditioning coach/program will be crucial, and that is an unknown right now. As for current coaching staff, we know what we’re going to get from them from X’s and O’s standpoint by this point, not to mention leadership (mainly lack thereof) in big games, but I’ll just leave that alone for right now …

In-house promotions is partly why UND is in the current mess* they are in … so I agree completely. * by mess I mean not being able to fully capitalize

Not going well …