fightingsioux4life

I remember when Dean Blais took over a moribund Fighting Sioux hockey program in 1994 and had a surprising amount of success his first season, despite not having time to recruit his own players and having very little talent to work with. Why? He brought an "expect to win" attitude to the program. A program usually takes on the attitude of the head coach (the CEO, if you will) and you saw a group of players work hard and achieve a .500 record and a two-game sweep at St. Cloud in the WCHA first round. It was then that I knew we had hired the right coach to turn the program around. Three years later, we had our sixth NCAA title in the trophy case. While FU had some growing pains their first couple of years as a full FCS program, they also were competitive during their transition and rarely got blown out or failed to show up on game day. Look at what they did vs. Minnesota (a bad FBS program, but an FBS program nonetheless) during their transition period. All this probably helped in their recruiting during what is usually a tough time to get the players you want. It also instilled a winning culture and attitude, which had been lost during the disastrous Bob Babich era. Based on all those things, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they are having the success they are having right now. It all starts at the top, with the CEO. And right now, there is some question whether or not Mussman is the right CEO to lead this program to special things. I am still on the fence with Mussman, but I do think finishing 7-4 would dramatically help him with recruiting and with instilling a winning culture and attitude in this program that we haven't had since the early to mid 2000's.

I agree with you on this point. They didn't kneel three times and punt on every possession. They kept pushing to get first downs and control the clock and our defense hung in there and made some stops. There are some positives from last night (and no, I am not declaring a "moral victory"). I am more than willing to wait until the season is over before passing judgment on where we are as a program. I do think we need to stop the run better if we are going to beat teams like Montana, Montana State and Eastern Washington.

Why does Mussman get stubborn with starting certain players at certain positions and sticking with them no matter what? I can just hear him saying to the media this week "Jake Miller is our starting running back". I don't think Miller is good enough to shoulder the load for the entire game and get the yardage we need to get on the ground. Why not have a platoon at RB and get everybody involved? It would open up the playbook and make us less predictable. Platooning QBs generally doesn't work, but it does work for RBs and I think we should do it. There is no point in holding back our playbook anymore, not with the meat of our schedule coming up.

What was that smart remark for? I know you don't like anyone that points out anything negative about your favorite squad, but please explain your comment.

You could have written this in the 1980's. Things changed dramatically in the 1990's, didn't they? And this whole erroneous idea that if hockey is great, everything else has to be mediocre has got to die. We are Division I in everything now, so we have to start holding all our programs to the same level of excellence. Anything less is not worth wasting our time and money on.

Whatever improves the defense is fine with me. I am getting sick and tired of every cornerstone RB we play against racking up huge yardage. It doesn't matter what team it is (in conference or out), if their RB is the cornerstone of their offense, he'll rack up huge yardage against us. This program used to be known for stopping the run and containing (and sometimes even SHUTTING DOWN) feature RBs. The BSC has some good RBs and I am not looking forward to watching us give up huge chunks of yardage to each and every one of them and having to listen to "Milquetoast" Mike Berg cheerlead their every exploit. Tonight, I wasn't sure if I had the UND football network or the Jackrabbit football network on my portable radio. If we can solve this, it will go a long way towards getting this program to where we all want it.

Well, I would opine here, but every time I do that I have people questioning my loyalty to the school and the athletic department. I do think that a 7-4 finish would indicate that the program is progressing. I think anything less is going to make that head coaching seat a little warmer for Mussman.

That's right. Tonight's game, there was an energy that hasn't been there in a while. I hope the fans keep showing up and don't give up on the team.

Honestly, I don't care about the polls at all. Those are subjective at best anyway. I am more interested in winning some of these big games we have coming up. Montana is up next. Time to start winning these games. Cut out the turnovers and I think we can.

One thing that needs to be addressed in recruiting is getting some size up front on defense. We are going to struggle against the run all season just because we don't have enough size and strength up front. One positive tonight is that the team didn't fold after falling behind 21 points. Last year, they might have. Looking forward to next week vs. Montana. It's been a long time since we have had really big, meaningful games to look forward to.

And in 2005, they put him in the entrance video for our home games! I think that must have jinxed us vs. Omaha.

I think it was 20K or 25K. Those numbers might work with Mayville State or UM-Crookston, but not an FCS program.

I believe Bunning's track record was even worse. Thank God we have Faison now; he has done a solid job of avoiding buyouts.

To be fair, FU had to bring in Ferris (Wheel) State because they had to find a last-minute replacement and that is all that was left. I don't think they are happy about it at all.

I believe that whole chair-throwing incident was contrived to get his team fired up (I think they were losing that game).

Please tell me you are not trying to compare and contrast Belichick and Mussman. That is apples and oranges x 1000. I am on the fence about Mussman, but I do think this is a big season for him and his staff.

I think a 7-4 record with a couple of signature wins vs. top FCS teams would qualify as a successful season. It also would reassure our fan base that the program is taking positive steps forward.

I guess it's a "free market" for the cable companies as they negotiate amongst themselves. But it's not the "free market" I learned about in college (or even high school for that matter). What you are describing is a oligopoly or a duopoly. While a perfectly competitive market does not (and probably never has and never will) exist, neither of these conditions can ever be described as a "free market".

If Cable One does eventually lose their exclusive contract with Fargo, the bolded sentence above will be a big reason why. Erecting barriers to entry like this backfire in the long-run.

I have no problem playing hardball to a point. Obviously, you don't want anyone taking advantage of you. But the fact that the fall sports season has started and this deal still isn't done tells me that someone is simply refusing to budge on anything. Since Midcontinent has successfully negotiated deals with other cable companies, but not Cable One, that would seem to point to Cable One as the main culprit. But that is just pure speculation; it could be Midcontinent or it could be both of them. Again, the main remedy for this is for UND fans in Fargo to contact Cable One and tell them what you want. Nothing else will have much impact on anybody.

I don't think we realized how special that 2001 season in the Alerus Center really was until those times were gone with the transition to FCS. Maybe this weekend will be a new beginning for us.

Where have I ever said that Midco should "give away" anything? Please do not put words in my mouth (and that goes for everybody else on this thread). Midcontinent should sell the rights to Cable One for whatever price they end up negotiating. The only point I have been trying to make is that both entities are trying to get 100% of what they want from each other. That never happens, I don't think it's even possible. And in the end, it's the customer (a.k.a. the people that ultimately pay the bills) that gets used as a pawn. Do you think Ralph Engelstad ever negotiated with the idea that he would get 100% of what he wanted from a potential partner and would walk away if he didn't get it? I say no. I say if he had, he wouldn't have been as successful in Las Vegas and we wouldn't have the $104 million arena bearing his name. I think Ralph even said he wanted to get out of the casino business because he tired of all the long legal contracts and liked it better when deals were sealed with a simple handshake. And please don't think I am a shill for Cable One; I have a buddy in Fargo that HATES Cable One and has said if he couldn't have a dish, he would just go without anything. I think their monopoly is bad for customers and I think it's only a matter of time before it is done away with, no matter what happens with this deal. There are just too many people in Fargo that want a choice in cable providers for it not to happen eventually. I am not promoting "altruism", I am promoting free market competition so that those of us paying ever-increasing monthly cable bills can vote with our wallets and influence what programming is offered to them. Cable One is just one example of how large, powerful, monopolistic companies are insulated from the natural consequences of marketplace competition and can just screw over whomever they want whenever they want. You, ironically, made my point for me when you brought up Standard Oil. They were broken up because they were using their monopolistic position to suck up all the wealth for themselves and shut out any potential competitors. AT&T was broken up in 1982; now there are a plethora of phone providers to choose from. My ultimate point is that one or both of these cable providers are likely being stubborn with each other and are trying to get 100% of everything for themselves and that the rest of us pay the price for it. UND fans in Fargo need to call Cable One and tell them you want UND sports this season. Let your wallets do the talking.

Just happened to run across this article from the LA Times (reprinted in today's Star Tribune). This is the point I have been trying to make, that Midcontinent and Cable One shouldn't sacrifice the long-term for the short-term: Cord-cutting reality: Pay-TV industry loses 217,000 subscribers http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-pay-tv-industry-loses-subscribers-20130903,0,7983225.story Cable companies turn off potential future customers at their own peril. Of course, the customer only has leverage if they use it. Fighting Sioux fans in Fargo need to contact Cable One and tell them they want UND sports on their televisions.

Again, like I said, I am not affected by this. I live in Grand Forks and I have season tickets to football and hockey. So I don't even have a dog in the fight, I was just making an observation. And I stand by that observation. The bolded part is what is wrong with our economy today. Companies getting too big for their britches, to the point where they feel they can screw over their customers without any natural consequences. And in this case, they are taking that attitude and applying it to each other with regards to programming. There is lots of money to be made by a lot of people without putting anyone out of business. Cable One is not a threat to Midcontinent in the Upper Midwest. And Midcontinent can score points with potential, future customers in Fargo by cutting a deal with Cable One (because, sooner or later, that exclusive contract will be done away with). But we live in a short-sighted society and this is another symptom of that. But please feel free to continue accepting whatever explanation you are given. I prefer to analyze it critically and point out things that need to be pointed out. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I think this has less to do with being scared of UND and more to do with having trouble selling tickets after they fired their head coach for what I can only imagine are political reasons. I think they did a lot of damage to their program when they did that.