fightingsioux4life

The 1994 Potato Bowl. A hot, sunny day. We turned it over 5 times and still almost pulled off the win. Bouman scored on the final play of the game as the clock ran out. You could have heard a pin drop in that place.

I am looking forward to the day when we talk about our players being great instead of everybody freaking else. And that goes double for you, "Milquetoast" Mike Berg. There was a time when our D made embarrassing other team's "stars" a regular occurrence. I can't wait until we get back to that.

Cassel led the Patriots to a good season after Brady went down in Game 1 in 2008. That is more than Ponder has ever accomplished.

Thanks for reminding us that it could, indeed, be worse.

*Yawn* Back to the NFL for me.

Four things: 1) Ponder must be benched. I'll take my chances with Matt Cassel from this point forward. 2) Some of the young guys on defense need to step up and make some plays. The Lions did whatever they wanted on offense the entire freaking game. That cannot continue next week at the Bears. 3) AP is the same old AP.......a.k.a. "Awesome"! 4) I would not be surprised if the Vikes take a step back this year. Last year's 10-6 record was unexpected with such a young team, as I think they overachieved a little bit. This year, teams won't take them lightly (like I think the 49ers did last year in the Dome) and the 1st and 2nd year guys will get the best from every team in the league. If Spielman keeps drafting well and signing free agents to fill any gaping holes (like Greg Jennings), the team should continue to improve and I believe will be a championship contender in a couple of years. Still loyal and still bleeding purple! Skol Vikings!!!

Thank you for the kind remarks. We are very happy with the Big Sky conference and believe it is a good, long-term home for our programs. We also are proud to be associated with top-notch schools like Montana and Montana State. Don't be a stranger on this forum, feel free to opine on whatever we are griping about!

I worry about the same thing when I see it in the Heraldo (not as much as it used to be, but still happens too much for my taste). I honestly don't want the PC police to latch onto this and start promoting "Green and White" as the "non-offensive choice to promote more diversity" or whatever garbage they might come up with. I think the sooner they start the winnowing down process of potential names, the sooner this becomes nothing more than a sideshow distraction.

Here, here. That is a nice, succinct description of our program right now. Not hot and not cold. Lukewarm. Unfortunately, the top kids in FCS don't want to play for cold programs or lukewarm programs. It's ultimately their opinions that matter the most.

That's the problem, I don't think we have the horses to be physical up-front. That goes back to recruiting and that falls on the coaching staff (not the players). Unless the players are doing the recruiting and I don't know about it. Mussman owns this program now; lock, stock and barrel, for better or worse. Period.

My point is that most of the time on this forum, whenever someone dares to say something critical or negative about our athletic programs (even if it's true), they get raked over the hot coals for not being a "real fan" or being "spoiled" or whatever other garbage I have seen posted. I like green-colored glasses and I enjoy the taste of green-colored Kool-Aid as much as the next person on here, but I also think some objectivity is healthy for even the most avid fans of this school and athletic program. And that is sorely lacking for some people on here. The simple fact that ScottM chose to make it personal by questioning my loyalty is proof that I struck a nerve with our fan base. And that was the intent of the original posting. -I will support our teams and this school as long as I am drawing a breath and have a heartbeat. But I will not be a sycophant for any program or any team, no matter who they are. If that makes me the bad guy, so be it. -If I get a little too emotional and post things when I should get a good night's sleep first, and that makes me the bad guy, so be it. I admit I was in a foul mood when I posted my "manifesto" and probably should have waited until morning. But I think most of my original points would have remained the same anyway. -If people are going to question my loyalty and commitment to this athletic department and this university and, as a result, label me the bad guy, so be it. Most of the people on here (minus the FU trolls) love this school and program and want nothing but the best for every team, coach and student-athlete on campus. And I am in that camp. But that sometimes means calling a spade a spade and not calling it something else because that makes everybody feel all warm and fuzzy inside. That was what I was doing in my original post. If some people disagree with it, I can accept that. But I stand by the points I made. And I will happily eat crow if those points are proved wrong by our teams.

IIRC, Babich's last team was 2-8. According to you, it's all about players making plays. So why didn't they do that under Babich? What say you?

Not according to some people....... FWIW, I agree with you.

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.