fightingsioux4life

Nice run by Manke for the first down, ball at Winona 20.

End of third quarter. Time to put in all the reserves we can. UND 38 WSU 6

Reed Manke now in at Quarterback. Sioux advance ball to the Winona 38. UND 38 WSU 6

Winona attempts 26 yard field goal. FG is good. Good stop by defense. UND 38 WSU 6

Winona now on the Sioux 11, with the help of some penalties. UND 38 WSU 3

Sioux starting to get after the quarterback again, forcing incompletions. Dan Hammer says Sioux fans now outnumber Warrior fans! Winona getting some home-cooking from the refs, not helping today.

TOUCHDOWN!!! Dressler makes a bobbling, one-foot-in catch for the TD. PAT is good. 5:59 left in third quarter. UND 38 WSU 3

Sioux now on Winona 10. Another touchdown should put the final nail in the coffin. UND 31 WSU 3

Also, this guy is not turning it over all of the time.

Sioux hold on 4th down, take over on own 39. UND 31 WSU 3

New Winona QB more effective, could make second half interesting

11:06 left, third quarter Sioux forced to punt. Time for a three and out.

Second half underway. Sioux must avoid letdown. UND 31 WSU 3

Good points, but you forgot to mention WDAY television and radio and their radical homerism for all things NDSU. A college friend of mine who lives in Fargo has a satellite dish. When it came time to choose his ABC affiliate, he picked WDAZ (Devils Lake, Grand Forks) over WDAY (Fargo). He just can't stand how they slobber all over NDSU all the time. Yes, local stations are always a little bit of a homer for the hometown team, but I think WDAY TV and radio and the Fargo Forum newspaper take it to a sickeningly low level. The Forum's recent articles and editorials slamming UND and hyping up NDSU as the greatest thing since sliced bread were totally over the top, even for them. If the suits recognize the popularity and marketability of Sioux athletics, that's awesome. But that philosophy doesn't extend too far down the food chain at Forum Communications. I just felt that fact needed to be pointed out.

I would not be surprised if this was true. It fits right into the arrogance and conceit that is prevelant in the NDSU/Fargo/Imperial Cass-Clay County area. Of course, NDSU and their allies in Forum Communications will paint this as another step in moving to "the highest levels in athletics, academics and research", blah, blah, blah. But all it will accomplish is to forever remove NDSU's football program from any sort of national title contention. If Chapman and Taylor think that NDSU would be anything more than another Buffalo, Florida Atlantic or Louisiana-Monroe in D-IA, then they're in for a shock. The Bison would be smart to stick with D-IAA football, but again this is NDSU we are talking about.

Ask UC-Davis, North Alabama, Pittsburg State or anybody else who has played (and lost) playoff games in the Alerus Center if they think we have the best home field advantage in D-II. I think the answer would be yes. I loved the outdoor atmosphere of Memorial Stadium and there are Bison fans who are still upset that the Bison moved indoors. But you can't argue with success and that is what we've enjoyed at home since 2001. Three of those four home losses were in 2002, which was just a bad year all around. The other loss was in 2001 against Omaha (one blocked punt away from an undefeated season! ). If all you want to focus on is your hatred of the Alerus Center and indoor football, be my guest. I'll just continue to enjoy games at the Al (hopefully well into November this year).

SiouxFan4Life05, I have to disagree with you here. The Fargodome is only intimidating if it is full, which doesn't happen very often. It is so cavernous inside that the crowd noise isn't that effective unless all 19,000 seats are full and everyone is making noise. The last Sioux-Bison game at the Dome was technically a sellout, but there were a lot of empty seats (UND finished 5-6 that season, NDSU finished 2-8). The atmosphere was dead. The only good thing about the game is that we won (12-6, I believe). The Al doesn't hold as many people, but the ceiling is lower (which increases the noise) and the fans are right on top of the field. The noise level is incredible, especially during close games. For my money, quality is more important than quantity. And how can you badmouth the Al when we've lost a grand total of 4 games since we started playing in there in 2001? It's the best home field advantage in D-II football. I don't care what it looks like from the outside, I care about the results on the inside.

IowaBison, Let's put the semantics aside and look at the facts: 1) The NC$$ is a monopoly. It makes Microsoft look altruistic by comparison. You either are a part of the NC$$ or you don't have an athletic department. And don't bring up the NAIA, that is not an option for most schools, including UND. 2) Even those on the anti-nickname side (like the Grand Forks Heraldo) have argued that UND should make the decision, not the NC$$. 3) If the NC$$ gets by with this, what other institutional decisions will they stick their noses into? The ethnic and cultural diversity of the student body? The male-female ratio of the student body? If the NC$$ wins this case, they will in essence own every school's athletic department lock, stock and barrel. By the way, that would include NDSU. 4) If these anti-nickname groups win this war, what other names and symbols will they target next? I think the team name of your school is a possibility. Bison are cultural and spiritual symbols of many Native American tribes. They might argue that the use of the Bison nickname is "hostile and offensive" to them because you are using their cultural symbols for "fun and games". I think that is more possible than most people think. Once they gain an inch, they'll take a mile. Or two.

roper1313, So the Bison finished 8-3 last year playing a creampuff schedule that included Montana Tech (NAIA), Valparaiso (D-IAA non-scholarship) and South Dakota State (a very weak D-IAA probationary team) and that proves that they are competitive? Give ME a break! If the Bison are so good and competitive right now, they should have went 11-0 with that schedule. I don't care what the polls say, national polls are usually not accurate. Just wait until NDSU starts playing legitimate D-IAA programs on a regular basis and they'll realize that there is a learning curve to moving up one whole division. Look at Northern Colorado. They were a D-II powerhouse and looked decent at first, but I think they finished 2-8 last year. NDSU will be competitive on a national level, but it won't happen without some growing pains first. This is my last comment on this thread since this is a hockey board. Perhaps we can take this conversation over to a different board?

You are right about DI-A teams, the top teams in I-A are more professional than college. But I don't know if I-AA is that big of a jump from D-II. I have heard Dale Lennon talk about how the jump from D-II to DI-AA is not as big as it sounds. Also, there are a lot of non-scholarship "D-IAA" programs (like Valparaiso) that are a joke compared to programs like ours. Yes, programs like NDSU have hurdles to climb in their move to Division I (finances, scheduling, etc.) but I think their football program will become competitive at the I-AA level at some point within the next 5 to 8 years. Their other programs will probably never contend nationally like they used to. Bottom line, we have the best of all worlds; D-I hockey (men's and women's) and D-II in everything else. And three of our programs are national contenders year in and year out (Men's Hockey, Women's Basketball and Football). A lot of schools have only one decent sport, if that. I'm not totally against moving up under the right circumstances, but I like what we have now. And I enjoy each sport for what it is.

WCU was better than what that conference and region usually have to offer, which is not much. Good receivers, good running backs, some very athletic linebackers (sound familiar?). Teams with this much offensive talent will rack up yards, even on our defense. Remember the UC-Davis playoff game in 2001? We gave up more yards than our seasonal average, but we kept them off the scoreboard. That being said, there are some things we need to work on. WCU's third down conversion rate was unacceptable. I lost count of how many third down's they converted, and some of them were long-distance situations. We also fell for some misdirection plays that a veteran defense like ours shouldn't fall for. Their lone scoring drive was way too easy for them, we didn't make them earn it. Still, it's hard to complain about a 41-7 win. We've become spoiled over the last 4 years or so. We have a tough schedule this season, so we better get used to being in tough battles on both offense and defense. It's better to play quality competition like West Chester instead of Moorhead and Crookston. Playing and beating good teams will look good when playoff selection time rolls around.

Sioux run out the clock! FINAL UND 44 CWU 20 Dale Lennon says a lot left to work on, left points on the field. Fumbles are a concern, along with giving up generous chunks of yardage on kickoffs. Home opener next week vs. West Chester.

A meaningless TD for Central Washington. PAT is good. 0:53 left in the game. UND 44 CWU 20 Defensive stats won't look as good, but a win is a win.