WeAreNorthDakota

But ESPN couldn't care less. They wouldn't budge on the basketball game time and there's no way the athletic department could run a basketball game and hockey game simultaneously.

Plus Montana could be without Ward and Cherry.

Not only are they a top notch game but they're a school we'd be smart to try to build a history with as quickly as possible. Starting to build rivalries with Montana and Montana State is going to be a big part of getting butts in the seats again at the Alerus. Smart money says the Montana game gets played.

Pretty sure it was also done for the Stars/Lancers game down in Omaha. Not 100% sure if they switched sides but the 3rd period was broken into 2 10 minute periods.

Phase 1 is the actual practice area. The football field and track and field areas. Phase 2 is the office space locker rooms. I believe there might be some football office space and a new weight room included in Phase 1 but a large majority of the office space for track & field and cross country teams as well as the administrative staff will be included in Phase 2.

He's been signed for about 2 months but George Strait's promoter wouldn't let the Alerus announce the concert because it may have hurt George's sales. Jason Aldean was announced less than an hour after George was off the stage.

Why should we care if he acts buddy buddy or not? He has Bison in his name. We should hate him and we should expect him to hate us. The fact that he makes rational posts about his fan base occasionally is appreciated but the fact is he's a fan of our biggest rival on a fan message board. If we were to meet in person I would no doubt enjoy having a beer with the guy but on a message board he's just a name who wears the wrong shade of green and chooses to highlight it with piss. Anyone who expects friendly rival posters clearly hasn't spent a whole lot of time on message boards.

Anyone know how long phase 1 is going to take to build? Completed sometime this fall or is it gonna be a Summer 2014 thing?

MSU bought out the game for no other reason than for the money. Several people have said that it's not worth the extra $100,000 they might make. SERIOUSLY??? That much money may be a small percentage of their athletic budget or even their football budget but it makes a difference. If Faison could find a rock-solid way to make an extra $100,000 next season he'd be all over it. That'd be enough to pay for the new road jerseys they're already planning on getting for this year but would also allow us to get new home greens and still have $50,000 left over to put towards the conference travel expenses. If I'm MSU I jump on that opportunity every time. EDIT: Forgot to add that doing this so late in the game may be the right financial choice but it's bush league. Hopefully buyout clauses for both UND and NDSU are at least doubled going forward because this type of thing is robbing us of quality OOC games.

Webb's travel call and his matching "standing on the sideline" turnovers were killers. We had a chance to get some separation and really put our foots on their throat on all 3 of those possessions but we gave them the ball back without even making them work for it. Frustrating to say the least.

Fantastic news! I'm guessing the Herald hasn't reported anything because it was a private event. Any idea if May 1st is the day they'll be knocking down the old Engelstad or the day they'll begin actual construction on the IPF?

I wouldn't be surprised to see teams start putting deadlines on buyout clauses. A simple "must be exercised 1year in advance of kickoff" would've saved Gene a huge headache in this situation. Also, you have to wonder if Gene will ever agree to travel on the front end of a home and home again. Bison fans, the first game of the upcoming series with Montana is in the Fargodome correct? Do any of you expect Gene to buyout the return trip or will he honor the contract?

That's my thought as well. However, if the Big Ten does make it their official policy it could easily lead to other conferences taking the same action.

No, not on TV. But as Jayson said, there will only be a a handful of doubleheader Fridays. If there are 5 doubleheader Fridays and UND is involved with 2 of them that leaves 3 Fridays out of the whole season that UND cannot broadcast on Midco. There's a good chance we'd be either on the road or on an off week for 2 of those Fridays so in all reality you're bitching about 1 game not being on TV. Is the sky really falling? Come on. The other thing that gets me about this debate is that we have no idea how Midco is going to grow and expand in the future. We hitched our wagon to an up and coming network and became their flagship school. Sure they're not on CableOne in Fargo yet but that could easily change before next season. Also, who's to say Midco doesn't get picked up by DirecTV as part of their sports pack? If that happens we'd be back with our national footprint on top of the revenue being paid to us by Midco. It may be a long shot but it's certainly worth the gamble if it pays off, especially since FCS was pulling back their support of other sports and deciding only to pick up our hockey broadcasts.

Looks to be a pretty solid core of talent on this team with Campbell and Thome as building blocks. Campbell looks poised to break school records in home runs at some point in his career and Thome exploded onto the scene last year putting up some of the best numbers in the country among freshman pitchers. Those guys alone are reason enough to head out to Kraft Field but there are plenty of other guys on the team who are a blast to watch. Can't wait for the season to start!

Stuck behind a senior who had a pretty good year. The reason we're all excited about Sparks this year is because he was a guy we were universally excited about when he signed and is no longer blocked on the depth chart. The fact that he didn't get any playing time last year even in mop up duty is a bit concerning to me but it's not as if there was another underclassman getting reps ahead of him, Muss just stuck with the starters for whatever reason. Sparks kicks the !@#$ out of the eye test and, let's be honest, this is a fan message board where everyone falls in love with the next big thing. I realistically think PJ can step in and do exactly what Sutton did last year but it's easy to gush over the upside.

I don't see Robertson having a major impact this year like most people assume he will. This isn't a Braden Hanson situation where he came in with 4 years of college experience and will instantly be our best guy at his position. The kid is going to be a freshman and we already have an extremely talented group of guys ahead of him. We put up numbers in the passing game last year that we've never seen at UND and none of the guys catching all those balls are leaving. He's not going to take snaps away from Hardin. He's a completely different different player than both Jackson and Golloday and likely won't take any of their snaps either. That's 60% of our receptions last year out of only 3 guys. The only guy I can see him taking snaps from is RJ and he's gonna have to be one hell of a special player if he's gonna take a year off from playing football after high school and take snaps from a 5th year senior. For a breakout guy on the offensive side of the ball I'm looking for a re-breakout from Jake Miller. Outside of the Mines game last year he was pretty much a non-factor. I think if the coaches stop trying to run him between the tackles and behind a fullback and start getting him the ball on the outside of the field where he can use his speed he'll get back to being a home-run kind of guy.

First of all, raises for all coaches across the board would be asinine. The answer to raising pay to a competitive level is to give raises to coaches when they've earned them and to offer a competitive salary to new hires. Raising salaries is a gradual process. It's not as simple as a giving everyone a raise so our salary numbers look like the rest of the Dakota schools. Secondly, do you honestly think the coaching staffs and administrators aren't setting performance goals? What exactly do think Faison and Mussman have been doing? Running it like a Madden Franchise?

I've always thought you could video boards on the walls above the permanent seating facing the opposite side. Right now they are just blank walls so putting up video boards on them wouldn't obstruct anything currently being used at the Betty.

Does it really take a different colored font for Bison fans to recognize sarcasm?

Nope. Luke Schleusner. Played WR on our D2 National Title team. Coached at Western Illinois for a time followed by Minnesota State. Just his 2nd year on our staff but he's already making a name for himself both as a position coach and recruiter.

I've never really been to a place that really blows me away with their fries. I feel like fries are either bad or acceptable, never great. I always opt for 2 burgers at JL instead of getting fries to just chew on. But I'll agree with whoever said the chips are excellent, especially the new loaded ones.

I say if there's an untapped market (like I think our coaches see in the northern part of Illinois) you go for it as opposed to focusing your efforts going head to head with the Montanas, all the California schools and the rest of the MWC.

You saw a similar increase in the number of kids out of Illinois signed last year also though. This year is a very strong class in Illinois but it's also pretty obvious to me that we're making Illinois a priority.

Seriously. He coaches far and away the best position group on the team and is outrecruiting every other coach. Hopefully we promote him before he gets away.