WeAreNorthDakota

It most definitely wasn't the D2 norm to have guys from Oregon (Braun) or New York (Webb) but you occasionaly had guys from outside the "north of Kansas and west of Ohio" footprint which isn't any different than the teams now. Just between UND and NDSU you have only 4 guys from outside that footprint out of 30 on the combined rosters right now. Compare that to the 2004-2005 teams (the earliest year for rosters on GoBison.com) and you have 2 guys out of 30 from outside that footprint.

NDSU made the NCAA tournament in its first year out of the transition and SDSU made the tournament in its 4th year as a full D1 program and there's a very good chance one of you will make the tournament again this year, the 5th year out of the transition. Explain to me how that isn't quick success? Nobody is saying NDSU could've assembled the Woodside class while still in D2 because those same guys likely would've been more spread out over the all-D2 NCC. With NDSU and SDSU having the advantage of an extra couple scholarships and the allure of D1 and the NCAA tournament they were able to attract more of those elite-NCC type guys and got the cream of that crop (Woodside, Wolters, etc.). That's the recipe I'm talking about. Before there were any low-major D1 teams in our region there was plenty of low-major D1 talent in the area, it was just being spread out between 10-12 regional D2 teams instead of the 5 D1 teams we have in the region now.

You mean we didn't beat out half the PAC-12 for him? Damn.

Pretty obvious when you consider the quick success that NDSU and SDSU have had out of the transition. Largely the same types of players plus 1 or 2 more top level NCC-type guys makes for a solid low-major basketball recipe.

We've shown flashes of being able to play with both Montana and Weber but we've struggled with maintaining that level of play for 40 minutes or even for extended periods of time. If we get on a run come tournament time like we have the last two years we could have a shot of knocking off one of them. The problem is we'll likely have to knock off both to win the conference tournament. Going to be a tall order us or any other Big Sky team. To bet on anyone but Weber and Montana at this point would be foolish.

There's a night and day difference between his junior year and senior year highlights. I'd never believe he ran a 4.5 40 just by looking at his junior year film but it's believable looking at his senior year film. He shows flashes of pretty good speed and athleticism (most specific example being the play where he hurdles the defender without much of dropoff in speed). Runs pretty upright, especially for only being 5'11". He looks to be very much a late bloomer which is likely why he doesn't have any scholarship offers but you can see why a coaching staff would offer a PWO spot. If he really loves the game then there's absolutely no reason not to give it a shot so long as it is not a major financial burden on your family. If he sticks and ends up earning some scholarship money down the road, great. If he ends up not being good enough, he's still earning an education which will better him for the rest of his life. I very much enjoyed my time at UND but I'll always regret not going for a tryout when I got to campus. If your family can afford to pay his way or can take on the debt of student loans, then there's nothing to lose and I believe 100% that he should give it a shot.

We're seeing the beginning of that building block at the QB spot also. The coaches very easily could've looked at Mollberg, Bartels, and Hanson and said "We're good, we've got these guys for the next couple years. Let's focus our efforts somewhere else." But they went out and signed a quality guy in Riddle and had their eyes on a few other guys. Shows me that they're being aggressive and not settling for the status quo. That's exactly the attitude we're going to need if we're going to see an improvement in the team next year both on the defensive side of the ball and overall.

Spring game should be our first good look at last year's PWOs. Fall camp is the only place we've seen any of them on the field and they looked very raw as you would expect a PWO to be in there first camp. They'll get a fair shake at the spring game as they had a whole season of practice time and will have most of an offseason's worth in the weight room.

Even in my lectures I was often sitting on my couch behind a computer and not sitting next to my classmates in class. Maybe I shouldn't have been counted either?

They could go 7-1 in the Big Sky and barely get a look from the committee. Talk about sending a message to your players that you don't care to see them in the postseason.

What are they trying to do? Write the book on how to give yourself no shot at the playoffs under any circumstances?

How long did it take Lakes to get banned here?

I hadn't realized NAU plays both basketball and football in the same building. From that highlight video it looked cavernous with a lot of empty seats. It'd be interesting to see a comparison of teams who play both sports in the same venue and to take a look at their atmospheres for each. It obviously works for Syracuse at the Carrier Dome but I'm guess there aren't many other examples of great atmospheres in shared venues.

While I think both of those things will contribute to higher attendance in the long term, I never really expected a big bump in the first year. It takes people a little while to get settled into a routine, especially after 5 years of utter randomness when it came to basketball scheduling. When it comes to the Big Sky, it's a matter of our fans not knowing who these teams are yet. Those of us who are die hards and have been chomping at the bit to get out of the Great West and into a legitimate conference are very aware of which teams are good at which sports and which games should be in higher demand. The reality is that a big majority of our fans don't see any difference between Sac State, Weber State , or Idaho State. I'd be willing to bet that if, at the game on Thursday, you ask 20 random people who the top 2 teams in the Big Sky are 10 of them wouldn't be able to name both Weber State and Montana. We'll get there but it's going to take a few years for our more casual fans and Grand Forks as a whole to really become familiar with the Big Sky.

Yeah but I kinda like fake yelling at Bison fans. Plus, having this thread keeps all this recycling of the same old arguments at least partially confined to one place.

Do any of our DLine commits have the size to come in and play right away. They look talented enough but they all seem like "put on bulk" kind of guys. Not like Edwards last year where he came in and looked the part right away. I personally think either Reyes or Kuska has the best shot at getting a shirt pulled of our current commits. And, like you said, a corner who we may not know about yet. Of course, there are always going to be a 1 or 2 guys who force the coaches hand and make them pull the shirt and give them playing time right off the bat but my point was that we're not going to find the answers to our defensive struggles in this class. The guys in this class are the guys who are hopefully going to step into starting/impact roles during their 3rd season on campus because the guys we signed the last two years are good enough to fill the holes we saw last year. This is why coaches and staffs need to be given time develop their recruiting classes. There aren't any overnight fixes in college football, especially at the FCS level.

I apologize if I read this wrong and you meant these as two wholly separate questions but people really need to stop thinking we'll be filling the holes in our defense with this year's recruiting class. This is not NFL free agency. If we see an improvement on the defensive side of the ball it is highly unlikely that it will come from this class. The guys who will be improving the defense will be the guys who were recruited last year and the year before that. If you're going to be judging this class by whether their redshirts are pulled and they're starters as true freshman you're going to be disappointed. Not every recruit is going to be a Golloday who comes in and makes an impact right away.

Solid game for the full 40 minutes tonight. Cut the turnovers way down even though they occasionally threw some press at us. Shot a less than stellar percentage and still won a conference game by 20. Hopefully this gets us back on track after a bad stretch there.

Try Big Sky Player of the Year. Leading the league in scoring and he's the leading rebounder on his team.

Even if you only count the 6 games he played significant minutes in, that's still 20% of the season. I'm guessing he would not be able to get a medical redshirt. Did he redshirt as a freshman or did he play right away? If he didn't redshirt originally I could see a higher probability but I still don't think it's likely.

Both the volleyball team and the men's basketball team will have legitimate chances at winning the Big Sky next year and the women's hockey team will make the NCAA tournament this year and have a chance to host a first round game.

I was a student at UND from 2007-2012. Oh how the times must've changed.

That's a ridiculous thing to say. Whether the football teams play or not is not going to change the fact that there will ALWAYS be a rivalry between the two universities. The two schools are not going to get any farther apart and they will always be the premiere universities in the state. Sure, out of state students may not be privy to the history but any kid who grows up in North Dakota and decides to attend one school or the other likely had a choice between the two. UND and NDSU will always be compared to one another and it has little to do with football. You see it every fall when enrollment numbers come out and there's bickering between the two schools about who's bigger. Plus, the rivalry has now been renewed in basketball, baseball, volleyball, and soccer and ten years later people in media circles in both Grand Forks and Fargo are still talking about it. The rivalry between UND and NDSU runs so much deeper than a competition on the football field and it's not going away during my lifetime even if Gene and Brian are here for the next 50 years and never settle their differences.

The only way this makes any difference is if the federal courts tell the NCAA their sanctions and policy are unenforceable. This won't happen because FOR THE 50,000TH TIME the NCAA is a voluntary organization that can implement any rules it pleases. But let's just say SL wins. The NCAA would strike the hostile and abusive policy and its corresponding sanctions and we could return to our nickname. But the NCAA could then propose a rule giving itself whatever power the federal courts said they did not have in their bylaws back when the policy was implemented. This rule would easily pass because 98% of the member institutions would not be affected and wouldn't even give the vote a second thought. The NCAA could then enact the policy again and we'd be right back to where we were 6 years ago. I want nothing more than to be the Fighting Sioux for the rest of eternity but it has been clear to me for some time that it just won't happen. It'll be a lot more painless if you just try to begin to accept that.

You always need to be recruiting players at every position. Last year's roster listed 12 receivers and was by far our best and deepest position group. That group will lose 1 senior (Heimler), 1 guy switched positions (Ivery), and 1 guy will no longer be on the team (Oliver). Then you have 3 guys who will be seniors next season. If we hadn't gotten commitments from Robertson and Carr and hadn't recruited receivers because we're already deep there we'd be left with 6 receivers on the roster for 2014 and possibly fewer if there's unexpected attrition like with Oliver. It may look like we need to be focusing more on defense or the offensive line or any other area of weakness in any given year but the reality is that we need to be getting quality players at every position, every year if we're going to build a year-in year-out contender. WR is one position where we are where we need to be but that absolutely does not mean we can forget about it for a year.