WeAreNorthDakota

I believe he is California? Could he have turned Hawkins?

A 5-way tie for 4th place. This is gonna be a really fun 2nd half of the season.

But do they have a decent spot to watch while standing? (like the endzones at the Alerus) or are there just tunnels like at the Ralph?

I've got standing room only tickets as well. I've never been to Mariucci before. Any tips on how to make the best of standing room tickets or are there GA sections we can get to early to snipe?

Page 96 of the media guide has the top 31 scorers in UND basketball history and a breakdown of each of the seasons they played at UND. http://www.undsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=13500&ATCLID=205781178

SFI's writeup on Robertson said they believe he'll have 4 years of eligibility left but I'm not sure whether he's eligible for a redshirt. If he's not he'll basically just going to take the place of Oliver if he did indeed leave the team. I don't think the number of quality receivers we have should dictate whether or not we target receivers in recruiting. The WR position is the only position on the team that is deep enough to start bringing in guys to develop to step in when they're redshirt juniors or seniors. Our lack of depth on defense means we're looking for guys to step in during their first or second year on campus and that's not a position we should ideally be in. If we stop recruiting receivers just because we have 5 good ones already then 3 or 4 years from now the cupboard is going to look pretty dry. You always need to be looking to reload.

Probably the most intense and passionate player I've ever seen at UND. Just a joy to watch. Plus, best linebacker name ever.

Agreed. It's not like the coaches were trying to preserve a redshirt or anything. Why not give him some carries in the second half against MSU or EWU?

Though there's a fine line to be walked with dynamic pricing, it can be an efficient way to capture revenue that is lost in the secondary market. The Twins use a simple model that charges fans a premium for games against the Yankees, White Sox, Red Sox, and another team or two (the specifics are escaping me) and it works quite well. The Giants, over the last few years, have employed a very complex dynamic pricing system that divides teams into several different tiers of demand and then adjusts ticket prices mid-season based on the Giants' success as well as the success of their opponents. The Giants' system is great from a theoretical economic standpoint but fans ended up feeling slighted by ticket values that were different depending on when a fan bought a ticket. NDSU would be ill-advised to use dynamic pricing for any games outside of SDSU, homecoming, and perhaps UNI for exactly the reason you stated with your SIU/MSU example. If NDSU is to go to a dynamic pricing model (which I think is inevitable given the fact that demand has grown to the capacity of the Fargodome) adding UND to the schedule adds another rock solid premium game with no risk of overstepping that fine line. This would provide a big revenue game with no chance of buyout to replace a guarentee game with a high chance of buyout and lower revenue.

UND doesn't have a series in Denver every season. Denver charges more for season tickets when UND is on the home schedule and less when they are not. Rocket science class dismissed.

If you take out his huge game against Mines he only gained 4.4 yards per carry. Not entirely ineffective but also not great and he only scored twice all season. I still think he can be an effective back but certainly not a feature guy. IMO he doesn't need more touches, he needs more efficient touches. He needs to be given the ball in space with screens and draws and plays on the edge where he can use his speed. Too often last season he was used between the tackles where he's no match for a linebacker outweighing him by 50 pounds.

I'm a younger guys so I'll just go with guys from my time actively following UND football. Lennon Kleinsasser Digger Dressler

That may be true, but what seems more justified? A $25 season ticket price increase with Western Carolina on the schedule or with UND on the schedule. I guarantee nobody bats an eye at the increase if UND's on the schedule but it may not seem to be worth the extra money just to see Western Carolina or St Francis.

And at this point, NDSU is maxed out. There's very little they can do besides increasing prices across the board. Bohl just got a big raise and was guaranteed top assistant coach budgets. Without another high revenue sport NDSU is going to have to make more money with the football program.

So nice of you to break it to Bisonville before their recruiting gurus.

Muss just tweeted a chest bump to Mannausau. Anybody in this weekend from Mannausau's recruiting area?

If it means the start of an every-other-year series with NDSU @ UND in 2015 I think he at least considers it. It may be worth taking one beating to get this thing going again. Unless we see a monumental defensive turnaround next year we're not going to the playoffs whether we play the game or not.

It's just odd to me that so many of our recruiting home runs were receivers while there were so many flops and underacheivers all over the rest of the field.

I say screw em for 2013 unless it's the start of a regular series. Don't give them the satisfaction of giving us a guarantee game with no return. If they don't want to restart the rivalry for good, let them bring in Montana Western or pay $300,000 for Colgate. I'm sick of Gene Taylor's stubborness on this issue. Maybe if he gets bit in the ass by his "championship scheduling formula" he'll finally see why this game benefits both schools in the long run.

Not the way I envisioned our first trip out to Montana. Hopefully this week goes better and we come back to Grand Forks ready to get on another roll.

Since we don't see a huge difference in crowds between our Men's and Women's teams, I decided to do a comparison of WBB and MBB attendance numbers in the Big Sky by dividing the WBB numbers by the MBB numbers. In BOLD below. 7 of the 11 teams in the Big Sky average a crowd that is at least half as big as their average MBB crowd with 3 teams over 75%. That 14% number for Weber just highlights how ridiculously big their MBB crowds are. I'm guessing they've had basketball games that have outdrew some of our football games during the transition.

I knew there was a guy I was overlooking. That's the kind of guy last year's defense was missing. Guys who make receivers look to the middle of the field to make sure they know where they are. Nobody on last year's defense struck any fear into anybody.

DL: Edwards. Already has the size and showed a lot of promise in fall camp. Definitely gonna have my eye on him in the spring game; more than any other player outside of Mollberg and Bartels LB: Rich. Lots of unknown young guys who should compete for 2-deep jobs after the pathetic showing that was last season. Rich is the guy I liked the most coming out of high school. DB: Cain. Seems like a really smart player based on his interviews for Opening Drive. Definitely a job for him to step up and take. Seems like he's the kind of kid who would grab an opportunity by the horns and I really hope he does. OL: Adams. I think he's on the 2-deep pushing for a starting job by the end of spring ball. Loved his tenacity and aggresiveness in the running game coming out of high school. Banking on a good year of coaching from Mr. Carey having him ready to contribute. QB: Mollberg. Not much to be said that hasn't been already. Hope the kid can handle the pressure because there's a lot of it riding on his shoulders. RB: Sparks. He has not been shy about wanting his shot. With Sutton gone and Miller having an underwhelming year, the shot's there if he's got the game and the work ethic to back up his own high hopes. TE: Nordby. Dominant ND kid. 2 ND grown TEs just left leaving room for Tucker to pick up right where they left off. Was absolutely exstatic about getting this kid last year and it hasn't worn off. WR: Robertson, Fletcher, Golloday, and Jackson make for a pretty solid receiving corps if we just count the underclassmen but that excludes the best player on the team. How is this position group so far ahead of the rest? It's night and day.

I definitely agree about not getting excited about highlight tapes because you can cherry pick 2 minutes worth of good plays from 2 seasons and make a guy look like a player. I look for a few things when looking at tapes like this. I like that this guy made several big hits and solid tackles against what appeared to be the same team and then also ranged to make a play on a quick pass to the outside from his deep safety position. Looks like the kind of guy who can be solid against the run and make a receiver think twice about what's coming over the middle of the field. I'm having a hard time remembering the last time we had a safety who liked to lay the wood to receivers and play around the line of scrimmage.

Gonna be tough sledding tonight I think but hopefully being at home prevents a 30 point blowout like we saw at Weber. It'll be interesting to see what the crowd looks like. Last year was a pretty solid crowd despite it being the day before Thanksgiving.