WeAreNorthDakota

Yes. At fan luncheon last week Brenneman and McGurran spoke and Mussman said afterwards that McGurran was the first guy he visited after being hired.

I'm hoping its the green jerseys with the new black pants. I've been curious to see how that would look since they unveiled the new ones.

With 0 seniors on this year's team it likely means Hardee is being incredibly selective when it comes to recruiting. Assuming that all of their allotted scholarships are filled he's probably only looking at a few top players just in case a scholarship or 2 opens up.

Bauman goes crazy but Braden Hanson plays his first full game at QB and leads UND to a win 34-27

I think we need to wait till after the next two games to determine whether or not the sky is falling. Our defense is not very good and EWU has an explosive offense. That was a bad matchup and we couldn't afford to give them the huge momentum boost that was the kickoff return touchdown. Couple the bad matchup, the big early momentum shift, and our flip flopping of quarterbacks and you have a recipe for getting run out of the building. We have two good teams coming to town the next two weeks. I don't think we have any chance of stopping them defensively but we do have a chance to get a full game of consistent quarterback play and to feed off the home crowd for some momentum. If we get beat up at home again, then I'll start to believe there are major concerns but we needed to expect some growing pains in our first year in the conference.

Agree on ISU. Disagree on YSU. YSU handled Pitt and UNI. NDSU is just that good. Nobody's going to come within 14 points of them till maybe the semis.

Depends a lot on whether or not the game is televised locally. I believe UND's home games have used the Midco feed and the stream for MSU/UNC was the local Montana broadcast. While PSU/SUU was a pretty poor feed that wasn't tv quality.

Won't be on TV but it will be on Big Sky TV, the conference's free onlinse streaming service. As far as the red turf, I imagine it will be much harder on the eyes than Boise's blue.

UND vs EWU football total score +15 vs UND vs EWU basketball total score. Place your bets!

I think the floodgates had already started to open when Muss called for the fake punt. We had all the momentum and the huge run that followed our score completely killed our momentum and sucked all of the energy out of the building. If we convert on that fake, we take some momentum back and it's a whole different game. The way it worked out, they had their lead and we couldn't stop them from running, not only the time off the clock, but up the score.

I believe that has something to do with Root guaranteeing that every Big Sky team gets a game. Makes sense from Root's perspective that UNC's game against Montana would be the one that gets broadcast. Hopefully in the future Root will have enough success with the Big Sky that they can broadcast more than just a game every week.

I don't understand how Montana being down makes the Big Sky down. Eastern Washington and Montana State are both legit top 10 teams and there are 3 or 4 other teams that are ranked or very close. If Montana was ranked in the top 10 and EWU was not, nobody would be saying the Big Sky is down. To say that the strength of the entire conference depends on the strength of Montana alone is foolish and proves you are not paying attention.

What worries me about our next 3 home games is that they all have very good running games. I have no doubt that we can score on all 3 defenses but they all run the type of offense that will limit our possessions and potentially be able to keep our offense off the field when we really need a score.

Top 5 hands down. Especially if MSU was still undefeated and in the top 5 when we beat them on the road. That'd put us at 8-1 with road wins over 2 top 10 teams.

Just turned on the EWU/Weber game. Anyone know why Padron isn't in at QB for EWU?

Nebraska up 35-0 on Idaho State. Still in the first quarter.

Anyone know how the broadcast quality will be on Big Sky TV tonight? Does Sac St have a local TV broadcast that will be shown like our volleyball game on Midco?

I get the feeling our game against EWU is going to have a similar score.

So what happens if NDSU misses the playoffs two years in a row or has early playoff exits and ticket demand and donations fall below their current levels? Sure NDSU sold out Prarie View A&M after a national championship year but will they sell out a game against a non-regional cupcake after a year or two of non-contention? Put the game on the schedule and you could potentially see a Bison schedule that includes an FCS OOC game, a game against Minnesota, UND in the dome OOC, then UNI and South Dakota in the dome during conference play and a road game against SDSU. If NDSU's marketing department can't sell that to fans and donors then maybe Gene should start looking for replacements.

Do I have specific knowledge of NDSU's numbers? No. But I do have a degree in marketing with a minor in sports business and experience working in a collegiate athletic department. I'm not just pulling numbers and theories out of my ass.

A rivalry like UND-NDSU is a marketer's dream! Not only do you sell out every seat in the house in about 10 minutes, it presents endless oppotunities for exposure, sponsorship, and special events. You want 6 home games? Don't schedule Colorado State and Ball State every other year. If you're only looking for half the FBS games it allows you to schedule games with programs that will genuinely excite the fanbase like Minnesota, Kansas, Kansas State, Nebraska, Iowa, Iowa State. You play at UND one year, you play at a regional BCS big shot the next year and repeat. Plus, sacrificing a home game only displaces 19,000 fans every other year while 20x that would be watching the game in the Alerus statewide. You can fall back on the "If it's not broke don't fix it" cliche if you want. But the golden goose of marketing and revenue potential is sitting 75 miles up the road and Gene Taylor is doing nothing about it due to a pathetic grudge with someone who's no longer with the program.

BECAUSE IT CAN BE BETTER! NDSU currently has a really solid conference schedule that their fans get into and can now relate pretty well to. They play winnable FBS games within reasonable driving distance. They saw a great atmosphere and a sold out Dome in the playoffs last year. If the teams played every year, Fargo and Grand Forks would be hosting one of the biggest OOC FCS games EVERY YEAR! If NDSU wants to further establish itself as a premier FCS football program why not bring the national FCS spotlight to town every year at a time when most teams are getting stomped by the big boys or playing cupcakes and non-D1s. There are no negatives to playing the game. There are only financial washes, excuses, and an almost decade-old grudge.

I did a pretty detailed analysis of how NDSU could make money while still playing UND every year. I believe I did breakdowns for giving up an FBS road game every other year and for giving up an OOC home game every other year. It's buried in this thread somewhere if you feel like digging for it. That analysis was based solely on ticket sales. There are a million other things NDSU could do to recoup money lost from a home game or an FBS payday. A game against UND has infinitely more marketing possibilities than 95% of the teams in FCS that the Bison could bring in. Hell on the years the game is in Grand Forks you could charge people 5 bucks to watch the game in the Alerus. The argument that NDSU is putting the game on hold for financial reasons does not hold water.

I'll say 38-17 UND. Defense shows up, offense continues to roll, and UND football gets their first Big Sky conference win.

I don't know what the sack numbers look like but most of Hendrickson's rushing yards came on scrambles when he was flushed from the pocket. Both put decent pressure on but nothing that was overly effective. It sounded like the offensive line was much better in protection against SDSU than against PSU though.