WeAreNorthDakota

This is why I think Mussman got the extension. Yes, the schedule was soft last year, but it was no different the year before when they went 3-8. Mussman built up a solid D1 talent level at every position besides quarterback and that is what has been holding Mussman and the whole team back over the last two years. The quarterback play these last two seasons has been unwatchably bad. That's especially detrimental to Mussman because he is a very good offensive coach who hasn't had a guy who could execute. This obviously showed on offense but I think it hurt the defense nearly as much. Too often the defense would make a stop, the offense would go 3 and out, the defense would bend a little more but still get a stop, then the offense would go 3 and out again and the defense would crack. I'm personally excited to see what Mussman can lead offensively now that the quarterback position is now also at a D1 talent level. Hopefully we start seeing the offensive numbers from back in his days as offensive coordinator.

I'm a fan of the extension. Muss got us through a very difficult situation with the transition and I think most believe we are pretty well set up for our first year of playoff eligibility. He's also had his difficulties, but I don't believe it would be fair to evaluate him based solely on what he did during the transition. This extension will give Faison 4 years of full D1 Big Sky competition to evaluate whether or not he is what's best for the future of UND football. I'm optimistic that he is, but if he's not he will at least get a fair evaluation.

The kid from Georgia who got arrested on weapons charges? No thanks

"top team" is tough to quantify or define on its own, so I took this to mean that UND will win the most Big Sky titles over the next decade. I'll sell that. Although I'll buy winning more than one.

Buy We saw what his offenses can do with some actual talent when he was OC. Now that he has the talent again, I think he'll start to build a reputation as a pretty darn good offensively minded head coach. Buy or Sell A UND player leads the Big Sky in a major statistical category (Pass yds, rush yds, rec, sacks, interceptions, etc)

Hopefully because after the nickname got voted out somebody got on the phone with some schools who had previously said no because of the nickname.

Buy Against Mines and somebody else.

Buying a TE. We have too many weapons to be covered in the red zone. Jackson may be the biggest receiver we've ever had, Hardin is a great fade route runne, and there's always the threat of the run. Add Nichols's big body and he should have plenty of opportunities to make some plays in and around the end zone.

I would love that as a new nickname. Very unique in the college world, great logo possibilities, "Riders" is easy to substitute in for "Sioux" in chants and cheers, ties to North Dakota history. I don't see any negatives beyond it being Red River's nickname.

I really like EWU's court. That black to red fade in the paint is awesome, plus I really like their logo and color scheme in general.

It was very refreshing to log on to this site on a Monday morning and see 10 times as many new posts on the Football board than in the Sioux Name board for once. I could not be more excited for the upcoming season!

The IPF would be used mostly by the football team but would house offices and practice space for the non-Ralph/Betty teams.

I agree with SDSU, Montana, MSU, and Eastern Washington as losses. I see Portland St, Sac St, Poly, and SUU as pick em games and I like that 3 of those are at home. I see 6-5 or 7-4 with either 4-4 or 5-3 in the Big Sky as a realistic expectation, but I will be very disappointed with anything less than that.

Actually men's and women's hockey, men's and women's basketball, and volleyball all play in the Ralph/Betty. That makes 5 sports that play in a facility that is better than anything at NDSU. Thanks for playing.

Sell, but with wins over Mines, SDSU, and Portland State to start the season I think top 15 would definitely happen.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Nokota one of the names the tribes identify themselves by? I attended a presentation to UND's student government a few years back that had representation from both anti-nickname tribal representatives and pro-nickname tribal representatives. I seem to remember the anti-nickname speaker calling herself and her people the Lakota/Nokota tribe and that Sioux was a derogatory term meaning "snake in the grass". I could be totally off base on that as it was a few years ago, but wouldn't that disqualify Nokotas as an option?

OK so let's say that 3 coaches voted us 6th because they meant to put NDSU there. I guess 3 coaches making a mistake after 3 straight weeks of not making it is a little more plausible. So that would give us 60 points due to a mistaken ballot. That leaves 76 points that we would have had to earn by our own merit on the ballots of the 25 other voters. That means that 25 coaches ranked us 23rd on average. Could you convince me that a coach or 2 mixed up the schools? I still don't think it's likely, but I guess it could happen. But, even if that was the case, a big majority of the coaches ranked us near the bottom of the top 25. I did not think we deserved to be ranked after the loss to Fresno, but to argue that we showed up in the poll solely because of confusion with NDSU is 100% false.

After a little bit of research and some number crunching, it's even more unlikely there was confusion than I originally thought. NDSU was ranked 6th in the coaches poll after week 2. NDSU was idle the following week, NDSU fans reasonable expect their ranking to stay at 6th. UND did not receive a single point, meaning they were left off of every ballot, on the preseason poll and the polls after both weeks 1 and 2. UND received.136 points and was ranked 21st in the poll after week 3. There are 28 coaches who submitted ballots for the polls last season. The same 28 coaches submit a ballot every week of a given season. A team being ranked 6th on a single coach's ballot gives them 20 points. So if you attribute UND's ranking to confusion between the schools, you believe that 7 out of the 28 coaches who submit a ballot simply voted UND 6th instead of NDSU. This after all 28 coaches got it right on 3 consecutive ballots leading up to the mistaken ballots. Bison fans, do you realize how absurd that sounds?

I don't see how it makes any sense whatsoever that the two schools were confused, considering how the polls are compiled. Each coach ranks his top 25 teams. The published poll is a ranking of the average rank on those polls filled out by coaches. I think it's pretty commonly accepted that most coaches simply move teams up and down that top 25 list based mostly on the last week's results. At the start of the season, I can't imagine any ballots did not have NDSU ranked at least somewhere on the poll. And as far as I know, UND was not present on any ballots at the beginning of the season. So here is the logic Bison fans are using. In the preseason poll, no coach confused NDSU and UND because UND did not receive any votes. After the first week, where NDSU beats Lafayette handily and UND beats Drake, still no confusion as UND does not yet have any votes. After the second week, where NDSU beats St Francis handily and UND loses to Idaho, still no confusion as UND does not yet have any votes. If I'm wrong so far, please correct me. Its been a few months and my memory of the situation likely isn't perfect. Now week 3 happens. NDSU is idle. UND loses to Fresno St. The polls now have UND cracking the top 25 while NDSU loses a few points. Kolpack claims mistaken votes as the culprit, but think about how the polls are compiled. Remember that coaches usually move teams up and down based on the previous week's results. So in order for mistaken ballots to occur, coaches who had only NDSU on their list for the first 3 polls, suddenly take NDSU off their list and replace them with UND. I don't see how a coach makes that mistake. I especially don't see how a significant enough number of coaches make the mistake as to cause NDSU to drop and UND to be ranked. The only way a case of mistaken identity would be plausible, in my opinion, is if the teams are chosen from a list on a computer where North Dakota and North Dakota State are the names used and are therefore right on top of each other on a list of teams. If that is the case, however, how do you explain the fact that not a single coach made the mistake of clicking on the wrong name for 3 consecutive weeks and then suddenly a significant number accidentally click on the wrong name. I can't see how that makes sense, especially because most coaches are likely looking at a poll from the week before and are seeing North Dakota State and not seeing North Dakota.

No, I'll continue to use that argument. If UND were to join the Summit, the most important sport, hockey, would be in one conference, the second most important sport, football, would be in another conference, and everything else would be in another conference. Hockey has always been fine in its own conference, but I would prefer our 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th most important sports to all be in one conference with common opponents.

I think last year's team probably goes 4-7 or 5-6 playing this year's schedule. I also think this year's team will be significanly better than last year's. That being said, I realistically expect a 6-5 record but see no reason why they couldn't exceed that expectation. With the likely exception of San Diego State, this team should be competitive to the point that they're in a position to win every game if a few bounces go their way and a few guys make some big plays.

And UND-1 looked up his actual times and proved his coach to be wrong. This is simply a case of a coach exagerating his player's stats to help him get recruited. Pretty standard procedure, but like UND-1 said, if he actually ran the times his coach stated, he would be playing in the Big Ten.

So reservation government doesn't care about the NCAA's timeline and the NCAA doesn't care about the reservation government's timeline, a mutual ignorance. The problem is, the NCAA was the entity in control. They sponsor the events and control UND's membership status. The NCAA made a decision and then settled with UND. It was then up to the tribes to make a statement for or against. If the people of both tribes really care about this issue and support it to the degree that you and other supporters claim they do, they should have done so within the given timeline. You saying that the tribes don't care about the NCAA's timeline is no different than the NCAA saying they don't care about the tribes' timelines. There's no racial discrimination in that statement. It is simply two entities operating in the fashion that they normally do.

I question Chewey because his anger lies with the wrong people. He is clearly very passionate about the nickname and has invested his time in money into fighting to keep it. The problem is, he directs his anger at the leaders at UND when the issue has been largely out of their hands since the settlement agreement with the NCAA. That is the when time and money needed to be invested. It was no secret that the Standing Rock tribal council was against a vote. If the people who supported the nickname till the very end felt so stronly as to invest significant time and money into the fight, it should've been invested trying to convince their leadership to let the people vote. Investing time and money into attacking the leadership at UND was a useless investment because the issue hadn't been theirs to decide for quite some time.

Where was the organization 3 years ago? Where were the vast majority of NA nickname supporters when a simple vote at Standing Rock could've prevented all this? You claim to have so passionately fought for the nickname but why were you not camped outside Standing Rock tribal council meetings demanding that a vote of the people be taken? You should be angry with youself for being so late to the party when the deadlines of the settlement were publicized for all to see.