Wildfan

hopefully we keep capturing some exciting players that chose UND over the other regional offers like we have a few of in the last couple years. Also need to retain what we can from productive players. Good sign that this team showed us in the first half that they can play with and have a chance to beat anyone. Which has risen our expectations from a rebuilding year to wanting more, and with the regular season losses to the other Dakota's now want to see this team get back to first half play, and continue and see how far they can go. I would love for a 2nd upset, and get to the 3rd round (quarterfinals?)

Feel like if he takes the RPO and doesn't hand it off, he is going to qb counter it, rarely seems that he goes with a rollout to set up a pass out of that. At some point now you think that most teams would bite on him trying to run for the stick out of the fake handoff, and open up a pass opportunity outside the hashes.

Timing of the turn-around stat wise also aligned with Javance going down with injury it seemed. Could be feeling less competition at practice, or just trying to force too much and being put in situations that the earlier games he was not, such as short yardage when Javance was coming in for some of those in a Quincy type setup (less successful than Quincy but similar setup). You could kinda see it progress in loss of confidence when we may end up in 3rd or 4th and short and not have the under center short yardage setup, and Jerry would either opt to try to force a home run ball, or the QB counter play from shotgun. Operating on 1st or 2nd down more often gives a little more freedom feeling of not having to force it and let the play develop, as if it got to 3rd down they had been confident the first half the year they could convert it and have the new set of downs.

I was under the impression that Minnesota BOR or legislature or somebody atleast had a restriction on public universities in MN having D1 football. Same with Nebraska and why Omaha cut their FB program as they wanted the Huskers to be the star and not have in-state competition which could've affected attendance as well. That or purely financial as they do not want to fund additional D1 Football at the state level, even when they potentially could've been in a conference that isn't much different in geographical size than their current D2 conference.

YSU had a epic collapse to lose 43-42...

Would've been nice the 2nd half the year to have both as a 1-2 combo. D gets worried about brute strength run game, and then beat them with speed where they opened up.

TT and ESPN thought there ranked way too low at selection show time, they thought they should be a top 8 seed

It would appear so. The article said it damaged the GCU Locker RoomS upstairs. Also this FB post from when they were built look like both Men and Womens are upstairs through that door and separated by a hallway inside that door: https://www.facebook.com/share/178ovZYPHZ/

NDSU played Non-Conference St. Thomas the last week of the year.

They get 4 games anyway in regular season don't they? So most likely would only be guys we have seen in a few games already this year.

Pretty sure he only dressed because it was senior day, not sure if he even went through warmups. I know some guys will go through warmups as a extra practice than change if not playing.

Also a factor could be that UND was T-3rd in MVFC play, with a H2H when against Youngstown and did not play ISU. SDSU was 6th in Valley standings.

Being ranked all year also probably help that. Not often would you see a #13/16 lose to another top 25 and drop all the way out? But polls and committee don't always line up

They also backhand congratulated Sac State for being so successful against the JV league this year haha

I was watching the FCS Fan Nation panel stream the coverage. They agree with this and they seem to only be surprised by Monmouth out and UNH in. But they say they don't disagree with that and think committee got it right.

Monmouth

Sam Herd ranked UND consistently higher all season than the polls. He also was stunned by UND getting left out a few times in the past.

That actually hurts us. Believe he has to excuse himself from that conversation when it comes to discussion between them being in or out if it came down to 2 teams. No MVFC opinion on the matter.

Not sure if I believe Lamar and Harvard behind us.

The TEs were shining at the start of the season when they were actually utilized and targeted. Know there were some injuries during the year but didn't matter as we weren't calling them. We did have a good FB for a couple years in the Bubba era, think he may have been around the Santiago/Olivera era and would lead block for John, but also was removed to allow both John and Brady to be on the field at the same time, but Brady was a FB build and John hit hard for how small he was.

Until the last year or couple years the Defense wasn't typically the problem, the offense was, and they kept the Bubba 2nd choice option hire, But Bubba held onto his OC for too long. The Defense overall felt improved this year, and kept the team in games to give the offense more opportunities, which shows when we weren't blown out by anyone or even outscored by more than 6 all year. Still loses but the Defense was not our worry for most of the year. They came in with low expectations including a scheme change and outperformed what anyone expected. Now the same things that has won us games under Schmidt defence in his DC stint also lost some games at that point but was also evident today was the house blitz when we failed to get to the QB all day. That last regulation and the OT series felt like the first backfield pressure all game, but 5 guys coming up the gut with no contain guy gave him all day and left 1 on 1 matchups that SDSU exposed on earlier big plays with such pressure. Keep 2 more guys in coverage there and may still have 3 guys persuing the QB instead of 5 and then could've had a spy. That TD pass was not a good ball, just our coverage guy looked back at the play allowing the WR to sink into the gap uncovered. Most teams would've had a safety coming over to help as the only options were the 2 WRs at the goal line and Henry eyed them down and floated that ball.

Harvard is going to be in for sure, Yale would've been the bigger question if they would've lost. UND still gives me the feeling they will be 1st team out, expecially with no MVFC rep to advocate when UND is up since Chaves has to abstain. SDSU would've been 100% in if UND would've won today with this bubble. But UND with a better resume then what SDSU would've had if they lost probably won't make it. And it's understandable knowing that they were questionable coming in and still did the same thing they did against KState, Montana, and NDSU. Only good 3rs quarter the team played all year was at Murray state....

Did the OC make this same call repeatedly even though the QB has indicated he is incapable of making it?

There is a part of my mind that keeps wondering why only JTJ was only option for any short yardage plays on 3rd or 4th down, and when he went down we just went to normal package that didn't seem to work. Also once he went down Jerry play dropped off considerably like he got comfortable that he wasn't going to lose his job.

It would be no surprise to anyone. Also while we can say we performed better than many teams ahead of us, didn't win the games on the schedule. Any other normal SDSU team we would feel different too as then committee could say OT lost to a great team. But the talk league wide was SDSU is on 4 game losing streak. So won't get any of the close lost to a top team help. Also Chaves is MVFC rep and I believe he has to excuse himself when UND is discussed. So while still better than having the NDSU rep that would advocate against UND just bc, we won't have any supportive voice in the conversation. All 4 FCS teams we lost to will make the field and 1 or 2 teams we beat also will.