Sioux94

Here is what a Montana guy posted on the FCS board regarding their new coaches style of offense......" I think if you look at hacks previous tenure, he threw the ball 3 more times than he ran it, or something ridiculously close like that. Pretty balanced." I like seeing that as I think we can defend that type of offense better than a wide open one. We have GOT to beat those SOB's this year!

I agree, it hasn't been good up until now.....I just don't need to repost about it 30 times. And I'm also willing to give them credit when it is due and I think the've solidified the QB position pretty well...and right now have some of the best depth we've had in quite a while. Still need to see them prove it on the field, but doesn't mean I can't be optimistic about it.

Looks like a decent arm, mobile...and can throw on the run pretty well. I know a lot of people were pretty concerned we didn't get a QB in this class initially. I was a little concerned, but not totally freaked out. If you didn't get the few you really wanted and put offers out to, I think it's better to wait and find one like this....then to just throw out an offer just to get one......knowing the guy probably can't truly play QB at the FCS level.

I think Wentz was injured and sat out his entire Junior year so he wasn't really on too many peoples radar going into his senior year and I'm sure most FBS schools had their eye on the prospect or two they wanted at QB by then. Plus having what......maybe only 1 other FBS quarterback come out of ND (Bollinger) in the past 20 years didn't help things either.

That is a pretty impressive stadium for 1927! Very cool pic.

Any word on how Zach Zimmerman has looked.....he is at Safety position right? At least he has a little size.

Cieslek look pretty good at the end of the year, he seemed to get a strong push. Hopefully he'll but just effective, hopefully more effective at the lighter weight......faster/leaner like you mentioned...but we'll see how that plays out.

I tend to agree with that generally, but not sure in this case. I think it is great that Boltmann is in the thick of things for the starting position as a freshman. I think that says more as to how good he is, not that the other guys aren't performing well. I think we finally have 3 QB's on the roster that can win games for us if 1 or 2 go down. It may be hard for the coaches to really see how good he'd be until he's in the game due to his scrambling mobility. I do hope that whomever gets the job takes it and runs with it though.......because having QB controversy all year does kind of suck.....like we had with Molberg and Bartels. If our #1 goes down this year, we will all cringe for a few minutes......but I think there will be confidence in the next guy in.....not like it has been the past two years where we thought the season was over if Studs got hurt.

I think they will. I know there were questions about our DL not getting it done last year, but I think it was a domino effect of not having ILB's and maybe how our defensive plays were being called etc.. I don't see how guys like Dranka and Greeley who were four year players all of the sudden regressed and got worse. Plus they were seniors, they are not going to pack it in after 3-4 games and slack off. It's their last shot.....they are going to play hard. The Freshman DL guys that redshirted last year were more highly touted than Greeley and Dranka, and Greeley and Dranka played as true freshman and were pretty successful, so I expect our redshirt freshman this year to play well. Plus Tank has put some more weight back on the way it sounds, which is good. Given all of that I think the DL will rebound and turn to form. However that said, we still need to see it happen.....and after last year literally every position on the team has something to prove other than RB, we know what we've got there.

My early three questions for 2018 1. Will our new QB's be able to open things up without turning the ball over? 2. Will our OL take a step forward and be above average next year? 3. Will we be able to get good consistent play from the Safety position with Reyes being gone?

Condolences to his family, way too young.

That goes to show or remind us how bad we were on defense before Bubba. Last year with 2nd and undersized 3rd stringers we gave up the same amount of yards on the ground as Muss's last year when Ratelle was on the team. Last year was ugly and made my stomach sick at times, but thank god there is real reason to hope that our run defense will be back to being strong again this coming year. That's too bad Rodgers can't practice in spring ball, but it will give other guys like Larson some more snaps.

I think having a more formidable passing attack will help the OL. If we can pass and aren' so darn predictable on offense that will help. Last year young and inexperienced line that was so predictable was easy to stuff the run. Like others I have been frustrated with our OL play the last two years, cautiously optimistic they will be a little better this year. Not betting the farm on it though until I see it.

No news is probably good news this past week with them being on spring break. Hopefully we'll get some news out of spring ball that the OL seems to be improving. Are we able to really tell much from spring ball how the OL is doing?

I think that Sam Houston game is going to set the tone for the season and the crowds early in the year. If we can pull out a win there that will definitely generate some excitement. And if it is the FCS kickoff game, even more important that we play well in that game. If we do end up playing them the very first game, hopefully their QB won't be comfortable and in a rhythm....and we can keep him that way the whole game.

Thanks for posting the article, which leads me to a question. When I first came on this site about 4 years ago, on the homepage there was always links to various articles...such as GF Herald write ups on the football team, Sioux Insider links to stuff etc.. Then seems like it was about 2 years ago the whole layout changed and I don't see that anymore. Have to actively go search other places to find articles with info on the team. I like the old version WAY better where I saw various stuff posted regarding the football team all of the time and it was easy to get to. Was this article posted somewhere on the homepage on this site or somewhere that I am just not looking or checking? Most everything on the homepage seems to relate to Hockey. Definitely think it is a good move for Bubba to not be coaching a position group and pay more attention to the offense. I think he realizes it is now 100% his a** too if the offense sucks again this year. He stuck with Rudy...............the offense...or lack of it is on his shoulders now.

Man not one comment on here all week.....is it really even spring practice?

They hit the nail on the head when they said Rudy has to adjust to the players he has. If our offensive line aren't good enough to just run you over you've got to come up with something. It sounds like they are actually expecting some tweaks to the offense this year. We've all been wanting it, and I hope it actually finally happens. While Bubba didn't fire Rudy, I'm wondering if he had a talk with him and said that we can't just keep doing what we were doing. As a few others have stated, if Rudy fails to perform this year it's on Bubba. I'm hoping between us having a QB with a better deep ball, some actual adjustments to the offense and 2-3 speed WR options that our offense can actually be something this year even if the OL is only average. I think a lot of offensive coordinators would love to have the 3 RB's we have and some decent WR's and look forward to scheming some great game plans. Having ILB's with experience at 240 and 250 verses young guys with no experience at 195 and 205 last year, it's going to be night and day like they said. I truly believe last year was a huge anomaly on defense and am looking forward to our guys laying the wood on some of the offenses we play this year.

I second this! I guess I hadn't heard that....man he just got to UND.....wth. Really liked him too, would hate to see him go. But kind of rubs me the wrong way that he is looking for something else already.

Actually it probably didn't have anything to do with most of their studs this year. The Stadium opened in 2016. Weineke and Goedart were recruited long before soil was ever broken to build that stadium, and so were all of the other juniors and seniors on the team. I doubt those guys as high school seniors decided to go to SDSU because fundraising for a new stadium had just begun and it may, or may not, be completed by the time they graduate. I do agree, and I think we all agree better facilities to help you recruit, but I wouldn't attribute SDSU's success this year to that stadium.

I don't think anybody disagrees with you, it does help. It's just hard to say what is more important, more wins or better facilities. I think more wins and success is more important that facilities, but better facilities help get better recruits which should result in more wins. Mama Sue is right, it's the chicken/egg debate. Phase II will be important for us to become and maintain being a top 10 team, but we all want a season like 2016 this year so we can get better recruits right now.

Better facilities certainly helps, yes that is true. But I think wins are more important. Does NDSU have the best FCS football facilities in the country hands down? Also I saw an article recently on the FB FCS Fans page showing FCS programs that have FBS like facilities. Most of them were not top 10 teams, and NDSU and I don't believe JMU were on the list. It's not as simple as.....who has the best facilities wins. That said I still want ours to be near the top as it does help.

First game of the year usually is on Thursday, or seems like it has been the last several years. I think that weekend is Labor Day weekend so a lot of people may not be around on the weekend.

It's on 8-30 This link might work, has it on there. http://www.undsports.com/pdf9/5468075.pdf

Since you mention top tier FCS programs........NDSU has what.....2 different helmets, and 3 different jerseys? I'm not sure if that is correct or not, but either way they don't have anything fancy with 10 different uniforms or super flashy uniforms. All of this focus on uniforms is a bit ridiculous at times in my opinion. Flashy uniforms are not needed to win a national championship. Sure having cool uniforms is fun, but not needed. I think if we got a white helmet that would give us some cool options. At least one flashy uniform would be nice since all of ours are pretty conservative, but I'm not holding my breathe nor do I think it is a requirement. The Gophers just got new uniforms......and I'm guessing they will still suck the next 5 years. ASU has gotten all kinds of uniform combinations the past few years, well yeah they just fired their head coach at the end of the season.