Sioux94

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.

Haha it's all good....great minds think alike!

I like his attitude. I hope guys are seeing articles like this and get kind of pissed off. Most teams and fan bases have lost respect for us, or never had it in the first place. Hope it motivates these guys to work their asses off in the off season and play with a chip on their shoulder the entire year next year.

If we could pull of an upset against Sam Houston, I think that would get fans and students pretty excited again and lead to some decent numbers as long as we didn't fall off a cliff mid season.

Oh yes......this. Case of Busch Light pounders seemed to always be on special for $10.99 and that was our go to. I was just mentioning to my older uncle this weekend about going to the Down Under on Fridays.....could get pitcher of beer for $1.50. That still boggles me that we could get a pitcher of beer on a Friday night for $1.50, it was early 90's....but still. Think that price went to 10PM or something like that.

It would have been interesting to see what he could have done as a more featured back. Not saying that he should have been ahead of any of the other guys but just too bad on the timing with being at UND the same time as the other guys we have now. Would seem strange to have him at LB, but if he can see the field more he may enjoy that. I think it will be interesting to see how that big/tall TE does, he is pretty athletic. Maybe he could become our version of Dallas Goedert? That would require throwing to a TE more than 15 times a season though.

Man gets me excited for football already listening to this.

Totally agree, 6-5 next year by NO means will be considered a success. It would be considered a big disappointment but Bubba probably doesn't lose his job, IMO. But really it would depend on how those wins and losses happened. If we get completely blown out in four FCS games and don't even look competitive, then maybe he does and probably should. And yes, we need a playoff win very soon.

ILB will be WAY better this year. We should actually have at least 4 guys that have the size needed to play at that position. Last year most of the year we were playing with undersized guys that were young and inexperienced. Even if both starters went down at ILB this year we would still be much better than last year. If we go 4-7 Bubba's seat is not only hot...it's on fire. Anything less than a winning record will be considered a failure. We may start the year 1-2 and be behind the 8 ball right away but our defense should be much improved. Our offense, we will see....as usual it will depend on the line but at least those young guys got some experience last year. Hopefully a better deep passer along with some of the younger speed guys will help our offense click much better. We should be in and have a chance to win every game this year, except for the Washington game (well hopefully we are in the game). Whether or not we can control the clock make those key 3-4 plays each game that are needed remains to be seen, but the potential is there. We will be back to being under the radar again this year, so hopefully we can surprise some teams, particularly Sam Houston right out of the gate.

Heidelbaugh was sold as the real deal early on? I guess I missed that.

Studs was really the #3 QB that year, but they listed him as 4th. Can't remember his name, but whomever was 3rd wasn't a legit DI QB and was just a warm body QB on the roster because when push came to shove and the first two got hurt, they skipped him and went to Studs. I guess it's ok to have a warm body QB on the roster as long as they aren't taking a scholarship because they can run the scout team. Kind of have mixed feelings on that though, why have a guy at a position that isn't really ever capable of playing. Sometimes I guess you never know with those PWO QB's, maybe you get lucky sometimes and get one who is good enough to play. Would Bolinske have been able to play a couple of games if we ever needed him to after he had a couple years in the system? I guess I've never paid close enough attention in the past if any PWO QB's really ever ended up playing at that position and contributed.