Sioux94

With Grady back and another year of experience for the other OL guys, IF they can come together......and with the offensive weapons and experience we have on that side of the ball this year.....we should really be able to control the clock on offense and demoralize opponents.

You must be referring to that Nate guy on that page......yeah he is a d*ck. It's Montana guys like him that make me dislike them almost as much as NDSU.

Cal Poly ran all over SDSU at their house. It was very close to us being up 24-0 or 24-3 (something line that) on Cal Poly at half, but we turned the ball over twice inside the 15 yard line, one of them I think a fumble on the 1 or 2 yard line. We pretty much shut down their run game and they had to resort to passing. The game did end up being somewhat close, but we should have had a big lead on them at half. I was the one who stated why I can see how others just look at our playoff loss against Richmond and doubt us. Richmond was a pretty respectable team, and we were in control of that game until that stupid roughing the punter call and it all went down hill fast from there. I get why people doubt us, but yet I also feel like we belonged in the top 8 last year and we should have won that Richmond game.

Unless the kid was a farmer and was impressed by the road sign just west of the Fargodome coming in from off the interstate.

I do agree with you here, and we only have one ILB that has taken an FCS snap at that position.....and may be a little under sized at ILB which could have posed problems with their stud FB so for those reasons it's nice to avoid them. That said, they only got back into the game with some long passes, and it very easily could have been 24-0 at halftime if I recall correctly. Think we turned the ball over twice inside the 11 yard line in the first half. With a new QB running the show, not as experienced at making reads, and probably not near as good of a passer as the guy they had last year, I like that matchup. Definitely wouldn't be a gimme though, would still be a good game.

This is where blowing that Richmond game really hurts, gives fuel to those who think we were over rated last year. I just saw a guy from Fargo make a comment on the Facebook FCS Football Fans Nation page make a comment how UND of 2016 was one of the biggest over ratings in the FCS in the past 10 years. We need to win a couple of playoff games this year. I agree with your thoughts though that if NAU has a big year this year, some people will say we avoided them and again proclaim we had a weak schedule. At least EWU and Montana can't chirp this year as long as we beat them. I wish we did play Poly because we know how to stop their running game, and now that their QB is gone I'd be less concerned about them beating us through the air, especially since we should be a little better this year in the secondary as long as there are no major injuries.

Looks like the kid has some good potential, I like seeing the OL commits. Need to build a dominate OL.

The NDSU - SDSU game will be an interesting and fun game to watch this year. SDSU really has some offensive weapons.

That will probably be quite the task getting all teams to buy in and be happy, but I hope they figure something out as it would be nice to build some consistency and more options for gear for fans.

Something that I think others have mentioned........if there were reserved spots, but if they were vacant/not being used 4 hours (or whatever made sense) prior to game time, others could fill in and use those spots.

I agree that the OL being so inexperienced last year was a big part of the problem. The first couple of series I remember Studs missing guys badly even though he wasn't really under much pressure. I think he was possibly hurrying things a little because he might have been a little unsure of how good his protection was going to be, even on plays where the protection was ok.

Do you think playing Utah our first game can be a benefit to get our guys even more focused this off season and once practice starts in August? Not that we were over looking Stony Brook last year, but most all felt it would be a tough game but I think we all thought it was a game we would win. We did not look good that game, Studs was off, punt got blocked, just all around did not play all that well. Who knows....maybe some of the guys did over look it a little. I'm hoping with a big game like Utah to start the year the guys are super focused all summer and once practice starts, so that we can come out and play a lot better our first game, kind of like we did against Wyoming.

And here we were all worried you weren't following UND football in the off season.....

Interesting. Maybe they will try and steal Rudy away from us

Some early playoff predictions: https://athlonsports.com/college-football/projected-fcs-playoff-qualifiers-2017

I agree with you to an extent, and it doesn't bother me too much yet if there are some fans that think we were a bit of a fluke. We didn't play very well at times last year that is for sure. We did win 9 games in a row though and should have beaten a Richmond team that was pretty well respected. Granted their QB was out, but the QB that played..played pretty well. We have a lot of returning talent, particularly on offense so if we ended up the year in the final rankings around...what was it...10 or 11.....with a lot of guys returning I feel we should be ranked around there. I see Athlon has us at #5. I can certainly see many fan bases thinking that we are over ranked in that one and I would probably agree. I think we are capable of being a #5 team, but don't think I'd put us there yet to start the year. I guess the good thing about starting out a little higher in the rankings is if we lose a game we won't drop completely out of the polls. Definitely excited for this season!!!

Great last name for a LB!

While we have started to garner some respect within our conference there are definitely others who don't think we are the real deal. There is an 'FCS Football Fans Nation' Facebook page that I recently joined that seems to have some respectable conversation. One of the guys who I think is a Mod and a Griz fan put out his top 25 preseason ranking, he had UND at 14. I saw one person commented on how UND is a paper tiger as we had an easy schedule last year. Which can't get too mad at the guy as we only have ourselves to blame for blowing that Richmond game. We still have something to prove, hopefully our guys can get it done on the field next year.

Gotta love that. Man wasn't that long ago when we were desperately looking forward to getting better and earning some respect and wanting to be considered one of the top teams in the Big Sky. We still have a lot to prove out on the field this year though, and it would be awesome to beat EWU at home this year for the title after their fans were yapping last year about how they were the true conference champs. Who would have thought a couple years ago also, that neither Montana team would be picked in the top 6. Granted this is just one guys predictions, but still.

How about Harris with a pick 6 against an FBS school to start the year and back up some of the high praise and projections from some of the national FCS columnists!

Agreed!!

I agree.....it would totally add to the atmosphere to have people down there and help make the place look and feel more full. Not a great view as others suggested, but also as others suggested good tickets between the 20-50 are hard to come by, if there is a bar down there some people/businesses may find that attractive. Hopefully as the team continues to improve, tailgating outside continues to improve etc.......UND football will be an event and the place to be Saturday afternoons. Plus it is just wasted space, doesn't seem like it could hurt to try it.

Winning a playoff game is a must to be considered a successful season, preferably a second round win at home like you suggest. If we had to play in the first round and won, and then lost in the second round though.....that would be disappointing. While getting a playoff win would be nice....not advancing past the second round wouldn't be able to be considered a success. Winning a third round playoff game, that would definitely be considered a success. If our OL comes together though, we'll all hope for even more than that though.

Kind of wish they didn't change their offensive coordinator and still were more of a running team since stopping the run is where we generally excel. And with their OL having 4 new starters we could possibly give them some fits running the ball, however our ILB's are a little inexperienced as well so we might not be as good against the run this year early in the year as we normally are. But our defensive line can still hopefully cause some havoc and get some pressure on the QB and make him make some poor choices which lead to INT's. Sounds like he was a little inconsistent last year, and with a new offense hopefully they won't be clicking right out of the gate, we'll need to capitalize on those situations when they occur.

For me personally I'd way rather sit anywhere between the 20 - 50 than at ground level in the end zone, just for viewing purposes. But something to consider going forward if we continue to build crowds that are at capacity. And sounds like they are selling well at UCF...and that is some good extra easy money if they sell! Having suite type perks can offset the view.