Sioux94

I do agree with you, a lot to be proud of this year for sure and VERY high expectations for next year. Just saying.......you know there will be others who will still come on here and talk smack, say we were over rated this year because of weak schedule....blah blah blah.

I don't think I'll be able to forget about this until next August. Actually I'll still be thinking about it during the season next year....and will be thinking about it until we get some wins in the playoffs next year. We have to sit around another 12 months while other fan bases say we've never won a game that really matters. It's going to be an extremely long 12 months.

That does sound pretty good! Clive out wide....Santiago in the slot....Oliveira in the backfield.....one of the Tall WR's on the other side. Cloyd at TE if they start using him and gets rolling. Who do you focus on defending? Could make for an extremely versatile offense......they couldn't just stack the box and play the run all day long, well they could but that should leave things wide open for big plays through the air. Santiago had such a big year at RB his first year I think that has kept them from putting him out wide more. He seems like a team player, and I think you are right.......if he started lighting it up out of the slot he's likely got a better chance at that type of position at the next level than RB.

With a slow start and losing the first two games this year, and dropping out of the polls for a while.......I think we were maybe focusing on trying to get style points more than we should have. With most of the OL returning, hoping that start is much better out of the gate next year.

That would require us to actually sit key players like Reyes and Studs in the 4th quarter when we are up 30 points. Unlike this year when we didn't against Sac St. and Reyes got injured and then missed a couple of games and Studs took a hard late hit in the 4th. I do totally agree though, hope we have 4 or more games next year where we are up big in the 4th and can rest some guys, especially since it sounds like we don't have a bye until the last week again.

I agree that they can learn from this loss and experience. However I also think they could have learned a lot by playing on the road in the playoffs against the #2 team this weekend.

I'd agree with that. Hopefully he can improve on that for next year. Thought he might have improved on it this year from the prior year....but sure didn't seem like it....was typically locked in on one guy.

I also remember a few people saying......."it won't happen again this year" after the Stony Brook game. If we had our 1995 (randomly picked a DII team) punt coverage players and coaches/coaching strategy playing on Saturday we are likely playing EWU this weekend. The way it sounds Richmond rarely goes after kicks but they saw a hole in our protection and they went for it.

I guess I read it differently than you, I didn't take that out of it at all. In my mind he basically pointed out there are 5 key seniors we lose and said OL has ton of competition to replace that spot, the DL will be fine, and some linebackers will have to step up to fill some voids there. Hardly doom and gloom....or at least that is not how I take it.

I agree with you there, you've got to have good players on your special teams and can't just put the 2nd stringers in. In watching the 2001 Cal Poly game again Friday night Eric Schmidt was on kickoff coverage and had a nice tackle on a kick return.

If I was coaching the punt team I'd likely run punt safe 75% of the time and maybe put two guys back to field the punt. There are many times, particularly early in the year where the one guy back didn't field the punt and it would roll for 10-20 yards. If two guys are back and punt safe is on you are likely to be able to field the punt, and maybe......just maybe....you know pick up a positive 5-10 yards on an actual return. If we receive 6 punts a game and we get a net 10-15 yards better field position out of it from fielding it and getting a small return you are looking at 60 plus yards a game. Take that over 11 games, that is 700 plus yards you are giving up. We are a field position team, play punt safe a majority of the time, get a decent return and go from there. On occasion send the house for a block. Probably more successful then too because they would be lulled into our punt safe with no rush and then all of the sudden we come with the house. That has honestly bugged me all year, especially at the beginning of the year where we could hardly field a punt....but we had 3 guys rushing by the punter basically doing nothing. I think we did get one bock or partial block this year. I'll take the 700 plus yards of offense over 1 blocked punt a year.

I have nothing against him personally and he may be perceived to be a good coach and well liked. But at some point you are what your record says you are. Our kick return coverage was poor this year, and punt team very very poor all year and cost us two games. So it's not like it was just on Saturday and a one time thing, consistently poor punt team all year long. Sounds like punt safe was on, so you can't say that was a bad decision.....but I would say it's a reflection then of poor coaching the players as to what punt safe is. There were two UND guys right by the punter as he punted, and one of them ran into him...if we were truly on punt safe why did we have two guys seemingly going nearly all out to block it (from what I recall) The player certainly has to take some accountability though for not using his head.

Totally agree with you there, mentality next year needs to be that we need to dominate any team that is average or below average and win by 3 scores.

Oh I agree there are a lot of factors that come into play, and living so far away from home is not always ideal for some people. It was more just an initial thought thinking about the huge contrast between living in Hawaii and North Dakota. Having his brother at UND definitely puts a plus in our box when doing comparison's. Hopefully we can get him, all of the top quality guys we can get in the secondary the better!

We thought we'd start out 2016 with an edge due to the previous years playoff snub and the #LeaveNoDoubt mantra.....but we came out of the gate pretty poorly. I sure hope it's a much better start next year.

Living in Hawaii.....or North Dakota.......hmmmmm. His brother going to ND sure helps though.

Punt team had a direct hand in 2/3's of our losses this season. I believe after that SB game when we got the punt blocked and people were pissed, somebody commented it wouldn't happen again. Uh well it did. Let's not forget that we gave up a punt return for a TD as well last night but there was a penalty. I went to the bathroom during the punt and missed it so I'm not sure if it was a good flag, or if we lucked out and got saved by that penalty.

Prior to that...on their previous TD.....when they shifted at the line of scrimmage and sent three guys wide out to the left and we only had two guys out there covering I was standing up yelling to take a freaking time out!!! It was obvious the ball was going over there, especially when we only had two damn guys in that entire area....ridiculous.

I do, minus the special teams coaching...horrible and horrible decision to go for the block.

All coaches and players deserve credit for this epic meltdown/failure in thr last 18 minutes.

Fire special teams coordinator more than Rudolph. Honestly speaking I think I may be able to do a better job than the sh*t show I've seen with our punt team this year. And the decision t keep Seibel returning punts when you have Reed as an option.....seriousy??

Hope whoever ran into the kicker feels like crap, because now we all do....that completely turned the game. If he doesn't do that we likely win.

Hope the announcer says choke because this was an epic choke job.

Haven't seen a team !@#$ the bed this bad in a while.

We don't deserve to win the way we've played in 2nd half.