Sioux94

Oh I agree with you there! You can have great players, but if you don't have good coaching you are definitely going to fall short. But if you have great players, it makes it easier....or you have a better chance of looking like a great coach. In my opinion football is the sport where coaching makes the most difference, but it matters in all sports. Amazing that the first year under Schmidt that basically the same players went from one of the worst defenses to one of the best.

I think the point Cratter was trying to make is that almost any coach looks real good when you have Tom Brady on your team, or the old Peyton Manning, or John Santiago for that matter. I don't think he was implying that the coaches don't need to coach them to continue to try and make them better, but if you recruit some great players/athlete's you'll look like a genius opposed to if you recruited average players (and worked just as hard coaching each group up). Better players technically don't make you a better coach, but better players give the perception that you are a better coach because you'll win more games, given everything else is equal.

However, that said I'll definitely be rooting for Dayton!!

How a 6-5 bubble team lands Dayton in the first round is ridiculous. They covered their butts well by giving WIU an easy match up and a likely win, to justify their selection of WIU.

I think 24 is ok right now too. It gives more teams a chance to make the playoffs and makes for a lot of interesting games down the stretch. I'm hoping by next year already we are not one the bubble teams and it wouldn't have mattered if it was 16 or 24, but even so I'm ok with the 24 and the first round bye. And totally agree with everybody else that the regionalization of bracketing like they did this year is crap. Let's hope they get enough heat for this fiasco they caused this year so that some changes are made, but I doubt it.

All I can say is......when a majority of NDSU fans say we got screwed.......that means there is no doubt we got screwed!

At least the committee was smart enough to cover their asses by putting 6-5 WIU up against Dayton, a team that only received 44 votes in the final poll. That way WIU can win and they can justify selecting them. What a freaking joke.

So does the committee generally meet on Saturday evenings? If so that sucks that we had a late game. They apparently said well even if UND wins Saturday night, we are still taking EIU at 7-4 over them. It would have been nice for them to see us go up on Poly 35-0 (a team that beat Montana) on the road before penciling in EIU over us. The fact that EIU got in over us with the same record, and from what it sounds no quality wins......is ridiculous! And you would think if things are close you would factor how teams are looking, or the "eye" test at the end of the year. 40 plus points in our last three games, with a score of 45-0 at one point against UNC, (a team that just ONE week earlier beat the #6 seed), and 35-0 at Poly. If we barely would have beaten UNC and Poly I could have accepted this more easily, but when I look at the way we were playing at the end of the year (which should count for something)......this totally blows!!!

Here will be our plan for next year, we will just rest all of our starters against our toughest 3 opponents next year so we can get in a number of good quality losses, and keep our starters fresh so we can beat everybody else. Might also prevent our players from getting their leg broken by a cheap shot.

It sure would be awesome to get a home game.....but let's just get in baby! We've played pretty well on the road this year.......vast change from the last few years. Even if we go on the road.....if we don't turn the ball over and are on our game....we are going to be a tough out!

Keep them to 14.....I like the 45-14 score.......looks better than 45-21.

It's great having those 'nervous' games again.......here's to hoping we have another one next Saturday!!

Yep lets score and get some more of those style points back!

Pull Santiago now.....I'm sure they will.

Apparently they don't have the capability to show replays.....they haven't showed on all game I don't think.

Well our style points on this one might be going away........hopefully not the whole game!

I'm going to start getting nervous again if we go 3 and out this time!

Sh*t......well that statement didn't work!!

Let's just make them earn it the rest of the way, even if we give up a few points.

I was just going to say....need to run that down to 5-6 seconds each time.

Yep!

This opening drive may tell a lot as to how this second half will go. Let's at least get a few first downs!

And.....a high quality half time production as well

We've had some second half let downs, but I don't think it's going to happen here. For one, Cal Poly is a running team so that bodes well, plus our guys know what this game means. They will stay focused until the end. I certainly don't think it's over, but I do think our team will stay focused.

You've got that right!!