I think a lot of this season's woes are directly related to bringing in 14 new faces. Which is a normal year would most likely be working itself about at this time in the season. This season is nowhere close to normal due to the extra year of eligibility due to COVID. Western & Cloud are almost 'super-veteran' teams. They have 8-11 players (Grads & Srs) that are well into their 4th and 5th yrs of playing TOGETHER and it shows. We have 1 Grad & 7 Seniors (5 of which are transfers playing together for the first year). This disparity in experience will tend to make a young team look a lot worse than it probably is. Imagine a UND team with 5 grads, 7 seniors, & 9 juniors... could very well add up to "9".
Unfortunately, with Hain hurt and Sanderson off to the Olympics, I think we will be lucky to go .500