Grade the season

[gfhockey]

What do you give this years team?

[star2city]

Strongly encouraged by: how the defense is shaping up. A lot of youth and talent, with even the underclassmen LB's starting to step up.

What was discouraging about the season was the lack of consistency, but that also reflects on the inexperience.

Concerns: depth at offensive skill positions, namely WRs.

[UND92,96]

If I were basing it mostly just on the overall record relative to what realistic expecatations were, I'd say B. I think there were four quality wins--USD, Stony Brook, Cal Poly and Central Arkansas--and four quality wins isn't bad. But basing it on overall performance, I'll say C. The team was just too inconsistent to warrant a higher grade.

While numbers certainly don't tell the whole story, I think the offense needs to score about a touchdown more per game next year (we averaged about 23 ppg), and the defense needs to give up one less touchdown per game (we gave up about 28 ppg).

[mizzou/sioux]

Based on the thrilling 17-16 upset win over Central Arkansas in the season finale at Conway, Arkansas, I would say a solid B. That last game statistic-wise really favored the home team. Nevertheless, sterling defensive play outside of the initial Central Arkansas opening drive made me realize this team is only going to get better. I also feel had the UC Davis game been played at the Alerus, UND would have come out the victor and thus captured the Great West Conference football title. Had Central Arkansas won the game Saturday I would have dropped the rating to a C. One has to admit that starting out the season with three tough road games was not exactly a bed of roses. I also feel that the victory over Cal Poly more than made up for the loss to Sioux Falls. And had we beaten UC Davis we would have finished 7-4. This team got better as the season went on. The future looks bright for next year. I'm certain we are headed in the right direction because of all the intangibles. Good way for the seniors to go out.

[SiouxMeNow]

6-5 - would have gone with a B but the loss and CLOSE game to NAIA made me move down to a C - it's still average and since we're in the middle of the transition? An A wouldn't mean much more than an F - WHO CARES!!! We don't have anything to play for!

ps - SiouxFalls wins the NAIA Championship by 30 points - take it to the bank!

[JESUS,family,rutgers]

SiouxMeNow,

Any future Fighting Sioux football games scheduled at Eastern colleges?

[UND92,96]

So, does anybody care to go on the record as having voted "F"? Probably the same people who voted last year's recruiting class as the "most disappointing."

[RD17]

I believe I said in August that I would be happy with a winning record, so I will give the season a "B".

The team came into the year with just two returning offensive starters, no home games for the first month, and an upgraded schedule over last year. I thought that if things broke wrong, this season could turn out to be a three win disaster, and the potential was still there for things to go south after the USF/SUU games. But to their credit, the coaches and players stayed together and improved and somehow managed to win six games. UND was out gained by nearly 100 yards per game this season, and it's not very often that a team is over .500 when facing that kind of yardage deficit.

Chris Mussman deserves a great deal of credit for: A) scraping together a pair of winning seasons in the first two years of the transition when the cupboard was pretty bare from a talent standpoint, B) putting together two outstanding recruiting classes in his first two seasons as head coach, and C) having the patience to redshirt and develop almost all the kids that will be on the field when the transition is over. Keep in mind that he also had to overcome the obstacles of having to kick his best defensive player (Stroup) off the team, and having his top returning offensive players (Chappel in '08 and Murray in '09) be declared academically ineligible two years in a row. He has proven to me that he has what it takes to lead this program and at this point I'm quite confident that UND will have a playoff caliber team by 2012.

[bincitysioux]

I give the team a C.

Positives:

-A strong finish, winning 3 of last 4

-Improving defensive play down the stretch

-4 quality DI wins coupled with good showings against Texas Tech and UC Davis

-Playing themselves into a position to win a conference title in a defacto championship game.

-Special Teams play all season long

Negatives:

-Loss to an NAIA (don't care how good they are, shouldn't have happened)

-Inconsistent play all season long

-Offensive regression late in the season

-I know it is only a one game difference between 6-5 and 7-4, but 7-4 sounds so much better, we should have beaten Sioux Falls, so we should have been 7-4.

Looking forward to:

-Curtis Dublanko

-Mitch Sutton

-Ismael Bamba

-A secondary with another year under their belts led by Sr. safeties Schwensfeier and Ankenbauer

-An offensive line with another year of experience

Concerned about:

-QB position

-WR depth

-LB depth/experience

-A new kicker

[FSSD]

Going into the season I had them with a 5, 6 or 7 win season. They delivered with a 6 win season. The season was full of ups and downs. I guess this is to be expected with the transition. I thought the team had four good performances on the road: Texas Tech, Northwestern St, UC - Davis and UCA. The disappointing road loses included: SFA and SUU. Seeing that the Sioux can win on the road against FCS schools early in the transition is a big step forward. The play at home was disappointing at times in particular the two NAIA games. But, I thought that they had three great home games: USD, SB and Poly. So, I gave the season a C, but I think the team is on the right track.

[CMSioux]

I don't like it when fans of other teams use the injury excuse so I won't either, but it became obvious to me that the slump in the middle of the season was due to injuries to key players.

You have to love that for the past two years despite losing our top returning running back, every year a new stud shows up to take the hand off. That does say something for good recruiting at the skill positions. This year's defense was disappointing at times when it came to the fundamentals such as tackling.

For a transition team I'm happy about the outcome and send kudos to the team and coaching staff. Thanks to the current Sioux players for choosing UND when they knew there was little to play for other than pride (and a conference title of course).

In the end it is just a game, and important for UND to maintain it's standards, pride and tradition as well as for the fans to maintain ours.