2014 FCS Playoffs

[Cratter]

I was there and there were hundreds of empty seats. Seats are usually sold out but I was surprised at how many empty seats there were and have been for other games. It wouldn't surprise me for Niagra but I was surprised for this series. Those folks must have all gone to Frisco.

I've started to notice quite a few empty seats in the upper rows of the REA. Like a few consecutive rows. Not the oh they bought the tickets but didnt show kind of empty seats....yet the REA announced sellouts.

[Sampson]

Wouldn't have started ahead of Hanson 3 yrs ago. Not sure he would have been starter here last 2 years. No way to compare. He continues to develop as a very good FCS QB. He is a big part of the Ag school success and he is an NFL prospect. He is a key piece of the puzzle and it is a great example of how important the team concept is to the success of the individual and how the success of the individual is to the team game. No criticism of the kid. He is very good. The guys here have not had the surrounding cast he has and fortunately for him he has had the chance to develop under Johnson who some argue is the best QB they have ever had, and also with a great oline, excellent RB's, and receivers and a defense that can make up for any mistakes which have been few for this kid. He has also had very good coaching. Not sure why anyone would criticize the kid. All he has done is win.

Comparing him with our guys cuz can't be done. He would not have been a "great benefit to us" cuz he would not have had time to throw nor the running game he has nor the receivers this yr. He would have had great receivers here last yr but he wasn't here so no

one knows.

 

Carson is already a better QB than Jensen is, and Jensen's legacy is arguably the greatest QB of all time at NDSU - though Carson's legacy won't pass Jensen's. Agree about your coaching, oline, and running game argument. Completely disagree about your WR's argument. Outside of Vraa and some occasional big catches from the freshmen, NDSU didn't get much of anything from the WR core this year. Im sure UND has better depth at the WR position.

[Sioux94]

He had a fumble lost, as in singular, during the game. Did you see how many plays he extended with his legs, tackles he shed and completed passes afterwards, or the game winning drive that he completed? Did you happen to see the fact that he was MVP of the game? Clearly, you did not watch the same game yesterday that I did. 

 

My grandpa gave me a piece of advice a year before he died. "Never argue with an idiot. They will just beat you with all their knowledge and experience." As such I am going to end this argument right now.

 

I am guessing UND would have benefited greatly this season from the mediocre quarterback Carson Wentz. 

Did you seriously just say that?  Pretty sure you are considered the biggest idiot that comes to this site......even amongst Bison people that come here.  And I like how you say you are not going to argue.....after you just made about 7 posts in a row on a site that is not even your teams site. Do you not recall your 12 page rant on our site a couple months ago? Can you please do us a favor and leave this site forever, we get it....you have the smallest package in the world and have to keep coming here to brag about NDSU to compensate.   You no longer have to prove it.  And by the way......it's people like you that make us despise NDSU.  If schmucks like you would stay off this site we'd probably give you guys your congrats and move on.  It's so funny.....I was wondering how long it would take NDSU people to come here after the game...win or lose and spout off.  Go hope on the SDSU site since you and your SDSU buddies like to hold hands during the game.

[UND-FB-FAN]

The NDAC fans on this thread, while mainly behaving like jackasses, are bringing up some hard truths. UND's athletic department and I'd argue the administration of our university is dysfunctional. The ag school has had the success they've had because they've made football a priority at their university and their willing to commit whatever resources necessary to make it successful. They have a football budget that's in the top 3 for FCS. Their coaching salaries are also in the top 3. UND fans on this site were patting ourselves on the back for getting to 4th in the Big Sky after making Schweigert give us a discount on his salary since it was his dream job. It's insane to think we can be successful at this level for any extended period of time when our administration has this mindset.

UND does go all out in it's support for the hockey program. I'd argue this doesn't get us near the bang for the buck that the ag school gets from investing in football. Over the last 7-8 years NDSU has seen their university increase by leaps and bounds in notoriety while UND's has largely stagnated. This has happened despite the fact that the overall quality of education provided by NDSU continues to be poor at best. The fan base for Bison football is now state-wide. The fan base for UND hockey will never be so, as the sport is irrelevant across wide swaths of the population and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. The popularity of college football increases every year while college hockey's, if anything, is in the decline.

UND is really at a crossroads with it's athletic department. They can continue on the path they've set and then wonder why on-campus enrollment continues to drop and large sections of the alumni base no longer feel any connection to the university or they can make the changes necessary to shift emphasis away from hockey to the traditional money sports of football and to a lesser extent, college basketball. Like it or not, athletics is the best marketing tool a university has and college football is the biggest draw in college athletics. it only makes sense that a university that focuses on college hockey, to the detriment of their other sports, isn't going to experience the growth that their counterparts will experience.

That being said I don't think the administration we have presently with Kelly and Faison is at all capable of even recognizing these issues. The two have proven themselves incompetent and will need to be replaced as soon as possible for this university to take the necessary steps forward.

Spot on. Hockey is a dead-end street that only certain fans will ever get into. I'm a UND alumnus and yet I only partially care to watch hockey. Football and basketball are the backbone of collegiate athletics in America and it would certainly best benefit UND if they recognized that. NDSU has recognized it and as you said, it has boomed their athletic department during their DI days.

Faison and UND's athletic department, along with Kelley, seem to do all they can to not make athletic expansion a top priority. It's no wonder NDSU is grabbing ahold of this state's fandom.

[UND-FB-FAN]

You make a few good points about NDSU, but I beg to differ about your main point here. UND is more focused on Hockey and that is just the way it is. When you say the Alumni are disenfranchised, I think you haven't been to a game at the x cel or a road hockey game in St. Cloud, Duluth, Omaha, or Denver. Just as a point, my wife and I were at the SCSU UND hockey game in St. Cloud, and I would be willing to say that there were about 2000 UND fans at this game. The place seats maybe 5-6 thousand. How is this loosing interest from alumi? This Hockey team is what most people in the country associate with UND. Just like NDSU has its football team.

And I suppose you think collegiate hockey is the greatest followed sport in the country?

That of course is incorrect. UND and it's hockey following is already maxed out and has no more expansion left in it. If UND athletics is to truly expand into DI and compete with NDSU for support, football and basketball - the actual most popular collegiate sports in America - must be expanded at UND. Faison and Kelley need to step up or step down.

[Shawn-O]

four consecutive titles ring hollow if you lose to the knuckleheads to the north.

[UND-FB-FAN]

We have issues with Faison if everyone wants to state the obvious. I know he isn't the guy to lead UND. With Bubba and the alumni base we will strive for success in football regardless of the administration. I like how things are progressing and if we do pull this thing together we'll have to get the checkbook out and keep the coaching staff together. So sucking has it challenges, but success brings about it's own set of challenges and we need leadership. We can't F up the AD hire again. Faison will be done in a couple years.

Thank goodness.

From my personal opinion, as a UND alumnus and Champions Club member, and also from other UND athletic supporters I've spoke with, Faison has rubbed a lot of potential donors the wrong way. Couple that with his dormant, lazy attitude towards expanding football and basketball and you have an abysmal UND athletic department.

[homer]

Looks like that game with ndsu just got a little tougher next year. Zach Vraa is returning.

If he's healthy.

[nd1sufan]

four consecutive titles ring hollow if you lose to the knuckleheads to the north.

Yep, and all NDSU fans and fans of March Madness can remember about last year's men's basketball season is that NDSU lost to UND. Nobody cares or remembers they made it to the Big Dance and beat Oklahoma. 

[dlsiouxfan]

You make a few good points about NDSU, but I beg to differ about your main point here.  UND is more focused on Hockey and that is just the way it is.  When you say the Alumni are disenfranchised, I think you haven't been to a game at the x cel or a road hockey game in St. Cloud, Duluth, Omaha, or Denver.  Just as a point, my wife and I were at the SCSU UND hockey game in St. Cloud, and I would be willing to say that there were about 2000 UND fans at this game.  The place seats maybe 5-6 thousand. How is this loosing interest from alumi? This Hockey team is what most people in the country associate with UND.  Just like NDSU has its football team.

 

I'm sorry but 2,000 fans at a hockey game in St. Cloud isn't impressive at all when compared to 17,000 fans at a football game in Texas.  The two sports are incomparable.  There are a lot of alumni and, more importantly, prospective students that would have a great deal more interest in watching high quality football or basketball as opposed to high quality hockey.  There is a reason the NHL is solidly fourth among the four major sports and realistically more like 5th or 6th in terms of TV ratings and market share behind the PGA and NASCAR.  Heck, on most nights in a lot of markets in this country you're more likely to find an MLS or Premier League soccer game on your television as opposed to an NHL game.  College hockey doesn't even register.  It's a non-event.

[dlsiouxfan]

From "2014 FCS Playoffs" to "it's the hockey program's fault that UND can't compete with NDSU"...

Disband the program and blow up REA I guess. We need the money for football.

 

We get it.  You love Sioux hockey and could give a rats ass about every other sport in the university.  Those of us who are actual stake holders in the university have to continue to subsidize your interest forever and should never re-consider how the dollars we are contributing to our alma mater are being spent.  Hockey is number 1 at UND and that's how it should always be forever and ever because Mafiaman and other hockey rubes say so….

[SiouxFan100]

I am another bigger basketball and football fan. Marginal hockey. Pre game hockey events are fun.

[Teeder11]

I love them all! Go UND!!!!!

[iramurphy]

Carson is already a better QB than Jensen is, and Jensen's legacy is arguably the greatest QB of all time at NDSU - though Carson's legacy won't pass Jensen's. Agree about your coaching, oline, and running game argument. Completely disagree about your WR's argument. Outside of Vraa and some occasional big catches from the freshmen, NDSU didn't get much of anything from the WR core this year. Im sure UND has better depth at the WR position.

You may be correct about Wentz, I'm not so sure he is better than Jensen yet let's see how much he improves next year. I realize you didn't have great depth at receiver but we had guys dropping the ball, running wrong routes and not attacking the ball. Put that with a running attack that was non existent most of the season and little time to throw and Wentz would have struggled too. I'm not saying either of our guys would have accomplished what Wentz did, but it think Wentz would have struggled here too. Obviously he wasn't here so it's a moot point.

[gundy1124]

Looks like that game with ndsu just got a little tougher next year. Zach Vraa is returning.

Please share the story.....why wasn't he going to play next year? If we are going to worry about a wide out, it's RJ Whateverdowsky. Besides, just about every team in the Big Sky has better wideouts than SU. It's the players at all the other positions SU has that worries us.

[gundy1124]

We get it.  You love Sioux hockey and could give a rats ass about every other sport in the university.  Those of us who are actual stake holders in the university have to continue to subsidize your interest forever and should never re-consider how the dollars we are contributing to our alma mater are being spent.  Hockey is number 1 at UND and that's how it should always be forever and ever because Mafiaman and other hockey rubes say so….

I watch highlights of UND hockey during the season, watch a few games in GF, watch the playoffs, watch the guys drafted by the NHL, then UND watches them sit on their wallets........that's what I hear. Any truth to that and I am seriously just asking for some insider perspective.

[UND-FB-FAN]

I'm sorry but 2,000 fans at a hockey game in St. Cloud isn't impressive at all when compared to 17,000 fans at a football game in Texas. The two sports are incomparable. There are a lot of alumni and, more importantly, prospective students that would have a great deal more interest in watching high quality football or basketball as opposed to high quality hockey. There is a reason the NHL is solidly fourth among the four major sports and realistically more like 5th or 6th in terms of TV ratings and market share behind the PGA and NASCAR. Heck, on most nights in a lot of markets in this country you're more likely to find an MLS or Premier League soccer game on your television as opposed to an NHL game. College hockey doesn't even register. It's a non-event.

100% correct.

This should be the opening lesson of athletic directing 101. UND should try and raise football and basketball to the hockey program's level rather than just simply proclaim themselves as a college hockey university; that's a dead-end street for the ENTIRE athletic program.

[The Sicatoka]

If hockey wasn't performing and selling 11,000 tickets per home game one would have to question the emphasis on hockey. But it is, and it's the fiscal engine right now.

I think it was Coach Wooden that said, "You can't build something up by tearing something else down."

How about we worry about building up and not 'blaming' other programs inside the house.

[dlsiouxfan]

I watch highlights of UND hockey during the season, watch a few games in GF, watch the playoffs, watch the guys drafted by the NHL, then UND watches them sit on their wallets........that's what I hear. Any truth to that and I am seriously just asking for some insider perspective.

 

I would not be surprised if a lot of our hockey players have little if any attachment to UND.  How can they when most only spend 1 or 2 years here and very few of them graduate?     

 

On that note,  I would not be surprised if the NHL guys donate next to nothing to the university.  Professional athletes (not just hockey) are notoriously bad with their money and generally have next to nothing left shortly after their playing days.  This is especially true if you leave college without a degree or any marketable skills outside of a hockey rink or playing field.

[Siouxphan27]

If hockey wasn't performing and selling 11,000 tickets per home game one would have to question the emphasis on hockey. But it is, and it's the fiscal engine right now.

I think it was Coach Wooden that said, "You can't build something up by tearing something else down."

How about we worry about building up and not 'blaming' other programs inside the house.

You said it perfectly. Thank you.

[iramurphy]

I watch highlights of UND hockey during the season, watch a few games in GF, watch the playoffs, watch the guys drafted by the NHL, then UND watches them sit on their wallets........that's what I hear. Any truth to that and I am seriously just asking for some insider perspective.

No, a number of them have been generous with donations.

[MafiaMan]

We get it. You love Sioux hockey and could give a rats ass about every other sport in the university. Those of us who are actual stake holders in the university have to continue to subsidize your interest forever and should never re-consider how the dollars we are contributing to our alma mater are being spent. Hockey is number 1 at UND and that's how it should always be forever and ever because Mafiaman and other hockey rubes say so….

I grew up in SW ND and had a passion for college basketball and football. I knew nothing about hockey and had to be dragged out of my dorm room to opening night at the old REA in 1988. I spent more than my share of time in the student section on the east side of Memorial Stadium during home football games - mostly freezing my butt off - and couldn't even tell you the number of women's and men's basketball games I attended at Hyslop Sports Center. But, go ahead and label me a "hockey rube" based on your limited message board knowledge of who I am.

You make a lot of condesceding generalizations in your rant. I get it too - you hate hockey. Fine, that's your choice. But if you want football to succeed at UND, you're going to need some of those hockey fans to attend a few games.

[dlsiouxfan]

If hockey wasn't performing and selling 11,000 tickets per home game one would have to question the emphasis on hockey. But it is, and it's the fiscal engine right now.

I think it was Coach Wooden that said, "You can't build something up by tearing something else down."

How about we worry about building up and not 'blaming' other programs inside the house.

 

Well who else should we blame when you ask an administrator why UND can't or won't fund UND football to the level NDSU funds football and they immediately tell you that UND can't or won't do that because their spending so much money on hockey?  The hard truth is that UND has stagnated or even declined since construction of the REA.  That some economic engine.

[iramurphy]

If hockey wasn't performing and selling 11,000 tickets per home game one would have to question the emphasis on hockey. But it is, and it's the fiscal engine right now.

I think it was Coach Wooden that said, "You can't build something up by tearing something else down."

How about we worry about building up and not 'blaming' other programs inside the house.

You are correct. We need to maintain our excellence in hockey and return our FB and BB to the same level of excellence and success. We haven't had a president since Clifford who recognized the impact of a successful intercollegiate athletic program to the rest of the University. It seems our AD and maybe our university leadership struggle with multitasking. Great hockey will benefit our other programs and success with our other programs will benefit hockey.

[iramurphy]

Well who else should we blame when you ask an administrator why UND can't or won't fund UND football to the level NDSU funds football and they immediately tell you that UND can't or won't do that because their spending so much money on hockey?  The hard truth is that UND has stagnated or even declined since construction of the REA.  That some economic engine.

Any administrator who says anything that stupid needs to resign or be fired. It will take someone with social skills, charisma and a vision to make this work. Other schools do it and I would keep comparing what we do with the Ag school. We need to maximize our own potential and then we won't have to worry about what others do.