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2021 Game Day - NDSU vs UND at Alerus Center


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1 hour ago, Dustin said:

Agree.  Leading up to the game, I wrote that I didn't think we could run it down their (or maybe anybody's) throats, as much as the coaches may want that to be our style.  Now, I'm not so sure.  Smith looked great in his limited use.  (He needed to get double digit carries) Otis was close to breaking free many times.  Skokna is kind of a Swiss Army Knife, and can be involved in several interesting looks (running, receiving, trick plays, etc.) I think we could have a punishing run game if we rotate our RBs and keep them fresh.

I like where you are going with this.(I put 3 RB's in our top 5 weapons)  Our best weapons on offense appear to be Otis as #1, then Skokna/Smith/Belquist/Zavalney are pretty close 2-5, then not sure what to be other than disappointed in Boltman and Puff Crappy(Maag).  Maybe Wright is the #6 weapon on the team right now.

My top 6 weapons in order, but really close on 2-5

1. Otis

2. Zavalney (although was a ghost this past weekend)

3. Skokna

4. Belquist

5. Smith

6. Wright

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Watching 7 and 29, are we sure we don't have a "take the top off the defense" guy?

Run them on a deep post. At worst the defense has to run a safety with them just in case. 

More importantly, motion them out of the backfield to a WR position when you run them on that post. That really jams up a defense. Does the LB keep coverage or does the safety get responsibilities. (Please, please, please leave a LB on 7 or 29 running a post. :)

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22 hours ago, Sioux94 said:

I guess this shows why the OC will always get criticized.  You and others are thinking we needed to feed it to Weah more on short yardage.  The other half of us are saying....why the hell are we running Weah up the middle on 3rd and short (and 2nd and short against Utah State), our interior OL is our weak point and running up the middle on short yardage has not worked!  IMO. 

Nick Saban has said, "when you are in a must have situation, think players not plays".

When they went for it on 4th down and 2, it should be in the hands of your best player.

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16 minutes ago, Bison06 said:

I agree with this.

My question is: Is NDSU still the elite FCS team they were in 2017 and 2014?

I didn’t see anything from either team this past Saturday that tells me either will make a deep run in the FCS playoffs. I expect SDSU to beat the snot out of NDSU with the offensive product we put on the field this year. Teams are allowed to get better as the season goes on, so I hope I’m wrong, but our offense looked brutal and it wasn’t all attributable to UND defense, which was solid.

Both teams would get their asses handed to them by the previous NDSU title teams with the possible exception of close games against the 2014-2016 teams.

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53 minutes ago, fightingsioux4life said:

If anything, Saturday proved that these programs are competitive with each other for the first time in a long time. And the calls for coaching changes are just emotional reactions immediately after the game. We are going in the right direction. This isn't 2017 and it surely is NOT 2014.

Agreed that we are a better team - however the Bison are not the Bison of old.  Bubba has shown us time and time again what kind of coach he is (especially on game decisions).  He had a big hand in blowing what was one of our most important games in recent history.  If this is what people want going forward so be it.  But don't be surprised if he Bubbas away other important games.  This isn't the first time his game coaching has cost us.  Time to demand excellence for this program.  

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33 minutes ago, Tangolou said:

Nick Saban has said, "when you are in a must have situation, think players not plays".

When they went for it on 4th down and 2, it should be in the hands of your best player.

If we are going to take players not plays into account, their defensive front four is the strength of their defense and our interior OL has been a weakness on short yardage.  Yes Otis is good, but I would not have run it up the gut on 4th and 2.  As much as I love the way Otis runs, not sure I would have slammed it up the middle on that play.  We averaged -1 yard per run on our 2nd and 2's against Utah State. 

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1 hour ago, fightingsioux4life said:

Do we really want to go down that particular rabbit hole? Talk about potential thread derailment!

My apologies. I guess I’m just bored since it looks like I’ve been  suspended from Facebook, again 

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So we all know NDSU has had a filthy defense basically every year since 2011. Every, single, season, since 2011 they’ve held opponent to an avg ppg under 20. Even last year. 2013 they avg 11.3 pot against…… that’s peak filth. For perspective, we haven’t done this a single time as a D1 program. NOT ONCE.

Our best defensive seasons have been 2011 - 20.4, 2016 - 22.0, and 2020(spring) 21.0. So far we are sitting at 19.5 after giving up 48 to Utah st. 10ppg vs FCS at this point. 
 

What I’m getting at is the fact that our defense has straight up sucked for the entirety of our d1 existence. The corner stone of this program needs to be defense. Wanna see a deep playoff run? The defense better start avg way < 20ppg. Win a title? Get that below 16ppg. NDSU never won a title without doing just that. We’ve got a lot of work to do defensively.

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