2025 UND football

[iramurphy]

On 11/17/2025 at 9:39 AM, fightingsioux4life said:

We have a sophomore at QB. That almost guarantees growing pains.

We have a good O-line and RBs. We should emphasize the running game.

That would take some of the pressure off of our QB.

But Mr. B1G/NFL (Fruechte) obviously thinks otherwise.

I guess we'll find out this Saturday which one of us is right.

Sophomores at any position, starting all year, should have out grown most of their “pains” by now.

I watched the Ill State-SDSU replay on MidCo. Their OLine is huge and capable of a dominating run game. Mason is a big mobile QB. Odds are they won’t start as poorly as last week. This is playoff FB for both teams. 

We can’t afford turnovers, missed tackles, errant passes, mental errors (players or coaches) and we can’t afford penalties.  We are capable of beating these guys but we need to play our best game of the year. That’s how we close out close games and that’s how we will win. 

[UND-FB-FAN]

3 hours ago, Big Green said:

NFL goes strictly by record, nothing subjective about it.  
 

Even winning you have ADs in a Smokey room so to speak determining seeds and byes.  
 

it’s kind of a joke 

Have you seen 3rd and 4th tier wild card tie-breakers in NFL? 
 

ADs in a Smokey room doesn’t supersede the AQ bids… if you win, it all works out. 

CFB playoff system has its own similar issues. 

Difficult to objectively assess all teams when there’s well over 100 programs per subdivision. 
 

that god damn pairwise with college hockey (far less teams, a completely different sport to compare, with different scheduling complexities ) is not apples to apples comparison …

 but don’t get me wrong, college football playoffs could be improved; seeding the top 16 has been a good start. 

[Siouxperbb32]

7 hours ago, The Sicatoka said:

They say "Untapped" but I think they've been pullin' off the keg a while when they came up with that. 

 

PS - if they assume a UND loss, where's SDSU? 

They been doing something that's for sure and even more puzzling. Ranks UND 10th in current poll and then seeds UND at 20th?🤔🤡

[rochsioux]

18 minutes ago, Siouxperbb32 said:

They been doing something that's for sure and even more puzzling. Ranks UND 10th in current poll and then seeds UND at 20th?🤔🤡

So South Dakota is ranked 16 and gets a 9 seed, UND is ranked 10th and is unseeded? Is almost like they don’t care, just throw something out there. 
If the rationale is based on what they expect for this weekends outcomes then SDSU is finished win or lose. If they win they will be 8-4 with a win over Montana State on the road. Don’t see how they are left out. If they lose then UND is 8-4, don’t see how they aren’t seeded. 

[Dustin]

6 hours ago, Dustin said:

It got a lot better when they took out bidding for home games and seeded 16 teams.

Why the downvote @F'n Hawks?

[Siouxperbb32]

15 minutes ago, rochsioux said:

So South Dakota is ranked 16 and gets a 9 seed, UND is ranked 10th and is unseeded? Is almost like they don’t care, just throw something out there. 
If the rationale is based on what they expect for this weekends outcomes then SDSU is finished win or lose. If they win they will be 8-4 with a win over Montana State on the road. Don’t see how they are left out. If they lose then UND is 8-4, don’t see how they aren’t seeded. 

Ya they are just throwing s_ _ t on a wall n seeing what sticks. I'm still pretty confident UND will be 10-14 range if beat SDSU. Have the strongest SOS and nobody has beaten us by more than 5 included FBS. 3 losses in fcs by 11 total points. Nobody has the quality of losses as us- n ya I hated when UNI always got those but our losses are #1, #2, #16. And for good measure throw in loss to K St for 4 total losses by 14 points

[F'n Hawks]

9 minutes ago, Dustin said:

Why the downvote @F'n Hawks?

My mistake. Meant to upvote. The bidding process was one of the dumbest things of all time 

[UNDBIZ]

10 hours ago, F'n Hawks said:

My mistake. Meant to upvote. The bidding process was one of the dumbest things of all time 

It was garbage, but at least it could be justified as financially necessary.  Once UND was sent to Weber, even after crushing their bid, a change had to be made.

[jdub27]

12 hours ago, rochsioux said:

So South Dakota is ranked 16 and gets a 9 seed, UND is ranked 10th and is unseeded? Is almost like they don’t care, just throw something out there. 
If the rationale is based on what they expect for this weekends outcomes then SDSU is finished win or lose. If they win they will be 8-4 with a win over Montana State on the road. Don’t see how they are left out. If they lose then UND is 8-4, don’t see how they aren’t seeded. 

That might make sense if they didn't put "Through games played on Nov 15".
But they did and it doesn't make sense either way regardless.

[UNDBIZ]

Important to remember that putting out a crap poll or bracket drives conversation and clicks for some of these guys, which drives profit.

[fightingsioux4life]

17 minutes ago, UNDBIZ said:

Important to remember that putting out a crap poll or bracket drives conversation and clicks for some of these guys, which drives profit.

So the best thing to do is ignore them.

[UND92,96]

Assuming no upsets in the MVFC this weekend, you are potentially going to have UND, USD, YSU and ISU-red all having basically the same record. UND beat YSU. YSU beat ISU-red. ISU-red beat USD. USD beat UND. So wouldn't that essentially cancel out head-to-head as a big factor in seeding MVFC teams other than NDSU? I believe that's what happened last year when seeding NDSU, SDSU and USD, because they were all 1-1 against the other two.

[Longtime fan]

21 hours ago, nodak651 said:

Our only losses would be against Kansas State and top 10-15 FCS schools by single digits.  Zero chance we wouldn't get seeded imo.

On the flip side.  As of right now UND  has only one victory against a potential playoff bound team…Youngstown.   SIU is an ok win but they most likely end 6-6. The other five victories have a combined opponent record of 9-46.  Overall UND has five extremely weak wins, one average win and one decent win.  Not sure losing close games to quality opponents should be a qualifier to get a team into playoffs imo. Winning those games is.  UNDs resume overall is average like many other teams 

I agree with a few others here ….the winner of this saturdays game is in and the loser stays home.   I can’t see the committee taking more than 5 MVFC team. Ndsu, SD, Illinois st , Youngstown and either und or sdsu. 

Considering how ridiculously weak the fcs is …the committee will have to dig deep and scrape together 24 teams. The  committee might use the “how good are you at losing your games”  as criteria? I don’t think anyone can argue that UND wins at the “best loses” 😳…..so there’s that 

UND needs to clean up two phases of their game starting now!!  If they can’t they don’t deserve to be in the playoffs.  If they can …they could make a run.  

An absolute must win Saturday imo.

 

A much improved Und team should be victor 

[jdub27]

13 minutes ago, Longtime fan said:

I don’t think anyone can argue that UND wins at the “best loses” 😳…..so there’s that 

If you are going to use "bad losses" (which luckily UND has zero of this year), then "best losses" are going to be viewed as well.
A team who takes care of business they should against lower teams and hangs (and has a chance) to beat 2 or 3 of the top 8 teams deserves a seat. It'd be a different thing if you got absolutely boat raced and weren't competitive.
UND could have scheduled a couple cream puffs instead of Kansas State and Montana and had two more wins. There should be a reward for playing tough games.
The committee obviously has taken some of this into account in their early ranking releases.

In the end, it would be easier just to take care of business Saturday and then argue about not getting a first round bye...

[Longtime fan]

18 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

If you are going to use "bad losses" (which luckily UND has zero of this year), then "best losses" are going to be viewed as well.
A team who takes care of business they should against lower teams and hangs (and has a chance) to beat 2 or 3 of the top 8 teams deserves a seat. It'd be a different thing if you got absolutely boat raced and weren't competitive.
UND could have scheduled a couple cream puffs instead of Kansas State and Montana and had two more wins. There should be a reward for playing tough games.
The committee obviously has taken some of this into account in their early ranking releases.

In the end, it would be easier just to take care of business Saturday and then argue about not getting a first round bye...

You schedule games to win regardless of how tough they are.  
 

The reward to playing tough games is proving you belong and winning.  
 

At what point in your logic is a team not qualified?  Say an fbs team was 6-6 and lost all six by five or less to all top 10 teams.  Close in score but definitely not boat raced. Should they be qualified for the fbs playoff bracket ?  Would that be rewarding?    
 

it’s simple.  You need to win 

[nodak651]

11 minutes ago, Longtime fan said:

You schedule games to win regardless of how tough they are.  
 

The reward to playing tough games is proving you belong and winning.  
 

At what point in your logic is a team not qualified?  Say an fbs team was 6-6 and lost all six by five or less to all top 10 teams.  Close in score but definitely not boat raced. Should they be qualified for the fbs playoff bracket ?  Would that be rewarding?    
 

it’s simple.  You need to win 

That's irrelevant.  We were talking about a hypothetical where UND beats SDSU, so UND would be 8-4 (not 6-6).  UND will be compared to other FCS teams, and almost all of which either have worse losses or will have strength of schedules closer to 100 than 1 or 2.  

Human polling and computer ratings all point towards a seed as well.  And Chaves is also on the committee.

[Longtime fan]

8 minutes ago, nodak651 said:

That's irrelevant.  We were talking about a hypothetical where UND beats SDSU, so UND would be 8-4 (not 6-6).  UND will be compared to other FCS teams, and almost all of which either have worse losses or will have strength of schedules closer to 100 than 1/2.

Of course it’s hypothetical.  I’m asking at what point in his logic does losing close games start to be irrelevant ?  No team should ever be proud of losing close games. Sorry!  I might in the minority but losing is losing.  Period 

 

Like I mentioned.  The FCS is so weak the committee has to pick 24 teams.  Plenty of average or below average. 
 

Also I expect the Sioux to win but if they don’t … well then they don’t belong. 
 

 

[homer]

16 minutes ago, Longtime fan said:

You schedule games to win regardless of how tough they are.  
 

The reward to playing tough games is proving you belong and winning.  
 

At what point in your logic is a team not qualified?  Say an fbs team was 6-6 and lost all six by five or less to all top 10 teams.  Close in score but definitely not boat raced. Should they be qualified for the fbs playoff bracket ?  Would that be rewarding?    
 

it’s simple.  You need to win 

Your argument will play out in the FBS selections in about a month.  You are going to see teams walk away from scheduling “premier” games.  Ole Miss will be example number 1 of non conference schedule that will limit risk of losing 

sucks for fans but with how quick fans will call for coaches jobs when they lose its coming

[Sioux94]

1 minute ago, Longtime fan said:

Of course it’s hypothetical.  I’m asking at what point in his logic does losing close games start to be irrelevant ?  No team should ever be proud of losing close games. Sorry!  I might in the minority but losing is losing.  Period 

 

Like I mentioned.  The FCS is so weak the committee has to pick 24 teams.  Plenty of average or below average. 
 

Also I expect the Sioux to win but if they don’t … well then they don’t belong. 
 

 

Nobody is proud of losing, but when records are the same and looking at body of work, the eye test etc..,  they will compare USD getting throttled and beaten by NDSU by 38.....or UND leading the entire game except for the last 3 minutes against the hands down best team in FCS. 

I know Id much rather have a 5 point loss than a 38 point loss to the top team on my resume.  

[ND-fan]

The way I see it semi final games will be played in North Dakota and Montana and my hope is that we are seeded on other side of bracket I believe we’re going to play on road no matter what if we’re going reach that far in playoffs. I believe top four or 5 teams are from Valley and Big Sky right now. I think if majority of these other conferences played in either of these conferences would be sitting number of losses and would be banged up badly. Right now power of FCS is upper Dakotas and Big Sky. If we had press of other conferences now they would be talking how number of teams are capable playing FBS football of lower tier of FBS. The politics of playoffs is they are going to keep number of these other conferences guaranteeing several reach as far they can in playoffs is. That was reason for when UND outbid for home game it’s politics of balancing that keep conferences getting deeper in playoffs we are hurt because we’re close to NDSU in playoffs and my betting is this year NDSU athletics will want us out in Montana’s so only they could meet us in championship. Also other eastern and southern conference don’t want to travel to Montana and play in cold weather pretty much guaranteed playing indoors NDSU and USD.