The Fighting Sioux played a near complete game on Saturday in rout to their 49-24 victory over Division 1-FCS opponent Northwestern State of Louisiana. Offensively, the team put up 524 yards and came up with a handful of big plays early in the game to give them separation on the scoreboard.  While there was a lapse in the 3rd quarter, when the score was cut to 35-24, the Sioux offense responded with a long TD drive when they needed to and gave their defense a rest.  The defense then responded with a turnover and special teams provided the dagger in the 4th quarter with a Josh Murray punt return for a TD.  A few thoughts after watching the game:

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  • You can tell the offense is starting to believe in itself and is coming together under offensive coordinator Greg Breitbach.  The offensive line did a good job against a tough defensive line for Northwestern State.  Jake Landry played another great game and managed the offense very well while exploiting a suspect secondary.  There was also good balance in the running and passing game.  Jake has come a long way since week 1 against Idaho and has improved every week.
  • Greg Hardin continues to torch opposing defenses with the big play.  He seems to do everything well.  He can run the short to intermediate routes as well as being able to stretch the field on fades, posts and corner routes.  As a redshirt freshman, it’s amazing to see how complete of a player he is right now.  We also noticed him doing a good job of blocking downfield on running plays.  Not an easy thing to do for any WR, especially players of Hardin’s physical stature.
  • The defensive front seven of UND held the line of scrimmage well and made Northwestern State’s running game a non-factor.  They allowed 90 yards rushing on 31 attempts for a 2.9 average.  UND only recorded two sacks but pressured Northwestern St. into hurries and mistakes throughout the entire game.  The “Killer B’s” continue to do a great job up front.  Brenneman, Boyle and Bellmore aren’t making the tackles every play, but they are doing their job consuming blockers to free up the linebackers and are maintaining their gap responsibilities.  It was also nice to see Devin Benjamin was noticeably around the ball a lot and had a great motor on Saturday too.
  • Because the front seven did such a good job, the secondary got more of a workout on Saturday.  While this group continues to get better each week, they still cannot seem to shake the big play syndrome.  Mental lapses seem to be the problem of these blown coverages.  UND cannot afford to continue to allow this to happen and the corners specifically need to do a better job “bending” and not “breaking”.  At times, it seems as though a lot guessing is happening out there with the corners.  On the positive side, the secondary is really making those WR’s think before they catch the ball.  A number of big hits have been made by the safeties and have been a difference in separating the ball from the receiver.  You have to think that enters their minds when they stretch out over the middle.
  • WR Chris Anderson finally came through with a big play for a TD on a blown coverage by the NW St. secondary.  It was nice to see him breakout a little and get involved after a slow start and a few dropped passes early this season.  He had another opportunity to make a big play on a post in the 2nd half that he got one hand on.  It was a very tough play, but we would have liked to have seen him lay-out for that one.  Even if he doesn’t come up with that catch, it shows the toughness and attitude that you want in a WR to go get every ball.  We are willing to bet QB Jake Landry would concur.
  • We don’t ever remember if we have ever seen more consistently dominating performances by an individual on special teams on every single play.  Dan Hendrickson has just been a menace on kickoff coverage team, and it seems as though the Minot, ND native is in on 75% of every tackle on kickoffs.  Drew Daggett has also been doing a nice job on this special teams and came up with a couple tackles on Saturday as well.
  • Speaking of special teams, it should be noted that Special Teams Coordinator Josh Kotelnicki has done a great job with his units so far this season.  Freshman Brett Cameron and Zeb Miller have done an admirable job on punting and kicking duties.  It would be nice to get a little more distance on kickoffs out of Zeb Miller, but he seems to get very good height out of his kicks to give his kickoff team more time to get down the field and defeat blocks.  Lets remember he is a Freshman.  Cameron seems to have a knack for pinning teams deep in their own end on “coffin corner kicks”.  Now he just needs to get more hang-time on his punts in normal situations.  I can’t remember a big play against UND on special teams so far this season.  However, I can vividly remember a lot of big plays on special teams that UND has used in their favor.
  • Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers.  The turnover battle and ratio has been telling to say the least.  In the first two losses of the season, UND was -4 in the 45-0 loss to Idaho and -1 in the 23-17 loss to NIU.  Since then, UND has been +5 in going 2-0 and outscoring their last 2 opponents 104-38.  They have not turned the ball over in the last two games and are now at an even 0 for turnover ratio. In comparison, last season UND was -7 on the year.
  • Sack City – UND has 11 sacks so far through 4 games this season.  Last year, they totaled only 15 sacks all season.  The pressure and hurries have also been evident.  The defensive coaching staff has been more aggressive this year with their blitzing.  It is obvious they are going to put more responsibility on the secondary to man-up on receivers so they can send 5-6 guys after the QB. 
  • This week UND has got the Yotes down in Vermillion.  Should be a good one, we will be previewing it on Thursday.Â