The Sioux fell 22-21 Saturday night on the road at Cal-Poly.  This game was in UND’s hands until the Landry fumble in the 3rd quarter.  That was the momentum changer.  Overall it was a well played football game by both sides, and a very entertaining game to watch.  Poly had a big crowd of 10,000 plus on hand and the scenery was second to none.

Thunder Lake Lodge
Thunder Lake Lodge
  • Overall, the defense played pretty well in this game.  As we pointed out in our game preview, the 3-4 defense is setup to stop or slowdown the option and that is what the Sioux did on Saturday night.  The Mustangs ran right down the field on the opening 18 play drive and cashed in to take a 7-0 lead.  From then on you could see the defense made adjustments to get out on the pitch and force Poly to give it to the FB more.   Not having Broadus available at QB definitely hurt their down the line option game.  Smith is not very good at running the option.  No option team wants to keep giving it to the FB because it just doesn’t gain enough yards consistently but that is what Poly had to do.  The two FB’s for Poly had 24 rushes and Mark Rodgers, their electric TB, ended the game with 17.
  • The Sioux pass D did a nice job on Dominique Johnson, holding him to 5 catches for 27 yards and no touchdowns.
  • Poly had 329 yard total offense with 249 coming via the rushing game.  They averaged 248 yards on the ground coming in.  Poly only had 112 yards of total offense in the 2nd half.
  • The Sioux DL did an admirable job in this game.  They came in with only 4 experienced players for 3 spots and those guys did a heck of job holding up all game against that option attack.  With guys constantly diving at your knees it is not easy to stay healthy and strong all game.
  • The D did a nice job holding Poly to a FG after the Jake Landry fumble on his own 21 yard line.  The fumble was the turning point of the game.
  • Offensively the slow start did not hurt as bad as one would think because of how well they came out to start the second half.  Two TD’s in the first 5 minutes of the second half was totally unexpected after the sluggish first half.
  • The Sioux offensive line played pretty well overall.  They gave Landry time in this game to find his receivers on the long passes.  They seem to be gelling with this Pistol offense and the schemes that run off it.
  • We felt that once again Landry was bailing out of the pocket way too soon causing the misconception that the pocket was collapsing.  There were multiple times where the pocket was formed but he bailed out unnecessarily.  He could have stepped up in the pocket a few times to avoid the pressure and sacks.  Jake is the type of QB who likes to get out and move around so that is going to come with the territory.
  • Greg Hardin had another monster game for the Sioux.  We don’t know how he gets so open but pretty much every game he does.  Hardin had 136 yards and 2 TD’s to give him 9 on the year.  Pretty impressive for a freshman.
  • Can’t help but think about the 3rd down pass to RJ Mcgill in the 4th quarter that was thrown at his shoetops and forced him to slide to make the catch.  That left the Sioux 3 yards short of a first down, which Mcgill would have easily gotten if the ball was thrown a bit higher.  That forced the Sioux to try the game winning FG from 41 yards instead of having a shot at getting much closer.
  • Zeb Miller is going to be a damn good kicker for UND, lets make that clear right now.  For a freshman to be put in that situation on the road, against a ranked team, in front of a raucous crowd, to win the game, is not easy.  We think he will learn from that experience and use it to his advantage in the future.  Plus, he is a great kid who the coaches think very highly of also.
  • Josh Murray appeared to pull his hamstring in the second half and was out for the rest of the game.  Hopefully he will be available this weekend.