If you’re a Bengals fan you had one heck of fun homecoming weekend. If you’re a Hawks fan, well…..that sucked.
In what surprised most people around the country, Idaho State rolled UND by a score of 55-20 in a game that got away in a hurry and left more questions than answers.
UND falls to 3-3 on the season and desperately needs to hold serve at home the rest of the season to have a shot at the playoffs.
The Rundown
This was arguably the worst defensive performance we have seen in our many years of watching UND football. I didn’t use the term “effort” because I don’t actually question the effort of the players but the overall ‘focus’ and ‘want-to’ wasn’t there on Saturday. If it was they wouldn’t have given up 48 points (ISU had a defensive TD). Frankly, Idaho State isn’t that good.
The Bengals had 609 yards of offense on the day.
Giving up that long kickoff return after the opening Johannesson TD, which setup the Bengals first score of the day via field goal, was telling of things to come. The UND kickoff unit had been superb coming in but got washed down and then missed an open field tackle that sprung Malaki Rango for 74 yards.
The entire UND defense accounted for two TFL’s and zero sacks. It’s quite telling when a team that typically lives in the backfield couldn’t get any pressure on Matt Struck, who ended the game with 396 yards and 5 TD’s vs 0 INT’s. We said coming in that Struck’s mechanics go to heck when pressured but the UND front couldn’t do much of anything on Saturday.
Offensively, the Hawks came out firing on their initial series – marching 75 yards in surgical fashion to take a 7-0 lead. The passing game looked great, protection was there, and receivers were catching the ball. It slowly deteriorated from there, however.
The second drive was littered with penalties (two false starts) and ended when UND rightly went for it on 4th and 11 but only got 9 yards when Garett Maag’s in-route was ran short of the sticks.
The third drive died when UND had an illegal shift and back-to-back false starts all in a four play span. From that point on the offense sputtered until the game was out of reach.
UND Drive Chart – First Half
| KO | ISU00 | 10:45 | TD | 11-75 | 4:15 |
| KO | ISU24 | 04:41 | DOWNS | 9-51 | 4:36 |
| KO | ISU44 | 09:56 | PUNT | 8-31 | 3:24 |
| KO | UND32 | 06:43 | PUNT | 3-7 | 1:19 |
| KO | UND27 | 03:13 | PUNT | 3-2 | 1:30 |
| KO | UND18 | 00:00 | HALF | 1-0 | 0:25 |
The Hawks ended the game with 452 yards of offense but as we pointed out kept shooting themselves in the foot and couldn’t sustain drives like they had in previous weeks.
There weren’t many highlights in this one so not much to talk about on either side of the ball.
The road woes that this team have incurred in 2019 are astounding. UND has given up 80 points in the first half of their three road games. 80. There is no way to overcome that. I realize they had a tough flight schedule the day before and got to bed around midnight but that doesn’t explain losing to Idaho State 55-20 and having 12 penalties for 102 yards.
Punter Cade Peterson had a good day – pinning the Bengals inside the 1 yard line on a beautiful pooch punt that was downed by Maag.
Here’s the deal – even though that was an awful, no-good, very bad football game, UND is still sitting at 3-3 on the season. They have five games left with three of them being at home. They need to get to 7-4 for a shot at the playoffs.
Next up, however, is another long tedious flight – this time to San Luis Obispo to take on the Cal-Poly Mustangs. The Mustangs are sitting at 2-4 on the season and just got thrashed by UC-Davis 48-24. Poly does still run the triple option, which can always give a team fits if they aren’t fully prepared.
Like we said – MUST WIN GAME. A UND loss on Saturday means the fat lady will undoubtedly be warming up.
Photo courtesy of Idaho State Athletics.
With “bad losses” to EWU and UCD and no signature wins, does 7-4 still get UND in the playoffs when nearly every other team in the country is playing 12 games?
Sorry, ISU, not UCD.
Neither of those losses will be “bad” at the end of the year. ISU is going to win 5-6 games minimum and EWU is never a bad loss.
SHSU needs to get to 7 wins and Davis needs at least 6, if not 7 to make them good wins. Those two have name recognition.
However, UND now has to beat Montana State and/or Weber State to make the playoffs and either of them would be a high-quality, signature win. Hard to keep UND out with a 7-4 record and wins over SHSU, Davis and Montana State/Weber State.
Saturday was a good example of why UND can’t seem to find their way into the rankings. They are not consistent enough and haven’t earned respect. They appear to have the talent one week and then blow it the next and look awful. I’d like to know your thoughts on what’s the real problem? Coaching, talent, travel woes, some combination? ISU and EWU are not great teams. Respectable but not great.
I disagree on the effort piece…Saturday was all about effort. Especially on defense. Several times our players weren’t playing fast. Our defense is based on playing fast. One play we ran right by the qb in the backfield and didn’t even put an arm out and he ran for a nice gain. No breakdown, no dive, no lunge…just ran right past. it looked like we were jogging through a drill in practice. On another play our LB was chasing (jogging) after the qb. His effort allowed the qb to set his feet and complete a long pass. If the effort had been there we get a qb hit and likely an incompletion. We had three late hits that all led to touchdowns. If the effort is better during the actual play, that doesn’t happen.
I’ve never done it before, but I actually shut the game off on Saturday. It was an embarrassing effort.
“Frankly, Idaho State isn’t that good.”
Just had to stick that jab for good measure. I get it, classy.
They aren’t and haven’t been in a long, long time.
360 guys you talk to the players. I’ll bet they think they can compete with almost all the FCS schools. There competitive and then pretty bad. There put in a tough spot. Does the school, state, press have our back?
But It didn’t matter to me how many people were in the stands or if the other school had more money or better facilities. I played because I loved it and I wanted to represent myself,teammates, family and University with honor. Me just high school and it was over.
Players thanks for coming to UND.
I have quoted Roger Thomas before here so here it is.. Roger said that when he ha d a team that had a flat performance, was not focused and assignment sharp it was on him. He felt that he and his stafff were responsible for the game plan and mentally ready to play. The EWU and ISU losses van be laid right at Bubba’s doorstep . This team was was definitely not focused for those 2 games. All of those penalties show that.
There’s a lot of talk about there being more of a comittnent for football on SS. We need more funds better facilities. You’d have to be wearing blinders the past twenty years not to see where UND and NDSU are heading. I question the enrollmet numbers. There would have been more cuts if they could have gotten away with it.
The Foundation says don’t ask us to help on Faciities all of our funds are restricted. At SU the Foundation is involved in all kinds of building projects. Hugh difference. The leadership in ND is controlled by SU guys. Has been for over 20 years or more a lot more.
About zero posters on SS question the leadership in ND. It’s apparent there mostly conservative guys who can’t call them out or ask any questions about anything. Party loyalty may close this University. There are people in this state that would do just that.
Many with UND ties and GF residents would let the ND GOP shut down tear down UND. Because of party loyalty. That’s politics in 2019.