In a pregame tweet on Saturday we ended our thoughts with “Just Win Baby”.

Thunder Lake Lodge

UND did just that – beating the Portland State Vikings on Senior Day by a score of 17-10 to improve their record to 6-4.  The Vikings dropped to 4-6 on the season.

With the win UND kept their playoff hopes alive and now head down to Flagstaff, AZ to take on the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks (3-6).  The L-Jacks had their game on canceled vs. Sac State on Saturday due to the wildfires going on out in California. The smoke in the air was pretty heavy and obviously not safe to inhale. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of that region during this tough time.

NAU is 2-2 at home this year.  They beat Weber State impressively by a score of 28-24 but lost to Eastern Washington and Cal Poly.  The Walkup Skydome is always a tough place to play so it will take a clean effort out of UND to pull off the victory.

Game Highlights

The Fighting Hawks defense was the story of this game.  They came out with an excellent game plan and executed it for the most part.  UND held Portland State to 300 yards of total offense and forced three turnovers, which was great to see.  There could have been one more interception but Evan Holm flew in front of Jordan Canady and knocked a sure INT down, not knowing Canady was waiting for it to fall right in his hands. Love that they were flying around trying to make plays.

The pressure that the front seven put on QB Davis Alexander was outstanding on Saturday.  Alexander was running for his life most of the game but unfortunately for UND he was pretty dang good at getting away from pressure – one tough hombre.  UND had five sacks but it could have been 10 if not for some Houdini acts pulled off by Alexander.

Mason Bennett notched 1.5 more sacks on Saturday to bring him to 8 on the season. He is now only three sack behind UND DC Eric Schmidt’s record of 11 in one season.  He has a good shot at getting it this coming Saturday down in AZ.

One negative for the UND defense was third down defense.  PSU converted 9 of 16 chances, with many of them being Alexander scrambling due to lack of containment on the edge by the Hawks rushers.  If UND could have kept Alexander in the pocket he would have  been sacked because he was not going to just throw it quickly to avoid pressure.  Alexander likes to flee the pocket and then throw or keep it.  If the rushers had slowed down once they broke through UND would have had 4-5 more sacks.

Mason Bennett Sack

Here are the two sacks that DE Mason Bennett was in on.  Notice how in the second clip where Tanner Palmborg and Bennett split the sack, Palmborg slowed down at the end to assure he got a hold of Alexander, not allowing him to slip out the back.
[KGVID width=”350″ height=”161″]https://undfootball360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Bennett-Sack.mp4[/KGVID]

[KGVID width=”350″ height=”161″]https://undfootball360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Palmborg-Sack.mp4[/KGVID]

Jaxson Turner Pressure

Turner was extremely active in this game.  It must be something to do with playing Portland State because he was a terror out in Oregon vs. the Vikings last year, as well.
[KGVID width=”350″ height=”161″]https://undfootball360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Turner-Hurry.mp4[/KGVID]

Lenny Nelson INT for TD

This was the biggest play of the game for UND.  Jaxson Turner came rushing from his OLB position in the flat and jumped up to get a hand on the Alexander pass, slowing it down enough that Lenny Nelson could jump the route and pick it off.  It looked like UND had a robber type of coverage going which Nelson executed perfectly.  We also like how Turner blocked Alexander to finish off the play – he didn’t aggressively try to put him through the turf. Instead he blocked him out with his body and allowed Nelson to waltz into the end zone with no threat of a penalty on the return.
[KGVID width=”350″ height=”161″]https://undfootball360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lenny-INT.mp4[/KGVID]

The UND offense struggled for most of the day.  There just hasn’t been much flow lately and the running game has been in a constant decline ever since the Sac State game.  The Hawks rushed for 143 yards on 40 carries (they actually ran for 208 yards but lost 65 on sacks).

Speaking of sacks – the pass protection has also been on a sharp decline lately.  UND gave up four more sacks on Saturday and just don’t look comfortable up front at all.  We think that it has something to do with first year players getting wore out this far into the season. Tackles Bennett Helgren and true freshman Matt Waletzko have logged alot of reps this season.  That along with Nate Nguon playing hurt for the entire year has really hampered their protection lately.

QB Nate Ketteringham was 8-16 for 100 yards with 1 INT and no touchdowns.  It seems as if Ketteringham’s play has kind of gone along with the protection as the season has wore on.  He has not been nearly as accurate and assertive these past few weeks.  He did have a few nice QB runs last week that sparked the UND offense but without several of his top receivers the passing game has really regressed.  Another thing that Kett needs to work on is stepping UP in the pocket or even flushing sideways in the pocket vs. running backwards.  Losing 8-10 yards (or more) on a sack is devastating for this offense.

Hopefully, UND can get Travis Toivonen back this week to pair up with Noah Wanzek and give UND some experienced receiving threats.

It’s do or die for UND this week, folks.  Win and there is a solid chance they make the playoffs.  Lose and the season is over.

If I am Bubba Schweigert I am telling my staff that it’s all hands on deck, all plays are good plays and every fake punt or field goal needs to be practiced this week. When your punter runs a 11.0 – 100 meters, a punt fake is certainly an option.

Like we said earlier – Just Win Baby.

 

Photo courtesty of Eric Burton.