The UND Football team came up short on Saturday losing a heart-breaker 18-15 on a last second Montana field goal. It was a great game to watch and the atmosphere in the Alerus Center was as good as it’s been in the last 4-5 years.
- The UND defense played a pretty good game again for the 3rd straight week. Coincidentally, they scored a defensive TD for the third straight week when Chris Brown stepped in front of the Smithwick-Hann pass and returned it 14 yards for the TD.
- Montana had 42 rushing yards on 34 carries.
- Total offense was 279 for UM to 241 for UND. I would say UND’s plan of running the ball and slowing down the game is working pretty well two games into the Big Sky season. Both games vs. the Montana’s have been low scoring.
- QB Joe Mollberg seems to be settling in to the new offense. The way he carries himself and his overall throwing is exuding confidence now where it did not appear that way early in the season. Mollberg was 15-24 for 196 yards on Saturday. Note: he spread it around to 7 different receivers vs. Montana, one of which was freshman Dev Ferguson who is becoming Mollberg’s favorite big-play target. Ferguson had 3 receptions for 65 yards.
- One of the major offensive issues right now is bad snaps. When watching the replay, however, one was Mollberg’s fault, one was Boas’. The snap on the safety was terrible and Mollberg had no chance. The snap at midfield that went by Mollberg’s head was easily catchable and he was ready for it. Not sure what happened. Bottom line, they need to get his figured out NOW. They are now costing themselves games when looking back at it.
- UND was missing it’s best offensive lineman. RG Brandon Anderson came down with an apparent eye infection/injury the day of the game. Freshman Brandon Miller filled in for him and did a pretty good job considering he had zero prior experience.
- OLB Brian Labat had a monster game with 4.5 TFL’s, 0.5 sack and 3 QB hurries. The OLB’s are starting to come around as Reinecke and Idowu both have been much more active making plays the last couple games.
- Timing got off on the potential game-winning kick by Reid Taubenheim. The snap was slightly high but kind of fumbled by holder Connor Bolduc, who is also a true freshman. Take their lumps early and hopefully it pays off later with Taubenheim kicking a late one to win a game.
What we hope to see this weekend for the annual homecoming game is a pissed off team that is hungry for a win. They had a chance this past weekend but didn’t get it. The level of competition will be less this weekend vs. Portland State. If UND keeps their level of play high and doesn’t regress they should be OK.
