The UND Football team lost their Big Sky Conference opener 29-18 to Montana State on Saturday out in Bozeman, MT. It was obviously a much better showing vs. the Cats this year compared to last year, when MSU thrashed UND 63-20.
- The UND offense ended up with a season-high 293 yards of total offense.
- A positive stat for UND offensively and defensively: Third down conversions – UND 8-18 MSU 3-13.
- The UND offense started out slow again but really came on in the second half. They actually got into a nice rhythm for the first time this season. OC Paul Rudolph did a nice job mixing up the run and play-action pass to keep MSU off balance.
- UND ran a jet sweep first play of the game. Something tells me that was a way to appease the “change it up” crowd.
- QB Joe Mollberg had his best game of the year thus far. Even though we hated the pick-six, which should not have been thrown, he still seemed to lead the offense well on Saturday after the slow start. He was hitting all the intermediate throws in the second half and seemed to really be in a rhythm.
- One minor request of Joe: put some more juice on those “out” and comeback routes. QB’s have to zip those out routes, they cannot be finesse passes. He almost had two more picked off that were thrown to the outside of the hashes. Minor thing, yes, but easily correctable because Joe has the arm strength.
- UND defense played alright for most of the game. MSU came into the game with a highly-ranked offense that was averaging 480 yards/game and 41 pts/game. UND held them to 329 yards and 29 points, 7 of which were scored by the MSU defense.
- As improved as the UND defense looks compared to the last few seasons, they are still a long ways from where they need to be. There are still way too many assignments missed by all, but some of those are getting covered up by the extraordinary effort that the 11 defenders are giving every game. UND fans have not seen this level of constant intensity on defense in a number of years.
- An example of that effort was the hustle shown by ILB Ben Peters. MSU threw a pass to WR Gates, who then broke it up the field. Peters, who is not one of the faster UND LBs, kept hustling and caught Gates after a 67 yard gain. Three plays later the UND defense held MSU to a field goal. If Peters had given up on the play, Gates would have waltzed into the end zone for a TD.
- The gap integrity by the front seven is improving every game. MSU couldn’t get anything going on the ground and that was due to the UND defense being lined up right and executing the way it is designed.
- MSU did most of their damage through the air, getting UND on a couple long passes off well-designed plays. Prukop threw for 267 yards on Saturday.
- In our game preview, we said the key to the game was making Prukop hand the ball off. UND did that and kept themselves in the game. Prukop ended the game with -18 yards rushing.
It was a step in the right direction for Bubba Schweigert and the UND Football program. MSU was able to hit a few big plays, making a big pick-six and that was the difference in the game. UND is not quite there yet with being able to make those big plays but what we do like is they cleaned up some mistakes from prior games and gave themselves a chance.
Better center/qb exchanges would be cool. They had less penalties than weeks previous, which I think it is a positive worth mentioning.
I got a little snippy about the QB/Center exchanges on twitter and probably shouldn’t have. Just got sick of it as it’s happened way, way too many times this year. Easily correctable.
Now we see if they can build off of this performance and perhaps get a complete game. We just might have a chance next week against the Griz, but maybe 6-6 isn’t that crazy of a notion anymore.
Agreed on all fronts. And I like your tempered enthusiasm of the improved/improving defense. There is always room for better, and we should not become content with anything so far.
One glaring difference that I have seen between UND and its opponents (especially, San Jose, Missouri State and Mont. State) has been the opponents’ ability to block well on the edges, allowing their RBs/FBs, WRs and QBs to easily follow those blocks and rush up field in a hurry. The opposing WRs, FBs and TEs have been masterful at their blocking assignments, at it has paid dividends. On the flipside, UND’s blocking on the edges seems to be out of sync, easily shed, or they get called for illegal blocks below the waist.
That may have been true against San Jose St. and Missouri St., but I don’t believe that it was true vs. Montana St., as we held them to 62 yds. rushing on 36 attempts, which probably indicates that we’re improving in that area as well.
Still plenty of room for improvement in other areas, but I love how our defense is progressing and how our offense may be starting to progress.
Excellent write-up.
Great game defensively. D improved again from previous week with line play and containment of their QB. Overall, cant’ say enough about the D.
O, still flat, sorry. Although O stats are better on paper, the 4th Q was O playing against a prevent D. 1st half and thru 3 tells the story. O line played good enough to compete in this one. Knauf had his guys ready (except Center/QB exchange) and we found some balance in the play calling. Norberg battled but clearly missed some holes for bigger gains and Garman also had couple nice runs….but our QB needs to eliminate his INT fever. 13 last year in 7 games, 5 already this year. As stated, the pick 6 and 3 more (2 for sure) in the D hands, not good! Deep throws, sure, but knowing the game is primarily < 15 yard passes, Joe struggles. The throws were better in 2nd half but again was this because of prevent D? Hope not.
After watching Saturday, several of us pointed out several things obviously going on with Joe. Lazy feet, slow drop (rear on his heels, no triple option here) that seem to lead to late reads/hand-offs, telegraphed passes, couple sacks because of his internal clock, and hesitant / soft throws (where is your zip ?) unless they are 50 yard bombs. Bottom-line, D1 QBs throw to spots / windows and this is not happening. Our receivers wait and then no yards after catch. We need to get aggressive with the QB situation. Watching the OL vs. MSU, the pocket time was there and pretty strong gaps existed yet our RB’s are not hitting quick enough partially because of late hand-offs. We need W’s (it's why we play) and we can get 7 (P State, N Col, Weber, S Utah, NAU) wins if QB position steps up and OL keeps grinding (assuming D stays on track).
Go Sioux!
Two quick items:
1. Last year Mollberg didn’t seem to be calmed down and into the game until he got contact. I’m wondering if Rudolph shouldn’t call Joe’s number on a designed draw or read option early just to get him some contact (knock the jitters out of him?).
2. If my recall from the SB game (television) is correct, UND is running a left-handed center. I suspect this is the first time in his life that Mollberg is getting the ball from a lefty. Could that be a part of the exchange issues?
1. Interesting theory. That would be very easy to do on a QB Truck play or something like that.
2. Also could be true. I think 3 of the bad “snaps” were actually out of the gun so don’t know if that would make a difference. They were snapped at Mollbergs feet, he had no chance. However, the under center snaps certainly could be coming up at a different angle but you would think 5 weeks into the season they would have it down by now.
i don’t care what numbers joe put up…you CANNOT keep making the same mistakes week after week…you CANNOT take the snap look right, keep looking right, and then throw to the opposing team. It happened a couple of times versus missouri state and should have happened a few more times at montana state. its too far along for studruds reshirt to get lifted and bartels is too immobile to probably do anything but if teh o-line starts/keep improving maybe see if bartels can get it done?
Over the past 2 years Mont St has rolled up over 110+ pts on UND. At half time Saturday they were well on pace to lay another 50+ pts on us. I think at that time they lost focus and started planning the post game victory party. I’m not down playing UND’s second half effort. They, unlike Mont St, kept their focus and as the game went on they played better and better. The defense, again, played well and Will Ratelle and his buddies keep impressing plus this week the offense woke up. Having said all of that, let’s remember that we probably caught a very overconfident Mont St team at the right time.
In football a team doesn’t play the exact same way every week, believe it or not. Different opponents bring different issues/looks. There are so many variables every week with football teams that it’s useless to speculate on them because they are always changing.
“Having said all of that, let’s remember that we probably caught a very overconfident Mont St team at the right time.”
I’m sorry, but that’s an overtly pessimistic, negative outlook and opinion on what transpired last weekend given all the variables. And no, it’s not just being “realistic” – sorry again.
I don’t understand how anyone can look at all the info they have available to them and come to that conclusion.
We have always been very honest and objective on this blog – sometimes brutally – when it comes to player performance and even coaching decisions from time to time.
There’s a fine line between trying to be honest, objective and “realistic” as opposed to trying too hard to accomplish it. My gosh, give the players and staff some credit. They could have folded at half when it was 26-7 especially given the fact that the players had seen the results the last 2 years they played the Bobcats.
How about this?: if UND doesn’t throw a pick 6 and then fumble a for-sure TD on offense, UND wins the game.
We really do appreciate your comments and readership, but we strongly disagree with your overall outlook on this.
Me thinks you protest too much! I think I must have hit a nerve. I did say that we didn’t loose our focus and we played better as the game wore on. Honestly, Will Ratelle is playing at an All-Conference level. The entire defense is playing very well and the offense certainly picked it up, especially in the second half. I said all of that. All I meant is that Montana St looked to me like they relaxed in the second half a little too much and we stormed through the door they left open. If anyone here thinks that the Bobcats are not that much better than we are , right now, you better sign up for a reality check.
There were, indeed, some great signs shown that we have a lot to look forward too. The Montana game this weekend will go even further to show how much of an upward tick we’re on.
Talent on paper has never won a game. Desire plays more into wins long term than talent.
I stated on an earlier topic that 7-5 is achievable THIS YEAR. I still believe that based o the strength of our defense and looking at our remaining schedule.
I agree that our defense plays with a lot of heart And a lot of hustle. The DC is also putting his guys in position to make plays. Our LBs are awesome! I love watching them play. The D line is under rated but they hold their own Most plays. CBs are good cover guys but have to do better getting off blocks and tackling. To get to 7-5, Safeties will have to start making plays And must particularly tackle better in the open field.
My optimism about the offense is tempered by understanding that many of the yards were being given to them underneath because of the lead. I don’t think they managed the clock very well, running too often instead of passing when down considerably thus no need to D honest. Overall love how this team competes. They are improving game by game.