It’s fair to say that UND answered alot of questions on Saturday when it came to the state of UND Football, particularly concerning their lack of success in road games.

The Hawks waltzed into Macomb on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and pasted the Western Illinois Leathernecks by a score of 38-21.  The Hawks improved to 4-0 on the season while the Leathernecks fell to 0-3.

I mentioned the word “tan” in the title because it was a sunny day in Macomb and per Twitter Tom Miller wasn’t prepared, now sporting a burnt head to show for his efforts (WIU didn’t let him sit in the press box due to Covid reasons).

The win sets up a no holds barred, battle royal with the Bison this Saturday at the Fargodome.  Two teams that have a long, contentious history and both are currently in the Top 5 of the FCS polls.  UND is #2.  NDSU is #4.  Something’s gotta give, folks.


The Rundown – Offense

Danny Freund was having fun on Saturday. The UND offense was rolling most of the day and pretty much doing what they wanted minus some first down plays that didn’t net much.  The offense rolled up 544 yards of total offense with 216 of that coming via the ground game.

The most telling stat of the game was third down conversions – UND was 8-12 and had an impressive 29 first downs.

I mentioned the early down plays because UND ended up in 3rd and long quite a bit.  Fortunately for them they had Tommy Schuster, who had no problem finding the open guy and converting those tough situations into first downs.  Schuster had a career game on Saturday, so much so that he was named the MVFC Offensive Player of the Week.

Schuster went 29-37 for 328 yards and 3 TDs vs 0 INT.  The kid can ball.

His big play target was Garett Maag, who used his size to get inside the DB’s most of the day and catch four balls for an impressive 151 yards.

UND threw a lot of 5-8 yard dig routes in this game.  I hadn’t seen many of those over the years even though I know they sprinkled them in a bit last year.  The bigger UND wide receivers were able to get inside position quite often and it made for nice completions from Schuster.

UND’s first touchdown drive was 16 plays – 82 yards.  That is a soul-sucking, demoralizing way to start the game.

Tight end Adam Zavalney had a big day catching two touchdowns – one of which was a diving, highlight reel grab.  The Park River product has become a nice weapon in the red zone for Schuster.

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Otis Weah gets most of the headlines in 2021 but his sidekick Luke Skokna has been outstanding this season.  The Illinois native scored the first touchdown of the game on a shifty 8 yard run.  Skokna ended the game with 15 carries for 97 yards.

The Hawks running backs did not lose a yard in this game.  I have spoken about UND consistently moving the chains and most importantly moving forward.  They have very few negative plays on the year and have only given up one sack total.  That is outstanding pass protection and initial surge from the big boys up front.

It wasn’t all roses for the Hawks on Saturday as they fumbled twice in the first half – one by Maag after he caught a long post and fought for yards, the other a muffed punt by Mikey Griebel.  It didn’t cost them the game or anything but those can easily be cleaned up.  UND lost the turnover battle 2-1.

The Rundown – Defense

The Hawks defense was only on the field for 19 minutes in this game.  Yes, the time of possession was 41 to 19.  That is a very impressive statistic.

The Leathernecks went with a game plan that was built around not getting QB Connor Sampson hit.  Sampson was getting the ball out quickly, which got frustrating for the Hawks as he was able to complete a bunch of passes, going 33-47 for 336 yards and 1 TD.  The problem for WIU was they had no running game, once again, rushing for only 26 yards.

The defense was once again solid overall. They weren’t on the field much but the tackling was sufficient and they made WIU work for they points.  Let’s remember UND was up 31-7 at one point in the second half.

The Hawks have now outscored opponents 59-10 in the third quarter.

UND tallied three sacks in the game and all three were when WIU tried to setup a long pass play. Those sacks are why the Leathernecks were getting it out quick for the most part but a team can’t do that all day cause it would take way too long to get down the field and score.  Plus, when you fall behind you have to take shots deep to get back into it.

WIU was only 3-9 on third down.

ILB Devon Krzanowski had another big day, notching two sacks, two tackles-for-loss, and a fumble recovery after Josh Navratil jarred the ball loose.  The SCSU transfer has been a major difference maker for UND.

The stop the defense came up with after the muffed punt was a pivotal part of the game.  WIU had the ball on the UND 28 yard line with a little over a minute left in the half.  The Hawks were only up 21-7 so giving up a touchdown would’ve been disastrous for momentum.

However, the Hawks held the Leathernecks to only 11 yards and forced a 34 yard field goal, which was missed and preserved the lead and momentum.  To get a stop after a sudden change is always a badge of honor for a defense.


For those of us that were around in the 90’s and early 2000’s this week’s game vs NDSU has an old-school NCC feel to it.  The winner sets himself up for a playoff spot and the loser is possibly on the bubble with three games left to play.

NDSU didn’t suddenly get average at football.  They lost their high-end pieces, which were the separators from them and the rest of FCS. Now the rest of the parts are needing to be re-configured to churn out wins.  They are a team with talent and tradition.

Enjoy the week UND fans!  This is going to be fun and a true test to see where the Hawks are at in the FCS landscape.

 

Cover photo courtesy of Western Illinois Athletics.