Lamar comes into this Saturdays game with a 3-4 record on the year.  After shutting down their football program in 1989, 21 years later they are in their first year of football and are a bit of an unknown as far as scouting goes.  They will start playing a Southland conference schedule beginning in 2011.  This game is the annual Hall of Fame game and is also the Pink Ribbon Bowl for breast cancer research.  Sioux D-Coordinator Mike Mannausau’s wife, Tiffany, is being inducted into the UND Hall of Fame along with her 1997 National Championship Women’s Basketball Team and UND hockey great Ed Belfour.

Sioux Defense vs. Lamar Offense

Lamar uses a spread attack out of the shotgun with 3-4 receivers at all times.  “Chuck & Duck” could be one way to explain it.  They try to get their receivers isolated 1 on 1 and take their chances that they can beat you with their athleticism, which they have no shortage of.  They appear to be an extremely athletic team that is trying to put it all together still being this is their first year of football in a long time.

QB #5 Andre Bevil leads the spread attack for Lamar.   He is averaging 260 yds/game passing with 13 TD’s and is a threat to run if need be.   Bevil appears to be a pretty good athlete who the Sioux LB’s will need to keep an eye on.  He reminds us of former USD great Noah Sheppard.  Anyone who remembers Sheppard knows that a QB with that combination of size and speed can be a real problem for a defense.  WR #1 Marcus Jackson is their main receiving threat even though they spread the ball around a lot.  He is very fast and could give the Sioux some problems if isolated with no help.  He is averaging 85 yds/game on the year.

Our main concern when it comes to the Lamar offense is that they pass….and pass…..and pass.   Passing yards for 2010 = 1,832.  Rushing Yards for 2010 = 377.  That should tell you about how they try to attack defenses.  Considering not many teams have been able to run consistently on UND all year we are thinking they will be throwing 40-45 times in this game.  This means the Sioux DB’s are going to have to step it up and challenge the receivers.  Teams like Lamar will throw a lot of short passes to move the chains but will take their shots deep when the numbers work.

We do feel the Sioux will be able to get pressure on Bevil in  this game.  The UND front seven will hopefully receive a boost with the return of DL Ross Brenneman.  The Lamar OL is decent but not great and if they want to spread you out that means they are short on numbers in the blocking scheme.  We are hoping the Sioux D will get back to their blitzing roots in this one and send 5-6 guys consistently leaving the DB’s to man up on the receivers, with possible safety help at times.  The UND defense absolutely HAS to take some chances and the corners need to be able to cover in 1-on-1 coverage.

Sioux Offense vs Lamar Defense

Defensively, Lamar predominantly is a 4-4 cover 3 team and will roll down a safety to get 8 in the box against running personnel and formations.  They will also occasionally roll to a cover 2 when necessary against balanced sets.  This defense is pretty vanilla in terms of what they run from play to play.  You won’t see a whole lot of exotic blitzes or coverages from them.  Part of the reason is that they don’t feel they have to because of their speed.  This defense is fast, but undersized up front, like Cal-Poly was.  They have a bigger 300+ lb DT, but other than that they are smaller on the line.  Their defense is led by junior ILB #20 Asim Hicks and freshman DT #90 Mark Murrill.  This defense only gave up one offensive TD to South Alabama in their last game.  South Alabama beat UC-Davis last week.

The UND offense will probably look a bit different on Saturday with junior Brent Goska leading the team onto the field at QB with senior Jake Landry out for the season.  However, the playbook probably won’t change that much.  Goska doesn’t have Landry’s arm, but is more athletic moving around the pocket and UND will call running plays for Goska without hesitation.  He simply is capable of making plays with his legs that Jake can’t.  Look for UND to use play-action, boots and rollouts to get Goska out of the pocket with an option to throw it to utilize his athleticism.  The team seems to trust Brent and has rallied around him this week to lead the team for the last 4 games of the season, which will also be Goska’s audition for the starting job in 2011.

Backing up Goska will be Perham, MN native Marcus Hendrickson.  Hendrickson has moved back to the QB position after playing WR all year.  We wouldn’t discount seeing Marcus in the game as well at some point, regardless of the success of Goska.  Hendrickson is an all-around great athlete and there could be some sort of smaller play-calling “package” with him in the game to utilize his strengths.

As has been the case since fall camp, UND is still beat up at the WR position.  Jon Heimler is still out and Jarrel Davis is just now getting back in to the swing of things.  Sounds as though Ryan Dressler is out for this game again as well.  Look for Chris Anderson, Drew Daggett and RJ McGill to get the ball more when UND uses their selective passing game.

At running back, Josh Murray is still pretty sore after hurting his hamstring last week and is likely a gameday decision.  We hope they just rest him up this week and keep him healthy for the home stretch of the schedule.  Mitch Sutton and Jake Miller would then take on the running game responsibilities.  It would be a great time for Mitch to have a big game and get back to last year’s form running between the tackles this week.  The offensive line will be key for UND success tomorrow on offense.  They need to establish the run and help take some of the pressure off Goska until he gets comfortable with a short, controlled passing game.  Moving the chains will be huge once again.

Our Prediction

Lamar is no pushover and is a very athletic and talented team.  We have some concerns about the defense against their spread attack out of the gun.  It is paramount that the UND secondary make plays this week and tackle to eliminate the yards after the catch to get off the field on 3rd down.  To aid the secondary, the defense also needs to get pressure on the QB.

At the beginning of the season, we said this team would go as far as Jake Landry could take it.  With Jake out now, Brent Goska has the keys to the car.  This game could be a precursor of things to come down the stretch.

UND 34

Lamar 26