The Game Vitals

Game Time – 6pm.  (Alerus Center – Grand Forks, ND)

Rumors

Opponent – Stony Brook (Stony Brook, NY)

Game Notes – UND

TV – Midco Sports Network & Fox College Sports Pacific

Online Streaming – Big Sky TV

                                                                                 Spread – Stony Brook -11.5  –  O/U = 35.5

 

Stony Brook Breakdown (1-2 record)

— Offense = Pro-style offense.

— Defense = 4-3

— History:  UND leads series 1-0 (UND 31 Stony Brook 24 in 2009)

Offensively, Stony Brook (SBU) is about as basic of a team as UND will see all year.  They like to run the ball right at you and eventually wear you down as the game goes on.  On the year they have twice as many rushing attempts as passes (121 to 59).   However, they are only averaging a paltry 14 pts/game on offense.

The workhorse for the Seawolves offense is #21 Stacey Bedell.  He has 54 carries for 299 yards already this year and also is their RB out of the wildcat formation.   At QB they have split time between John Kinder (Syracuse transfer) and Conor Bednarski.  Both are completing passes at less than a 50% clip, which might be part of the reason why they run the ball so much.

Defensively, the Seawolves are an above average unit.  We will go as far as to say they are the best defense that UND has faced this year.   They are only allowing 12pts/game and have talent across the board.  The guy to watch on defense is LB/S #39 Christian Ricard, who is having a great senior season early on.  They like to move him around and have him both covering the pass and blitzing the quarterback.  Ricard already has four sacks this year and leads the Seawolves with 27 tackles and 8.5 TFL’s.

North Dakota (1-2) Keys to the Game

  1. Play your best defensive game of the year.  Stony Brook like’s to keep their butt covered on offense.  They will run, run, and run some more and then try and hit a long play-action pass.  Nothing fancy at all.  We feel UND can stop the run enough to slow down the Seawolves.  If UND can defend those long shots that SBU takes, they will be fine on Saturday.
  2. UND defense needs to setup the offense with a very short field at least once.  Get a turnover inside SBU territory and help the offense out by not making them go 80 yards.
  3. Move the pocket on offense and let Mollberg run.  Rollouts, boots, naked’s all can get Mollberg out of the pocket and on the run.  Try and extend drives in unconventional methods.
  4. We think the UND running game is going to struggle again to gain footing.  The WR’s and TE’s cannot drop passes this week.  Yards are going to be at a premium.
  5. Punt and punt return can swing the game.  Freshman Connor Bolduc has continued to improve every game and he needs to keep improving on pinning the opposing ‘O’ deep and making them go the length of the field.  The UND punt returners need to break one to either score or setup the offense.  Once again – short fields are key.

We are going to see two very similar styles on Saturday.  Both teams want to run the ball and play a field position game.  It will be a low-scoring, grind it out, whoever makes the biggest mistake loses type of game.  We are worried about the UND offense  in thsi one and based on last week we see them struggling again.

 

The Prediction

Stony Brook  17

North Dakota  9