Post Game Thoughts

[JMB]

Got back from the game late last night. Here are my observations.

1) I haven't been up to a Regular Season NDSU game for a long time :hide:. (Although I was up there for the playoff game last year.) I have to first comment on how impressive it is what the gameday experience has grown into. On the way to the Fargodome, we cut throught the west lots. We didn't have time to stop and chat with anyone, but that atmosphere was really cool. NDSU and the fans are doing an excellent job.

2) I want to give Youngstown State a lot of credit. Their offensive line won the battle most of the game. Their QB seemed to be very accurate (he made some very nice passes into coverage), and they seemed to make the proper defensive adjustments throughout the game.

3) There were three specific momentum killers in the game. First the long option play at the end of the first half. YSU really did a terrible job of managing their time outs in the half and took one on a second and one that to me made no sense. Then they crack off that long option. M. Will (as great of a player he is) needed to turn the running back back into the field and he let him get outside to the sideline.

3b) DJ's fumble. Don't want to beat it to death, but successful teams counter punch, that is how we beat MN, that is how we beat UNI. That was our next possesion after the end of half debacle. Oh well, they are kids, it happens.

3c) Fade, fade FG. We are moving the ball on the ground very successfully, we drive down to inside the 10 and we call two fades in a row?

4) The Crowd. A lot of people there, but I as a fan wonder if we did enough when a visiting team comes into our house and moves the ball up and down the field using a no huddle offense. I have never played football on a stage that big, so maybe the crowd doesn't make that much of a difference, so maybe one of our football alumni can fill me in.

A few other sunday morning quarterback thoughts..

a) I wondered if we should have been playing a tighter, physical, man-to-man coverage on their wide recievers. It seemed like a lot of their pass patterns were medium range timing patterns. Not sure if we could have knocked off their timing a bit.

b) In the second half I think we needed to line up in more "running formations" and then throw. Anytime we lined up with a single back with 2 TE or an I formation, they crammed the box with at least 8 defenders. I think that gave us an opportunity to open up the passing game.

c) Brock's first interception, which was wiped out by penalty, was somewhat Veldman's fault. He was running a crossing pattern and stopped to try to find an open space. If we would have continued to the corner of the endzone, I think we would have clear the defender out of that zone opening the throwing lane. (My brother in laws observation, not mine).

[semobison]

3c-I didnt like the back to back fade calls inside the 10 either! At that point in the game they showed no sighs of stopping our run game!
4-YSU had the ball 37+ minutes to our 22 minutes! Teams that win on the road take the crowd out of the game! Give them credit!

[BisoninNWMN]

If we meet another offense like this we are in trouble.

Our Tampa-2 bend but not break defense can get exploited by this type of no-huddle. Seems like we played zone coverage all game long and didn't pressure their QB with blitzes.....

Time to move on to WIU. YSU played better and deserved to win.

[daddy daycare]

The final YSU drive of the first half and first NDSU drive of the 2nd half tell the story.

[JMB]

After taking a shower and tossing the kids clothes in the washer, I decided to post some positivity:

1) Special teams played well. Anytime the other team pulls a Deven Hester and pooch kicks, it is a good sign.
2) I think Ryan Smith had a very good game. He makes some fantastic catches.
3) I think the Offense in general had a very good game. We moved the ball up and down the field at will for about 3 quarters and were eating up fairly large chunks of yardage.
4) Brock Jensen is a tough kid. Just watching him walk around, you can see he is hurting. We need to get seeded so we can get him a week off.

[BisonNeil]

After taking a shower and tossing the kids clothes in the washer, I decided to post some positivity:

1) Special teams played well. Anytime the other team pulls a Deven Hester and pooch kicks, it is a good sign.
2) I think Ryan Smith had a very good game. He makes some fantastic catches.
3) I think the Offense in general had a very good game. We moved the ball up and down the field at will for about 3 quarters and were eating up fairly large chunks of yardage.
4) Brock Jensen is a tough kid. Just watching him walk around, you can see he is hurting. We need to get seeded so we can get him a week off.

The offense did not have a "very good game". That is unless you are looking through rose-colored glasses. They had a good first half and played like s#!t in the the second half scoring only 3 pts. I don't know how in the world you can consider a total of 293 yds of offense a "very good game".

[MNLonghorn10]

ryan smith made some fantastic catches? i dont remember any

[semobison]

The offense did not have a "very good game". That is unless you are looking through rose-colored glasses. They had a good first half and played like s#!t in the the second half scoring only 3 pts. I don't know how in the world you can consider a total of 293 yds of offense a "very good game".

It was kind of a strange game! Neither team punted until the 4th quarter where there was a combined 6 punts!

[JMB]

My point was this, for most of 3 quarters I felt the NDSU offense controled the trenches better than most games this year. We averaged almost 6 yards per carry on offense. For most of the game yesterday I felt very comfortable that we would easily be able to respond to Youngstown State. More so than most games I have watched this year.

As for the 293 of total yards also consider NDSU had very good field postion on most of their drives (due mostly to special teams play) limiting the length of their drives.

However, they did struggle in the 4th. YSU started bringing pressure and made some adjustments we didn't figure out in time. I also feel, as you mentioned in another thread, Brock's injury is effecting accuracy.

The offense certainly played well enough to win yesterday if we could have gotten YSU off the field. I hope that clarifies my point.

[Rockbear99]

The offense did not have a "very good game". That is unless you are looking through rose-colored glasses. They had a good first half and played like s#!t in the the second half scoring only 3 pts. I don't know how in the world you can consider a total of 293 yds of offense a "very good game".

Remember that we started out with good field positon most of the game. hard to rack up yds when you are starting at the 50. Yes I know "Well then we should have scored more points." And to that I agree.

[BisonTeacher]

The offense did not have a "very good game". That is unless you are looking through rose-colored glasses. They had a good first half and played like s#!t in the the second half scoring only 3 pts. I don't know how in the world you can consider a total of 293 yds of offense a "very good game".

Agreed 3 points is awful. The fact that we couldnt even get three when we started that drive on their 35...ugh.

[semobison]

We need Brock to get healthy and return to his mid season form! He was high on many of his throws last night and took a couple of bad 4th quarter sacks where he has got to just get rid of the ball!

[BisonTeacher]

We need Brock to get healthy and return to his mid season form! He was high on many of his throws last night and took a couple of bad 4th quarter sacks where he has got to just get rid of the ball!

Yep...but that begs the question why we didnt run more in the 2nd half.

[westnodak93bison]

7.My thoughts.

1. Would nickle be a better option against an offense that spreads us out?
2. Why don't we run more to the outside? I understand our bread and butter is between the tackles but even their coach made a comment that we ran "Power" 51 times in the last 3 games. Gee I wonder what they are gonna focus on stopping?
3. Why the fade routes? I'd like to know what our completion percentage is with fade routes. I'll speculate it is not very good. I'd rather see a route where Warren runs a similar route but comes back to the ball.
4. Not one reception for a TE or FB? For a team that is "paper thin" at WR why not utilize our TE and FB more?
5. The staff must have pretty much zero confidence in LaVoy or Luecke.
6. Brock was high on his throws all game. How much was that caused by the turf toe? If he is not healthy wouldn't our #2 at full health be better than an ailing Brock?
I understand he is our QB etc. but at what time do you put that aside and go with the healthy guy?
7. Dare I say Ojuri is a better short yardage back than DJ? No carries for Lang? I still say sneak him in there as FB a couple times a game and give him the quick hitter.

[HoopsBison]

Lots of things went bad yesterday and we got outplayed. A couple things that were on my mind at the end of them game were.

1. YSU final punt with under 30 seconds left, why did we not send the house and try to block that??? Also in that situation Ryan Smith needs to return that at all costs, if were gonna call coverage he needs to catch that ball and try to return it not matter where he is. To hard to go 80 yards no time outs.

2) Why did we attempt no screen passes. YSU defensive ends were having good success getting up field and passed our tackles and getting pressure. There were several times where a screen might have sprung a big play.

Bounce and get em next week!

[BisonNeil]

7.My thoughts.

6. Brock was high on his throws all game. How much was that caused by the turf toe? If he is not healthy wouldn't our #2 at full health be better than an ailing Brock?
I understand he is our QB etc. but at what time do you put that aside and go with the healthy guy?

I posted this in another thread, but my son pointed this out to me and I watched Brock on every throw thereafter. His left big toe is the one injured and the one he should have his weight on in his follow through. He was taking the pressure off that foot by throwing off his back foot, which is what Mertens did most of the time, which is why Mertens usually over threw his receivers and ball went into the stands. Now, Brock was nearly that far off, but I do think he is over-compensating for his left foot injury and that is causing his throws to sail on him a bit.

[Bison bison]

My thought - NDSU can play poorly pretty much across the board and only lose by 3 to a good conference opponent.

[BisonTeacher]

My thought - NDSU can play poorly pretty much across the board and only lose by 3 to a good conference opponent.

Totally agreed. Well put. They put up 500 yards...and we still were in the game and only lost by 3.

[kab1one]

The offense did not have a "very good game". That is unless you are looking through rose-colored glasses. They had a good first half and played like s#!t in the the second half scoring only 3 pts. I don't know how in the world you can consider a total of 293 yds of offense a "very good game".

Bison total yardage is misleading, look at the starting field position in which they scored. They were all short drives, if they had long fields, their yardage is close to YSU and time of possession is closer. The forum doesn't have it but the bison had to have close to 200 yards of kick returns.

Jenson, was not on. He never hit a receiver in stride and when the ball was caught the receiver leaped to catch it.

Long and short of it, they lost, better loss today than december. Still need to win four int he playoffs.

This bison team is a a good team. Let them play, they will be fine.

[cards07]

YSU ran a good option. Our defense was not disaplined enough to go after thier responsabilites. (QB, pitchman, FB)

The key to beating a good option team is disapline and we did not have it.

YSU also was close to beating UNI last week. so the coin can flip the other way too. I think the team would learn more from this loss, than they would of with a win.

[bri-dog]

Bison total yardage is misleading, look at the starting field position in which they scored. They were all short drives, if they had long fields, their yardage is close to YSU and time of possession is closer. The forum doesn't have it but the bison had to have close to 200 yards of kick returns.

Jenson, was not on. He never hit a receiver in stride and when the ball was caught the receiver leaped to catch it.

Long and short of it, they lost, better loss today than december. Still need to win four int he playoffs.

This bison team is a a good team. Let them play, they will be fine.

152 on kickoffs, 26 on punts. Plus, what doesn't show up in stats is the unsuccessful squib kick that Olson picked up. Only an 11-yard return, but midfield-ish if I remember right. The Bison had a LOT of short fields. Wish more of them were turned into more points...

[semobison]

Totally agreed. Well put. They put up 500 yards...and we still were in the game and only lost by 3.

A loss by 3 in 3 weeks and were done for the year! If we are going to make a deep run in the playoffs we need to play mcuh better than we did yesterday!

[BisonTeacher]

A loss by 3 in 3 weeks and were done for the year! If we are going to make a deep run in the playoffs we need to play mcuh better than we did yesterday!

No arguing that.

[ndsubison1]

before the half we bailed them out. they were scrambling around on offense with only 5 seconds left on the play clock. they had no timeouts left and were still bringing guys on/off the field. then we call a timeout? teres no way they would have gotten that play off

[BadlandsBison]

That didn't look like a championship team yesterday. I don't know who is to blame because everything looked shitty. Dickinson State would've beat us

[Bison"FANatic"]

before the half we bailed them out. they were scrambling around on offense with only 5 seconds left on the play clock. they had no timeouts left and were still bringing guys on/off the field. then we call a timeout? teres no way they would have gotten that play off

They had no clue what was going on, on that play we definitely bailed them out.

My plays that were game changers

1. The option before half. You have to make that tackle and not wiff
2. DJ's fumble :facepalm::facepalm:0
3. Brock taking the sack when we started on our own 35. That was a inexperience mistake. I bet he don't make it again. Down by 3 you cannot take us out of field goal range.
4. The play that they tipped the short pass to Ojuri out in the flat. He had miles of green in front of him.
5. What did they allow a player to draw up the first play of the game as there is no way Vigen could have came up with that. Go 5 wide and fake the bubble to the left and come back to the screen to DJ on the right.

They made in game adjustments during the 2nd half and we didn't till it was to late on D and we never did on O.

Congrats to the Quines they outplayed and outcoached us yesterday.

With a young team this loss could be a very good tool to get them refocused. Hopefully it doesn't cost us to much come seed time. We need the depth back at WR, we can not have only 2 main guys and have them running all day and expect much to be left come the end of a game and that toe of Brocks needs to heal. And for the love of God when we need a yard put Ojuri in, he always falls forward.

[JustinTyem]

This is still a VERY,VERY Young. QB-Soph,Bkup Rb-Soph,#2 WR-Soph,OL #1,#5-Soph,FB-Soph., Bkup TE-1jr and 2Sophs, and Now do I need to do the Defense too, NOPE. This team is so young that is makes me sick,and there is so much room to grow yet,it makes me crazy good. When these men hit their stride, MY OH MY This team will scare some teams. Let them take the lumps,and learn their mistakes. Dont forget what happend yesterday. But dont DWELL on yesterday,but look for tomorrow!!!!

[BisonTeacher]

This is still a VERY,VERY Young. QB-Soph,Bkup Rb-Soph,#2 WR-Soph,OL #1,#5-Soph,FB-Soph., Bkup TE-1jr and 2Sophs, and Now do I need to do the Defense too, NOPE. This team is so young that is makes me sick,and there is so much room to grow yet,it make he crazy. When these men hit their stride, MY OH MY This team will scare some teams. Let then take the lumps,and learn their mistakes. Dont forget what happend yesterday. But dont DWELL on yesterday,but look for tomorrow!!!!

Yep...good things to look forward to. not trying to be a negative nancy here, but did I hear during the broadcast that YSu didnt have any seniors on offense?

[CAS4127]

I think Veldmen is back to his old ways--dropping passes and not an aggressive blocker. Hurt us yesterday.

[JustinTyem]

BTW- How many points did the Bison Offense score??? 24,and how many did the Bison Defense Score,0 and how many points did they give up-27. Now DJ's fumble may have given up winning points,but the defense's job to stop the other teams offense. IT TAKES A TEAM TO WIN AND A TEAM LOSES AS A TEAM!!!!!

[ndsubison1]

offense sucked in the 2nd half. defense finally started getting some stops and we didnt take advantage offensively

[99Bison]

Got back from the game late last night. Here are my observations.

1) I haven't been up to a Regular Season NDSU game for a long time :hide:. (Although I was up there for the playoff game last year.) I have to first comment on how impressive it is what the gameday experience has grown into. On the way to the Fargodome, we cut throught the west lots. We didn't have time to stop and chat with anyone, but that atmosphere was really cool. NDSU and the fans are doing an excellent job.

2) I want to give Youngstown State a lot of credit. Their offensive line won the battle most of the game. Their QB seemed to be very accurate (he made some very nice passes into coverage), and they seemed to make the proper defensive adjustments throughout the game.

3) There were three specific momentum killers in the game. First the long option play at the end of the first half. YSU really did a terrible job of managing their time outs in the half and took one on a second and one that to me made no sense. Then they crack off that long option. M. Will (as great of a player he is) needed to turn the running back back into the field and he let him get outside to the sideline.

3b) DJ's fumble. Don't want to beat it to death, but successful teams counter punch, that is how we beat MN, that is how we beat UNI. That was our next possesion after the end of half debacle. Oh well, they are kids, it happens.

3c) Fade, fade FG. We are moving the ball on the ground very successfully, we drive down to inside the 10 and we call two fades in a row?

4) The Crowd. A lot of people there, but I as a fan wonder if we did enough when a visiting team comes into our house and moves the ball up and down the field using a no huddle offense. I have never played football on a stage that big, so maybe the crowd doesn't make that much of a difference, so maybe one of our football alumni can fill me in.

A few other sunday morning quarterback thoughts..

a) I wondered if we should have been playing a tighter, physical, man-to-man coverage on their wide recievers. It seemed like a lot of their pass patterns were medium range timing patterns. Not sure if we could have knocked off their timing a bit.

b) In the second half I think we needed to line up in more "running formations" and then throw. Anytime we lined up with a single back with 2 TE or an I formation, they crammed the box with at least 8 defenders. I think that gave us an opportunity to open up the passing game.

c) Brock's first interception, which was wiped out by penalty, was somewhat Veldman's fault. He was running a crossing pattern and stopped to try to find an open space. If we would have continued to the corner of the endzone, I think we would have clear the defender out of that zone opening the throwing lane. (My brother in laws observation, not mine).

Excellent post and very observant for not being at any games since last year, only things I think I would add is poor clock management by us, what ming said above, and wtf not trying to block the punt from the 50 at all at end of the game. Basically all the things that "we" have worried about all season long (ie. weaknesses) were exposed and we didn't find a way to overcome them this time.

Going to try and stop talking about this game for the sake of sanity now. :-)

[bisonmike2]

My thought - NDSU can play poorly pretty much across the board and only lose by 3 to a good conference opponent.

Not only that but we were about 15 yards away from being in solid FG range to tie the game. If we go into OT, we have one of the best redzone D's in the country, I'd like our chances. After letting this loss sit for a couple of days I feel much better about it. We played our worst game this year and we lost by 3. Our team is young, they've been hearing nothing but locking up a championship, seeing the championship room, #1 seed and all that talk. I'm sure they took a lot for granted. YSU played a great game and slapped us in the mouth. We almost stole that game from them. Then what? We would have beaten WIU and it's another week about how great they are, how very few teams have finished the season undefeated? This young of team, that much hype about how great they are going into the playoffs. Well that's dangerous. We just got a reminder that if you don't come to play you will get beat and we got it at the right time. Let's steamroll WIU, get some momentum into the playoffs and give it our best shot.

[TransAmBison]

I would never wish for a loss, but I was nervous about going into the playoffs without a loss. Gone are the feelings of being bullet-proof. Hopefully Bohl sees how quickly a couple bad offensive play calls can ruin things. I do think Vigen is trying to be unpredictable, but it came at the expense of calling plays that were all or nothing and did not play to our strength.

If the players were anything like the fans, they can now forget all the superstition crap and now focus on football. Doesn't really matter what fans think or do, but I wonder if it can take away from a players focus if they get superstitious. Go out now and kick some a##.

Justin, the youth thing doesn't work for me. The team went far enough into the playoffs last year and have almost the entire regular season complete now. There is no more youth to fall back on as a reason. The time is now and they all need to step up and play better. The o-line needs a better push, Ojuri needs to pass block better, receivers need to get more separation, Holloway needs to step up as a senior and help out the QB when he gets in trouble, DJ has to stop dancing (too late for him I fear), the front four on D need to cause some more disruption, linebackers need to get more aggressive, and Jensen needs to step up. I Jensen has had a great year and is hurt now...but he is a competitor. I'm thinking this loss is going to motivate him. If he is going to be on the field he needs to do the job...getting those passes where they need to be and run when needed. Jensen is not playing like the qb who ran for 18 yards on a 3rd and 18 a number of weeks ago. That qb was on fire and had a burning passion. I'm hoping this loss reignites that fire.

[Bison"FANatic"]

We were also talking while watching the game that this was the first game that I saw the defense waiting for the contact and not initiating the contact. They looked timid or the scheme was to play more controlled, whatever it was it didn't work.

[TAILG8R]

I would never wish for a loss, but I was nervous about going into the playoffs without a loss. Gone are the feelings of being bullet-proof.

This is exactly what I said after the game. This is what makes this loss a little easier for me to take.