Quote Originally Posted by NDSUBowler View Post
Most would say it was our defense that propelled us to the championship last year.

In response to our defense vs the run, I will give a game by game breakdown on last years defense vs the run

Lafayette avg 100.5 Ran for 54
St Francis avg 204 Ran for 66
Minnesota avg 160 Ran for 168
Ill St avg 183.3 Ran for 127
SIU avg 183.1 Ran for 128
Missouri St avg 142.2 Ran for 141
SDSU avg 83.5 Ran for 63
UNI avg 167.8 Ran for 53
Ind St avg 181.9 Ran for 124
YSU avg 231 Ran for 214
Western Ill avg 140.4 Ran for 210 (only true blemish...but was also last game of season)

PLAYOFFS
James Madison avg 220.2 Ran for 84
Lehigh avg 129 Ran for 68
Georgia Southern avg 323.5 Ran for 186 (this team also ran for 300 against Alabama)
Sam Houston avg 255.9 Ran for 95

So, as you can see, you are in for a big surprise if you think CSU can run all over us. Our pride is in hitting hard and hitting often in the run game. As you can see, in the playoffs, the defense turned their run D up another notch or ten and just utterly shut down some VERY good running teams.



Sagarin Rankings have NDSU ranked 72nd (69.88) and CSU ranked 117th (59.85). Giving you guys 3 pts for home field that would make us appx 7 pt favorites based off computer models. To reference that to last year, we would have been 17 pt favorites based on last years rankings.
I wasn't suggesting we would run all over you, just that we have a formidable run game. And thanks for the update re: statistics, it's always interesting to learn what an opponent's strenghts are. If there's one thing I can tell you, it's that McElwain has really changed the culture of the CSU program. If Fairchild were still HC, I doubt we would win.