Let's! Fucking! Go! I love seeing all of these confirmation Tweets from these guys. It shows they understand that the program is more than one coach. I'm hopeful that we can get back to what has been successful for us in the past. Stronger lines, more QB under center and strong tackling. Another thing I'd like to see is using game reps to improve on weaknesses. I've hated how in games that were out of hand we go to just running the ball to eat up clock, use some of those reps to work on passing. We are NDSU and shouldn't be scared to "put things on tape"
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I think what he is trying to say is that maybe during the blowouts against "crappy" teams they should have been working on some passing game concepts that they struggled with instead of just running the ball to shorten the game and in turn that might have made the passing game more effective in the games against more quality opponents. I would agree that overall the offense seemed to be ahead of the defense this past season and in most games the amount of points they scored would have been enough to win in previous years. That being said, it does seem to me that the offense was much less effective in the 4 losses than they were in the 11 wins and so I tend to agree that the overall offensive statistical rankings doesn't tell the whole story. Was their some padding of stats in the wins?
Of course there was stat padding but even without that extra stat padding against the crappy teams that's being called for the passing game was amongst the elite in the FCS in terms of efficiency. It's obvious that offenses are going to struggle when they go up against better defenses but Cam and the passing game shredded the SIU and USD (playoff version) defenses which were two of the better ones they faced this year. Cam was knocked for shrinking in the big moments in 2022 and this year he led game tying late 4th quarter TD drives against both Montana St and Montana on the road in the playoffs (although they needed fake punt against Montana to do it). There's a lot of tired myths that posters here latch onto and the notion that Cam Miller and the Bison offense, the passing game in particular, prevented the team from reaching it's potential this year is one the worst IMO.
It is my opinion that you are both right and wrong. The defense and special teams were definitely the weaknesses of this team. Cam wouldn't have needed those game tying moments against Montana or Montana State if the offense would have been more consistent and sustained in both of those games. It feels like it was much about feast vs. famine with our offense sometimes. We were frequently in 3rd and longs for various reasons (penalties, poor 1st/2nd down play calls or execution, etc.) and if we didn't convert those third and longs our offense often times had stretches where they couldn't sustain drives or muster much of anything consistent. The yards were there, the scoring was there but it seems a bit smoke and mirrors. We scored 66 against Drake. What was the highest scoring output during the championship run. It seems like we typically shut it down entirely when we got into the 40's. What do those additional 3 touchdowns and the associated yards do to the overall offensive statistics if they don't occur? It feels like we had a few games like that this year that make the overall statistics misleading. All that being said, you're right that the offense was definitely the best of the three phases.
Bison LS commitGrantKnodle
@GrantKnodle
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I will be signing my NLI to NDSU tomorrow, Wednesday December 20th at 1:30 in Sheyenne High School