2023 Round 3: Vengeance in Vermillion!

[Professor Chaos]

Here's an idea: take the money you were going to spend on tickets/travel, contribute it to The Green and The Gold Collective, watch the game on ABC, and (hopefully) go to Missoula next weekend and watch the Bison play at a place where the home fans aren't insecure and terrified of opposing fans in their stadium in an environment that's better by orders of magnitude.

[Kujava23]

Here's an idea: take the money you were going to spend on tickets/travel, contribute it to The Green and The Gold Collective, watch the game on ABC, and (hopefully) go to Missoula next weekend and watch the Bison play at a place where the home fans aren't insecure and terrified of opposing fans in their stadium in an environment that's better by orders of magnitude.

Great idea!!!!!

Yuck da Fotes

[EC8CH]

Here's an idea: take the money you were going to spend on tickets/travel, contribute it to The Green and The Gold Collective, watch the game on ABC, and (hopefully) go to Missoula next weekend and watch the Bison play at a place where the home fans aren't insecure and terrified of opposing fans in their stadium in an environment that's better by orders of magnitude.

Id take the odds of tickets being available at face before the doors open... zero chance they won't be with all the games they're playing.

[tony]

Since rewatching last week's game, all I can say is that this is going to be a hard game to win because the Bison defense looked absolutely terrible (albeit with some flashes of awesomeness.) I mean, the best stretch was where NDSU sacked their QB a couples times but that was only after he ran right by the defense, reaching a top speed that I assume was double digits (Dylan Hendricks was way faster than he was), and he would've scored if he hadn't checked his DMs and gone out of bounds. And before that, the Bobcats almost picked up a first down with a running play on 3rd and 17 which is something I've seen way too much of the last two seasons. In this last game, I don't think guys were being put in positions to make plays for most of the day - the old guard on the DL was playing their guts out though. Yet, every time NDSU took a lead, the defense disappeared completely. 8.6 yards per play? NDSU didn't get that against Drake. GAH!

In the last USD game, the average starting position of an NDSU drive was the SIXTEEN yard line - and since USD only punted once, that's almost all kickoff returns where a fair catch gets you to the 25 - which was NDSU's best starting field position, btw. That's disgusting. The defense giving them three first downs by penalty? Also disgusting.

I know NDSU has got some momentum, but acting like NDSU is going to pounds these guys seems exceedingly optimistic.

[BigHorns]

Big time game on ABC.

We need to take these guys to the woodshed, or at least not get embarrassed.

Can't wait for Saturday. LFG!

[Professor Chaos]

Since rewatching last week's game, all I can say is that this is going to be a hard game to win because the Bison defense looked absolutely terrible (albeit with some flashes of awesomeness.) I mean, the best stretch was where NDSU sacked their QB a couples times but that was only after he ran right by the defense, reaching a top speed that I assume was double digits (Dylan Hendricks was way faster than he was), and he would've scored if he hadn't checked his DMs and gone out of bounds. And before that, the Bobcats almost picked up a first down with a running play on 3rd and 17 which is something I've seen way too much of the last two seasons. In this last game, I don't think guys were being put in positions to make plays for most of the day - the old guard on the DL was playing their guts out though. Yet, every time NDSU took a lead, the defense disappeared completely. 8.6 yards per play? NDSU didn't get that against Drake. GAH!

In the last USD game, the average starting position of an NDSU drive was the SIXTEEN yard line - and since USD only punted once, that's almost all kickoff returns where a fair catch gets you to the 25 - which was NDSU's best starting field position, btw. That's disgusting. The defense giving them three first downs by penalty? Also disgusting.

I know NDSU has got some momentum, but acting like NDSU is going to pounds these guys seems exceedingly optimistic.

The point you're missing is that USD's offense isn't nearly what Montana St's offense is and it's a complete polar opposite when it comes to the QB run. USD's offense is closer to UNI than Montana St. I have a feeling the NDSU run defense will continue to get gashed from time to time as they have all season but if the pass rush can continue to step up they can get stops because Bouman isn't going to burn them with his legs like Mellot could. Getting an early lead would be monstrous (as it would've been last week as well where they failed to do so) since Bouman would really be a sitting duck in the pocket if the Bison defense can get them into obvious passing situations.

IMO the craziest stat about the first matchup between these two is NDSU had 6 total possessions... that's it. They went FG, INT, punt, TD, FG, TD. They really weren't that bad but they lacked explosive plays which is a credit to the USD defense. This Bison offense is capable of taking over this game if the defense can get them the ball and they don't dig a similar type of hole they dug in the first matchup.

[Bisonator98]

The point you're missing is that USD's offense isn't nearly what Montana St's offense is and it's a complete polar opposite when it comes to the QB run. USD's offense is closer to UNI than Montana St. I have a feeling the NDSU run defense will continue to get gashed from time to time as they have all season but if the pass rush can continue to step up they can get stops because Bouman isn't going to burn them with his legs like Mellot could. Getting an early lead would be monstrous (as it would've been last week as well where they failed to do so) since Bouman would really be a sitting duck in the pocket if the Bison defense can get them into obvious passing situations.

IMO the craziest stat about the first matchup between these two is NDSU had 6 total possessions... that's it. They went FG, INT, punt, TD, FG, TD. They really weren't that bad but they lacked explosive plays which is a credit to the USD defense. This Bison offense is capable of taking over this game if the defense can get them the ball and they don't dig a similar type of hole they dug in the first matchup.

Right, NDSU should have won the first game. Defense just needs to cover Bell better and get after Bouman!

[tony]

IMO the craziest stat about the first matchup between these two is NDSU had 6 total possessions... that's it. They went FG, INT, punt, TD, FG, TD. They really weren't that bad but they lacked explosive plays which is a credit to the USD defense. This Bison offense is capable of taking over this game if the defense can get them the ball and they don't dig a similar type of hole they dug in the first matchup.

That's kind of what I'm hoping - i.e., that USD's strategy of limiting possessions could come back to bite them.

[Gully]

Since rewatching last week's game, all I can say is that this is going to be a hard game to win because the Bison defense looked absolutely terrible (albeit with some flashes of awesomeness.) I mean, the best stretch was where NDSU sacked their QB a couples times but that was only after he ran right by the defense, reaching a top speed that I assume was double digits (Dylan Hendricks was way faster than he was), and he would've scored if he hadn't checked his DMs and gone out of bounds. And before that, the Bobcats almost picked up a first down with a running play on 3rd and 17 which is something I've seen way too much of the last two seasons. In this last game, I don't think guys were being put in positions to make plays for most of the day - the old guard on the DL was playing their guts out though. Yet, every time NDSU took a lead, the defense disappeared completely. 8.6 yards per play? NDSU didn't get that against Drake. GAH!

In the last USD game, the average starting position of an NDSU drive was the SIXTEEN yard line - and since USD only punted once, that's almost all kickoff returns where a fair catch gets you to the 25 - which was NDSU's best starting field position, btw. That's disgusting. The defense giving them three first downs by penalty? Also disgusting.

I know NDSU has got some momentum, but acting like NDSU is going to pounds these guys seems exceedingly optimistic.

I need to go back and watch the game but I recall thinking afterwards that "we would have won the game if we had fair caught all the kickoffs". It felt like we were backed up all the time, causing them to call conservative plays. I'm going to watch it again and see if I have the same impression sober.

[MyOhMy]

I need to go back and watch the game but I recall thinking afterwards that "we would have won the game if we had fair caught all the kickoffs". It felt like we were backed up all the time, causing them to call conservative plays. I'm going to watch it again and see if I have the same impression sober.

That's not a bad take TBF, but the pick that led to a 2 play USD TD was a killer as were the huge plays we gave up for TDs.