STrib: What if the Gophers played North Dakota State?

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BleedGopher said:
per Sinker:

So what happens if college football schedules get hastily altered because of travel restrictions and the uncertain nature of college sports during the pandemic?

A Fargo sports reporter has an idea: What if North Dakota State, the reigning Football Championship Subdivision defending champion and perennial powerhouse at that level, can’t play its scheduled game at Oregon on Sept 5? What if the Gophers can’t open their season as currently scheduled against Florida Atlantic that week?

What if the Gophers and North Dakota State got on the front end of the talk about regional rescheduling and turned words into action by playing each other that weekend?

That idea was broached by Fargo Forum sports reporter Jeff Kolpack, who acknowledged that he's riffing off an idea proposed by Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse from a couple of years back.

Kolpack wrote: “If the pandemic reaches the point where both teams have their schedules altered to conference games only, make it a true home-and-home. The fan aspect would be rendered very low if at all due to social distancing. So the U will not have to be concerned with the 18,750-seat Gate City Bank Field at the Fargodome vs. the 50,805-seat TCF Bank Stadium.”

Two teams, two games. What would you call the trophy?

www.startribune.com

Pandemic football audible: What if the Gophers played North Dakota State?

If the college football schedule is thrown into disarray by COVID-19 based travel restrictions, could Minnesota and North Dakota State put on a hastily planned game (or two)?
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
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What are they called now...? The Flickertails ...? I CAN NOT ever remember the UND nickname anymore.

<edit> I GOT AN IDEA. WHY DON'T North Dakota PLAY ST.THOMAS? Both schools and sets of fans seem to think they're better than anyone else. :) Smoke that.
 

Every few years the NDSU question rears its ugly head.

And the answer I always have is this question: Why would the U want to play NDSU?

There is literally no upside at all.

If they want to run with the big dogs in FBS, then I'd say schedule them as much as you want.

But as it stands, they're not moving up and seem to want to puff out their chests at the FCS level. If they want the U to take them more seriously, move all the way up to the top flight. Until then, there is no advantage to playing an NDSU team that would regard the contest as their Super Bowl while the Gophers would be playing the lowest tiered competition on their schedule.
 

Who cares about NDSU their equivilent to a MAC team
 

Herd said:
Lost 2 in a row, and all you can do is whine and gripe over a suggested opportunity to beat ndsu and reclaim some dignity? In a year that you’re ranked to top 10? I’ll never understand the mind of a gopher fan. You’d bitch of someone gave you a hundred bucks. It would be a hell of a game, that’s the bottom line, if FIU and OR games didn’t happen.
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No one is whining or griping. there is no upside and most of us don't care about ndsu
 

NDSU success is predominantly with Minnesota and North Dakota boys. They pick up many of their best athletes from Minnesota. Look at their QB and Left Tackle is from Becker, both in the daft next year. Kill concentrated on Minnesota talent more, like Iowa and Wisconsin.
 


While I think the Gophers early season troubles last year are probably behind us.....I'd hate to see them come out flat and drop a game to a Bison team that they should beat 9 out of 10 times. SDSU and Fresno State are not as good as the Bison are likely to be.

That said....I still wouldn't be terribly concerned. I just don't think there's much to gain for the Gophers in a matchup here. Although...it would be nice to shut those Bison fans up that beat a few of the worst Gophers teams in recent history.
 

Tommyboy said:
NDSU success is predominantly with Minnesota and North Dakota boys. They pick up many of their best athletes from Minnesota. Look at their QB and Left Tackle is from Becker, both in the daft next year. Kill concentrated on Minnesota talent more, like Iowa and Wisconsin.
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Is your son being recruited by them?
 

Playing NDSU is like eating beets. I wouldn't look forward to it and I wouldn't enjoy it!
 




stocker08 said:
While I think the Gophers early season troubles last year are probably behind us.....I'd hate to see them come out flat and drop a game to a Bison team that they should beat 9 out of 10 times. SDSU and Fresno State are not as good as the Bison are likely to be.

That said....I still wouldn't be terribly concerned. I just don't think there's much to gain for the Gophers in a matchup here. Although...it would be nice to shut those Bison fans up that beat a few of the worst Gophers teams in recent history.
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I would argue fresno state is probably better
 

Otis said:
Playing NDSU is like eating beets. I wouldn't look forward to it and I wouldn't enjoy it!
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From Web MD:

Beet juice may boost stamina to help you exercise longer, improve blood flow, and help lower blood pressure, some research shows.

Why? Beets are rich in natural chemicals called nitrates. Through a chain reaction, your body changes nitrates into nitric oxide, which helps with blood flow and blood pressure.

Beet Juice Benefits
In some studies, drinking about 2 cups of beet juice daily or taking nitrate capsules lowered blood pressure in healthy adults.
 


Tommyboy said:
NDSU success is predominantly with Minnesota and North Dakota boys. They pick up many of their best athletes from Minnesota. Look at their QB and Left Tackle is from Becker, both in the daft next year. Kill concentrated on Minnesota talent more, like Iowa and Wisconsin.
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Kill never went 11-2
 



Tommyboy said:
NDSU success is predominantly with Minnesota and North Dakota boys. They pick up many of their best athletes from Minnesota. Look at their QB and Left Tackle is from Becker, both in the daft next year. Kill concentrated on Minnesota talent more, like Iowa and Wisconsin.
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You say that like we miss the way Kill recruited.
 

Bring back the Axe said:
I think you may be underselling how good NDSU just a tad. I like good games again high level competition, and the regional element makes it that much better. Not to mention, that we owe them some payback.

I believe they've won 4 or 5 straight against power 5 competition. There's a reason P5 teams hardly schedule them anymore, which is why the Oregon game would be so intriguing.
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I may be underselling them a tad, but theres a huge difference between when ndsu plays D1 teams when it's their super bowl and them playing a big ten schedule when it also means something to the other team as well.
 

Herd said:
Lost 2 in a row, and all you can do is whine and gripe over a suggested opportunity to beat ndsu and reclaim some dignity? In a year that you’re ranked to top 10? I’ll never understand the mind of a gopher fan. You’d bitch of someone gave you a hundred bucks. It would be a hell of a game, that’s the bottom line, if FIU and OR games didn’t happen.
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I don’t think we need to reclaim any dignity. If you want to give me 100 bucks, I’d definitely take it and not bitch. I think it would be a hell of a game (for our team’s statistics). But I agree with some of the sentiment of your post!
Anybody who witnessed our last game should love a rematch. This board oftentimes chastises anyone who questions our bowl victories due to the opponent not caring. Seems hypocritical to reverse that attitude against NDSU beating us. For those on this board who say we have nothing to gain - revenge and a W.
 

FWIW - The Gophers are likely going to enter the season as a top-20 team.

That means they will have several games this season against lower-rated teams.

if you're afraid to play lower-rated teams because a loss to a lower-rated team might look bad, then this season is going to be a real nail-biter for you.

you can dismiss NDSU as playing in a "JV" division, but they are a National Champion in that division.

In other words, I think a loss to Northwestern, Purdue or Maryland would be perceived nationally as a worse loss than losing to NDSU.
 


short ornery norwegian said:
From Web MD:

Beet juice may boost stamina to help you exercise longer, improve blood flow, and help lower blood pressure, some research shows.

Why? Beets are rich in natural chemicals called nitrates. Through a chain reaction, your body changes nitrates into nitric oxide, which helps with blood flow and blood pressure.

Beet Juice Benefits
In some studies, drinking about 2 cups of beet juice daily or taking nitrate capsules lowered blood pressure in healthy adults.
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Okay Dwight
 

short ornery norwegian said:
In other words, I think a loss to Northwestern, Purdue or Maryland would be perceived nationally as a worse loss than losing to NDSU.
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LOL

a loss to North Dakota State wouldn’t be perceived as badly as a loss to Idaho state or Colgate.
 

The issue I always have with NDSU fans is they ALWAYS bring up the MN wins or the Iowa State win, whatever. Sure those are good wins, and can NDSU play with those teams in a 1 game sample? Obviously they can. What NDSU fans never understand is that it is way different to play 1 game vs an entrie season of that. Imagine going to the big house against 100k fans, then next week you are home vs Ohio St followed up by a trip to Minn and then the next week you play Purdue, sure they arent great but they might have 2 Round 1/2 WR on their team, certainly more talented than your CB's. Suddenly in four weeks your season went from good to 2-5. Now how do you motivate kids who look and go man we arent going to a bowl, we are just riding out the season, this isnt fun!

Obviously NDSU wants to play the Gophers, if they lose so what, they are still #1 and have everything to play for. If the Gophers lose to NDSU they are essentially (not 100% but close) to eliminated from a playoff berth and are likely hurt for a great bowl game. That hurts. I for one would love NDSU to move up and see what its like to go 28-32 with 1 bowl win over 5 years. I bet that Fargo Dome would go pretty quiet pretty quick.
 


short ornery norwegian said:
In other words, I think a loss to Northwestern, Purdue or Maryland would be perceived nationally as a worse loss than losing to NDSU.
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Does Common Man still do the preposterous statement tournament?

Absolutely no way NDSU would be perceived as a better loss than those teams. If nothing else those games matter so much more because it's in conference. Even without that though, a loss to NDSU would be considered far worse because the headlines would read "FCS NDSU beats Gophers". The media would highlight that NDSU is in the lower division.
 

Why would we want to decrease our strength of schedule by playing a weaker team than Florida Atlantic? Of course the Fargo rubes would love to play up a level against the Gophers.

Every single player on the NDSU team that would drop them like a bad habit if given the opportunity to join the Gophers. PERIOD.
 

yeah - no. I'm across the river from Fargo, and there's just no point to it. Kolpack, referencing Pat..... wow - what a combo of awful.
 

With our current O-line we would run for 400 yards honestly. It would be an ugly beatdown. Look what we did against Auburn! A team that almost beat LSU last year.
 



If, and only if, the Gophs decide to play NDSU again someday for ticket sales, it needs to be in the middle of the season. Not the first game of the year where NDSU gameplans for its superbowl for 8 months with fresh athletes (which they've been very successful at to their credit), while the Gophs look at it as the pre-season FCS game that it is and run vanilla schemes so they don't tip their hand for later bigger games.
 

If NDSU wants to play the Golden Gophers then by all means they should move their athletic department to Mid American conference or Mountain West conference.
 

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