GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

[GopherHole]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

A top 5/10 team should not struggle to beat or lose to unranked teams like SDSU seems to find a way to do every year. Period.

Who knows, maybe MSU will turn out to be a top 10/15 team by the end of the year and this win will seem better than it does right now, but as of game time, MSU was unranked, and not even recieving votes, that puts them where... somewhere around a 61 to 70th rank team? And by all rights and purposes, they probably should've won the game.

I'm looking forward to a boring win this week while avoiding injuries, and a week off after that to get healthy. While it is easy to find faults when our expectations are not met, I'm still very confident in this team. This was a gut-check win. While we do not have NDSU's tradition to build off of on knowing we can win championships, this team has that ability. One thing we can learn from NDSU is that championship teams do have hiccups.

2015 - The four time defending champions opened the season by losing to #12 Montana 35-38 and lost at home against unranked USD 21-24. Melt downs happened in Bisonville, but they hoisted another championship with a stellar defense down the stretch.
2014 - Play bad at Western Illinois but still win 17-10. In early November they lay an egg in Cedar Falls, getting thumped by UNI 23-3. Fire lit and offense leads them to six straight wins, including 29-27 over Illinois State in Fisco.
2013 - Undefeated championship season, but did have a struggle. After big win in Brookings over the #6 Jackrabbits, they struggled against #4 UNI in Fargo. Entered the fourth trailing 23-10, didn't panic, and won 24-23.
2012 - After back-to-back impressive wins at #14 UNI and a 48-7 win over #3 YSU, the Bizon fall flat to unranked Indiana State in Fargo, 14-17.
2011 - Impressive win at Minnesota and a nice win on homecoming against Illinois State did not translate to dominance over all opponents. Found themselves losing to the Salukis 0-3 late in the third before winning 9-3. Late in the season they lose at home to unranked Youngstown 24-27.

Football is not a no-brainer where they best team wins every week and dominates all opponents. Championship teams learn from adversity and translate that to victories in the post season. NDSU has that culture. We are developing that culture. I'm just hoping that what we learned in Bozeman will pay dividends later this season. Yes, we will have more hiccups, but this team has the potential to do something special on the way to hopefully another conference championship and with extremely high expectations in the post season.

[Bits]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Sorry for the late post, but I just had a chance to get caught up on the thread. Here are my thoughts:
- TC is really good. We knew that before, but I'm appreciating his talent a little more every game. I feel like his stated improvement that we keep hearing about is real. Last year I complained about TC limping every time he got breathed on by an opponent (he probably had a legitimate injury, but it just bothered me). Not the case this year. That was a big league hit that he took and shook off. I also liked seeing some fire from him when he scored that touchdown and the MSU defender continued to hold on to his jersey. TC ripped away after a second and looked back to give him an "F-U" glance. The entire team needs this type of edge ALL THE TIME.
- Some of the MSU defensive plays/players made me yell at the TV. As I reflect on the game, I wish our guys played with a little more of "that", not cheap but 100% through the end of the whistle. Football is game where you are trying to impose your will on the opponent. We need to act like a mother grizzly bear and the other team is trying to take our last meal! Help the guy up, and then knock him down harder the next time...but only one of the animals gets to eat Sorry, best analogy I could think of.
- Special teams appears to have improved dramatically over previous years. I used to hold my breath and clench my "cheeks" every time we punted/punt-returned/kicked-off/kick-returned. I don't have the same level of anxiety over special teams.
- Defense needs to improve. Started strong, but then completely disappeared. Did this all coincide with Soulek's injury? If so, he may legitimately be our MVP. Not our best player, but our most valuable player to the success of the team.
- Where are the freshmen? Maybe I missed seeing them? But, we yank a bunch of redshirts which I assume means guys are ready to make an impact, and then we don't see them in a meaningful game? Maybe they are simply special teams guys and backups only for injuries, but that just seems like a waste. How does a premier FCS team not have veterans, this means non-true freshman, talented enough to serve in those roles? Maybe it was just match-up related? My logic might be dated on why a redshirt gets pulled, but I don't understand.
- Got the W. Team needs to learn from it, move on and improve.

[SF_Rabbit_Fan]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Totally agree with CappinHard on this game. I haven't seen the stats but where were all the WRs and why couldn't they get open? Weineke was shut down meaning others should be open. Defense looked bad, really bad besides the first quarter. If the secondary was a strength in fall camp I sure didn't see it. Where was all the defensive line "fall camp" studs that the blogger talked about. I don't see that either. Don't measure the defense against Drake and Duquesne. Did Stig call the fake field goal? Two years ago (without Eck) this probably doesn't happen and Jacks lose the game. At times in the second half it looked like chaos with substitution on offense and late play calls thus burning time outs. Get organized and keep moment going, TOs let's the defense regroup. Ok. Turn the page and get ready for next week. A W is good but it was a ugly W.

Gotta laugh at this.

Fake calls are genius when they work (gotta be somebody other than Stig!), and moronic when they don't (Stig's fault!).

[Jacks-02]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Gotta laugh at this.

Fake calls are genius when they work (gotta be somebody other than Stig!), and moronic when they don't (Stig's fault!).

EWU playoff game comes to mind...

[SlapJack]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Christion gets smoked and goes down. Roughing the passer called on the Bobcats.

Uh oh. Hopefully the wind got knocked out of him.

Anyone have a video link on this?

[Nidaros]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Gotta laugh at this.

Fake calls are genius when they work (gotta be somebody other than Stig!), and moronic when they don't (Stig's fault!).

Some one on the Bobcat Nation message board said that Coach Eck designed the play. Where did he leave from to come to SDSU? None other than Montana State.

[Nidaros]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

He coached under different head coach at MSU.

[discoDancinJackrabbit]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Matt Zimmer's one tweet suggested a possible post-bye return, with a more recent tweet indicating Soulek wanted to play next week (tweets accessible here).

Personally, I'm hoping he doesn't take the field against Drake.

Very contradicting tweets. I just hope they get it right and bring him back on time. I agree don't rush him back for Drake but hope they aren't too cautious. Keep him fresh you know

[jakejc795]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Very contradicting tweets. I just hope they get it right and bring him back on time. I agree don't rush him back for Drake but hope they aren't too cautious. Keep him fresh you know

The tricky part is that the latter tweet referenced Soulek's desire to play (so the tweets weren't necessarily contradictory) -- theoretically, Soulek could be injured, know he cannot realistically play without risking further injury yet still want to play. However, I am in complete agreement with you in that I hope that Youngstown is his next game (assuming he is healthy in a couple weeks).

[91jack]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Gotta laugh at this.

Fake calls are genius when they work (gotta be somebody other than Stig!), and moronic when they don't (Stig's fault!).

I don't know if coach Stig or Eck made the call. It sure seemed like coach Eck did with the way he was acting and the way coach Stig gave him a "high 5" after the play. Otherwise, coach Stig should have gave the other coaches some love too. Since coach Eck came from there gives me a little more belief that he made the call.
SDSU did run the trick play against NDSU last year and they have ran a few more "communist" plays under Stig so it's not completely out of character for him.

I would like to see Mangeralli average more than 2.3 yards/carry or try another RB. We seem to have a few other options so if he isn't getting it done, move on. TC had 13 carries, Mangeralli had 12 carries and the rest of the team had 8 carries. This includes our kickers carry.

I also think that we wore out. I would like to see more players get on the field so we don't run out of gas. The coaches know better than I do how much their players can play but I'd rather think we ran out of gas that think that we can't defend the pass to save our lives.

[jackdaniel]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

The tricky part is that the latter tweet referenced Soulek's desire to play (so the tweets weren't necessarily contradictory) -- theoretically, Soulek could be injured, know he cannot realistically play without risking further injury yet still want to play. However, I am in complete agreement with you in that I hope that Youngstown is his next game (assuming he is healthy in a couple weeks).

What scared me was when he went down,he was pointing to his neck, but not wanting to touch it, probably didn't know if that's a good idea or not. An injury to the neck should be taken very seriously, I would hope they would keep him out until they are very certain it's no longer an issue and he can play just like he did pre-injury. Don't need to take a chance,especially against Drake. Will give the back-ups a lot of game experience too.

[UWMandSDSU]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

I don't know if coach Stig or Eck made the call. It sure seemed like coach Eck did with the way he was acting and the way coach Stig gave him a "high 5" after the play. Otherwise, coach Stig should have gave the other coaches some love too. Since coach Eck came from there gives me a little more belief that he made the call.
SDSU did run the trick play against NDSU last year and they have ran a few more "communist" plays under Stig so it's not completely out of character for him.

@skylinesportsmt South Dakota State HC John Stiegelmeier credited Montana State OL coach (2015) @Coach_Eck with calling fake FG in SDSU's win over MSU.

It is also known the fake play last year at NDSU was also an Eck CALLED play.

*Edit for the record. Coach Eck didn't design the trick play from last year's NDSU game nor did he probably design the play at Montana St (their is probably video from some other team out there prior to last Saturday's game, see updated video elbow). But I am fairly confident in saying Eck had a role in calling those two plays.

*Eck probably stole the trickery from this team. https://mobile.twitter.com/SportsCen...881346/video/1

[Jacks#1Fan]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Coach Eck said Stig signed off on it before he called it. They had been practicing it before they went west and discussing it after Vinatieri made the first field goal, which they felt helped set it up if another field goal came into play.

[tjbison]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

It is also known the fake play last year at NDSU was also an Eck designed play.

Incorrect

https://youtu.be/Zm08fOHKeuM

[UWMandSDSU]

Re: GDT: @ Montana State Bobkittens

Incorrect

https://youtu.be/Zm08fOHKeuM

I misstated it was a play called by Eck, not designed by him.
But you are also incorrect. This play has been run before NDSU has run it. It was not designed by the Bison.
https://youtu.be/fekOAov_I9w