UW-La Crosse

[antikardoes]

Re: UW-La Crosse

Hey, how about Jaron Harris, a nice return and a great receiving TD? And what about that pass from Reed Burkhardt! THAT is how a deep ball should be thrown. Kardoes was NOT even CLOSE!
Does anybody reallize that as good as our running game is, that we are NOT a powerhouse as the Nebraska rushing attack once was...meaning that if we cannot (and believe me, Kardoes cannot) pass the ball effectively, a quality team will see that a mile away and will tee off on our running game. Once they have that in control they will be making us beat them with the pass. That would be ok except that there is no way on earth that we can do that with Kardoes at the helm. Why didn't they let him pass the ball when he spelled Nelson last year? When they did let him... well remember gasp...groan...scream... it was ALWAYS BAD. Is Stig really ready to throw away a whole season? Is he even the right answer as Head Coach to begin with?

[filbert]

Re: UW-La Crosse

Hey, how about Jaron Harris, a nice return and a great receiving TD? And what about that pass from Reed Burkhardt! THAT is how a deep ball should be thrown. Kardoes was NOT even CLOSE!
Does anybody reallize that as good as our running game is, that we are NOT a powerhouse as the Nebraska rushing attack once was...meaning that if we cannot (and believe me, Kardoes cannot) pass the ball effectively, a quality team will see that a mile away and will tee off on our running game. Once they have that in control they will be making us beat them with the pass. That would be ok except that there is no way on earth that we can do that with Kardoes at the helm. Why didn't they let him pass the ball when he spelled Nelson last year? When they did let him... well remember gasp...groan...scream... it was ALWAYS BAD. Is Stig really ready to throw away a whole season? Is he even the right answer as Head Coach to begin with?

Wow. Panic much? Or did Kardoes (or Stig for that matter) steal your girlfriend?

Either way, you're well on your way toward earning your board nickname!

I guess I'll have to judge for myself when I see the Jacks next weekend vs. Valpo. I hope you're wrong, but we'll see . . .

[JackJD]

Re: UW-La Crosse

Hmmm...antikardoes a close relative of a backup quarterback?

I was at the game. Not perfect but not bad either. Some of you have forgotten that UW-Lacrosse has a few athletes and at times showed it. They played an improving DII team last year 43-44 (yeah, USD won).

Give the Jacks some credit. The first game was a good learning experience. Kardoes did some good things too (he showed some real quickness on a couple of scrambles).

Marty Kranz practiced all week and was in on some special teams and played his middle linebacker spot in the last quarter quite well. Some thought he might be lost for the season due to a hamstring injured last Spring. But, he looked good tonight (he started two years ago as a redshirt freshman).

Great night to be outside watching a win. And, finally, an excellent sound system at a football stadium!!

Food good in the backyard prior to the game.

[tankofarabbit]

Re: UW-La Crosse

I have been reading this board for way too long without posting my own thoughts. Anti I really think that you need to ease up a little on kardoes. He has great potential, and two years ago many people were talking about him starting over an older quarterback with no experience (BN). I believe that Kardoes will be a very good QB. He is quite fast and has a very strong arm. If you haven't noticed, the offense has been changed quite a bit this year to accommodate Andy's strengths. He will still make some mistakes with the new offense but I believe he will prove to be a very good QB. I don't believe I have heard talk from anyone this year about having a young QB overtake Kardoes.

[abisonfan]

Re: UW-La Crosse

Hey guys congrats on the win. I wouldn't read too much into strategy in this game, your coaches probably had things they wanted to work on for the future. I was at the Bison game Thursday, sure they won big but it could have been even uglier had they elected to grind it out more. It looked like like the offensive coordinator, Perles,was calling a lot of plays to test the timing of the offense and they used a lot of guys. You guys will crush Valpo next week, and again it'll be a tune up for Montana. That's when you will see what they can really do.

[SDSUFAN]

Re: UW-La Crosse

Hmmm...antikardoes a close relative of a backup quarterback?

I was at the game.  Not perfect but not bad either.  Some of you have forgotten that UW-Lacrosse has a few athletes and at times showed it.  They played an improving DII team last year 43-44 (yeah, USD won).

Give the Jacks some credit.  The first game was a good learning experience.  Kardoes did some good things too (he showed some real quickness on a couple of scrambles).

Marty Kranz practiced all week and was in on some special teams and played his middle linebacker spot in the last quarter quite well.  Some thought he might be lost for the season due to a hamstring injured last Spring.  But, he looked good tonight (he started two years ago as a redshirt freshman).

Great night to be outside watching a win.  And, finally, an excellent sound system at a football stadium!!

Food good in the backyard prior to the game.

I would agree pretty much with JackJD. I too was at the game. Not perfect by any means in terms of performance but what first game would be?

The pass defense that we seemed to be weak in is a concern. Hopefully we have some good CB's and secondary people in the redshirt class that got the speed to keep up. I think Andy Kardoes is going to be okay. I would like to see more option runs on his part as at times there was that opportunity.
UW-L is a very good program with no athletic scholarships and they showed me why NDSU and others have recruited Wisconsin. I hope we can start pulling a few more in at SDSU, as the state seems to have talent and the Badgers dont need everyone. Also with no D2 and D1AA teams in Wisconsin, these kids got to go somewhere if they want to play ball.

I am impressed with Jaron Harris speed and hope we can keep him on the O side of the ball. If we cant find the secondary people on D then I would not be surprised if he is shifted to the D side.

Based on this game, our opponents are going to try and throw long. Lets hope we can keep up and get some INT's

[OK_Jackrabbit]

Re: UW-La Crosse

I was there. Kardoes was really pretty shaky in the passing game. There were a couple of times (including one interception) when he had about 15 yards of open space in front of him and chose an ill-advised and off-target pass instead. I'm hoping it was just first-start jitters. The upside is that he's a pretty impressive athlete, probably the best athlete on the field last night, the way I saw it (he's very, very fast for such a big guy, and he turned a Lacrosse defender inside-out with a move to get free in the backfield.) The Jacks do need a solid passing game, though, and while there were some dropped passes, there were also some off-target passes, even on short routes. When you're hitting guys on the shoulder pads (or making them stop and back up) on crossing routes, over and over and over, there may be an accuracy issue there.

Burckhardt threw one nice pass, but I'm not ready to recommend that we sit our best athlete down based on that.

Generally, not having seen a Jacks game in person for about 15 years, I was impressed with the athletic ability on the field (with just 42 scholarships, depth may be a problem). And the enthusiasm of some of the new coaches was fun to see. Also, the coaches deserve credit for preparing the team. There weren't any silly, first-game mistakes in getting people lined up, getting the right people on the field, etc.

The scoreboard was great, but everyone around me in the stands agreed the music coming out of it was way too loud and some of it (Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy) wasn't really the most appropriate choice for a family atmosphere, either.

[jackmd]

Re: UW-La Crosse

A win is a win but don't kid yourselves. LaCrosse is a DIII team and in no way should they compete or be expected to compete at our level, no way. Anyone who suggests so is naive. Valpo is on about the same level with the exception that they carry the DIAA label, no scholarships. Jacks need to dominate next week.

Montana is the real deal, one of the top 10 programs in the IAA ranks, full 63 scholarships, great fan base, and great game day atmosphere. The way LaCrosse moved the ball on the first couple of drives, our shaky pass game, and our lack of pressure on the QB had better improve or Montana is going to hand it to us. Just the facts.

[jack100]

Re: UW-La Crosse

Jacks passing game very shaky - same goes for the Jacks passing defense.

JaRon Harris touched the ball twice. 47 yard kickoff return and 50 yard touchdown catch. He is fast and needs to touch the ball more than twice a game. The Jacks ran a reverse play last night - this is a spot where JaRon should have been running the ball. He needs to be in the offense more.

[Jackrabbitfootball]

Re: UW-La Crosse

This was my first ever Jacks game. Had a great time!! I thought the game was played very much like I expected an opening game of the season to be played. It was obvious who the better team was and it showed at the end.

Also is there anywhere that they post pictures or video highlights of the games??

[JackTwice]

Re: UW-La Crosse

I was at the game also. My thoughts:

The crowd did nothing but sit on their hands. If it wasn't for the students making noise there would have been none at all. There were several critical 3rd down plays for us on defense when the team was waving their hands trying to get the crowd into it and nobody moved. Somebody said on an earlier post that our fans are not to the level yet of the NDSU fans. WE ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE!

The scoreboard was nice but they needed to do more with it. They used it to try to get defense cheers started (see previous paragraph) with no noise. Hopefully just first game kinks. The old people need to lighten up. The music wasn't loud enough!

Kardoes will be just fine. He is the leader of this team and he will have another week to iron out some of the kinks. He did some nice things and had some drops. By the way that was a sick move he made to evade that tackler in the backfield!

The coaches have had an entire spring and 4 weeks to evaluate the talent they have. If JaRon Harris isn't on the field every play there is a reason. He is a powerful talent and will be one of the great receivers at SDSU when he is ready. (Man he blew that DB away on the touchdown pass. For those of you that didn't see it, he was about 1 yard past the DB when the ball was thrown and when he caught it he must have been 10 - 12 yards past the guy.

I've had enough rant for now.

[sdman]

Re: UW-La Crosse

I predicted 6 - 5 but after seeing our lackluster performance I am not so sure. Maybe this team will play to the level of our opponents but if we don't it could be a tough season. I thought we would have 8 or 9k at that the game. It looked like about 5 or 6k which was disappointing. Maybe gas prices are keeping people away.
I know that people on this board who can attend games do but we need better support than 5 or 6k at a game. An extra 3 thousand people at 10 bucks per ticket on avg or thereabouts would be very helpful.

[JackJD]

Re: UW-La Crosse

Competition for people in the stands included: 1) A 3-day weekend; 2) the "Dakota Bowl" in Sioux Falls; 3) no Band.

[OK_Jackrabbit]

Re: UW-La Crosse

The old people need to lighten up.  The music wasn't loud enough!

The "old people" as you call them make up about 2/3 of the crowd and probably range in age from 20 to 90. Many of the people in my section (F) have been going to every single Jacks game for literally decades. Those people are true fans.  (Incidently, they are the ones giving most of the money to pay the tab on the new football scholarships, too.)

When a decent number of students actually show up at the games here, I'll be ready to let them set the music volume. I asked the students in my classes (I have about 100 students total) and my wife asked her students (she has about 50) if they were going to the game. I had 2 say yes. She had about the same. Most of them seemed unaware there was a game. I'm thinking that just maybe the 'old people' are doing a better job of holding up their end of the bargain than the students are.

And by the way, my wife is 34 (maybe you think that's old, but it's not) and used to play bass in a rock band in NYC. She thought the music was too loud.

[Jacks99]

Re: UW-La Crosse

I agree that the sound on the board was a bit much and distracting, but overall pretty sweet.  The pre-game video segment was very nice.

Don't forget this was a game that everyone was expecting the Jacks to win by 30 over a DIII team.  I'm not surprised at all at the attendence or the crowd participation.  No need to dwell on it.  It will all come with time.

There also was 110,000 at Lifelight in SF Sat night that easily could have affected attendance.  Not to mention the Dakota Bowl and State Fair. I expect attendance to be up next week.