Winona State

[89rabbit]

Re: Winona State

Well turnovers and questionable calls (2 TD brought back with late flags, a mythical holding on a punt late, etc.) killed us.  Total penalties SDSU 10 for 70 yards, WSU 3 for 20 yards.  We killed them statistically.  However it is points that win a game.  Hats off to Winona they did what then needed to do to win. They are a quality team (#23 in the nation I think) and it is always tough to win on the road.   Time to re-group and get ready for Western Oregon.   Final Score WSU 30 SDSU 23.

Go SDSU!

[tony]

Re: Winona State

Tough loss but Winona State is a good team, ranked highly and playing at home. The Jacks have to pick themselves up for Western Oregon.

BTW, your schedule sucks. Four consecutive road games? Western Oregon (long trip), NDSU, and UN-O back to back to back! Oh well, at least five of your last six are at home. Finish strong.

[Charger13]

Re: Winona State

Sounded like the refs had some questionable calls, but it also sounded like we didn't play to our ability. Hopefully we can rebound and win at Western Oregon next weekend.

[89rabbit]

Re: Winona State

There is no doubt great teams overcome, and we can still play better. Many teams in the NCC (in all of college football for that matter) had a tough weekend so we need to bounce back and get on track again. We can still make our last season in the NCC and D II a
memorable one.

Go South Dakota State!

[SDSUFAN]

Re: Winona State

I was at the game. Winona is for real.  The Winona starters on both sides of the ball are mostly seniors.  They will lose something like 18 starters after this year.  They are well coached. Their crowd is not a factor despite it being a small but well maintained field.  They have nice turf.  I believe its the same type that was put in at Howard Field in Sioux Falls.  

I dont know what Coach Stig thoughts are today on his FG choices on the 4th and 9 late in the game and the 4 and 1 early in the game. We came away with 6 points in the form of 2 FG, but could have had 14 if we had went for it and made it into the endzone.  On the first series we controlled the line and Watson moved the ball real well. I think they adjusted to some of his movements and shut him down.  So Watson has to learn to go with the flow better.  I think he will.  Often his yardage came from cutting back to the weak side of the field.  A different approach than Raneks straight up the middle or to the right carrying tacklers piggy back.

That Curtin kid is very quick.  In fact I did not see a slow player on the field yesterday for Winona.

Winona defense won the game for them, and they were able to make plays that we did not stop.

I think even if we had been stopped on 4th down on both plays Winona would have had to work their way out. I think we gave too many good field positions away as it is.  Winona seems to mix up their offense  pretty good so if you cant pick them up, they rack up the yards.

Western Oregan beat Western Washington yesterday.  This could be a tough game as well.  I think the guys will come back. From what I was told in june, they are flying out to the West Coast on Wednesday in order to adjust to the jet lag.  At the golf thing in Volga, one of the assistants told me that they did not do that when
we played WWU a couple years ago.  When it came game time, they were very tired, and they want to prevent this coming week.

I guess I have to say congradulations to Winona State, they wanted the game more than our guys.  I don't think they beat us with talent so much but rather  with consistency. Also Ron Lenz on the offical site mentions penalities and we had 4 turnovers.

[SDSUFAN]

Re: Winona State

Tough loss but Winona State is a good team, ranked highly and playing at home. The Jacks have to pick themselves up for Western Oregon.

BTW, your schedule sucks. Four consecutive road games? Western Oregon (long trip), NDSU, and UN-O back to back to back! Oh well, at least five of your last six are at home. Finish strong.

Tony:
This is exactly why I did not think SDSU deserved to be ranked in any poll. I felt if we could come through with 4 road wins, then we deserved recognition.

The more I think about yesterday's game, I think maybe the reason we went for FG's is that  Watson has only played two games, and making short gains so far has not been his strong point.  This is something he will need to develope with time.  I think its easy to expect Watson to come in and pickup where Ranek left off.

[89rabbit]

Re: Winona State

I was at the game. Winona is for real.  The Winona starters on both sides of the ball are mostly seniors.  They will lose something like 18 starters after this year.  They are well coached. Their crowd is not a factor despite it being a small but well maintained field.  They have nice turf.  I believe its the same type that was put in at Howard Field in Sioux Falls.  

I dont know what Coach Stig thoughts are today on his FG choices on the 4th and 9 late in the game and the 4 and 1 early in the game. We came away with 6 points in the form of 2 FG, but could have had 14 if we had went for it and made it into the endzone.  On the first series we controlled the line and Watson moved the ball real well. I think they adjusted to some of his movements and shut him down.  So Watson has to learn to go with the flow better.  I think he will.  Often his yardage came from cutting back to the weak side of the field.  A different approach than Raneks straight up the middle or to the right carrying tacklers piggy back.

That Curtin kid is very quick.  In fact I did not see a slow player on the field yesterday for Winona.

Winona defense won the game for them, and they were able to make plays that we did not stop.

I think even if we had been stopped on 4th down on both plays Winona would have had to work their way out. I think we gave too many good field positions away as it is.  Winona seems to mix up their offense  pretty good so if you cant pick them up, they rack up the yards.

Western Oregan beat Western Washington yesterday.  This could be a tough game as well.  I think the guys will come back. From what I was told in june, they are flying out to the West Coast on Wednesday in order to adjust to the jet lag.  At the golf thing in Volga, one of the assistants told me that they did not do that when
we played WWU a couple years ago.  When it came game time, they were very tired, and they want to prevent this coming week.

I guess I have to say congradulations to Winona State, they wanted the game more than our guys.  I don't think they beat us with talent so much but rather  with consistency.  Also Ron Lenz on the offical site mentions penalities and we had 4 turnovers.

I watched the game on the internet.  Channel 25 from up in Winona. Talk about Homers, I thought the one guy doing the game was a coach.  After I got WNAX to work I listened to their call and watched (15 sec. delay but still better then the TV guys).

Coach Stig said he went for the FG because he didn't want to give them MO if we didn't get any points.  SDSUFAN you make a good point, we do need to score more  touchdowns and some of the play calling in the red zone makes you wonder   ???.  

We need to get ready for Western Oregon.  The question I have is how good are they.  They beat Western Washington, but they needed to go to OT to beat Humboldt St. (unless Humboldt is much better then last year).  Either way it is a long trip and we need to be ready for them.

Go SDSU!

[JACKGUY]

Re: Winona State

I also was at the game and while the officiating was terrible in key situations and Winona is a good team our conservative approach is what handed them the game. When you have the size advantage our offensive line had over their D Line you don't kick a field goal on 4th and one on the two yard line. Twice in the first quarter
we had the ball inside the 10 yard line with a 4th and one decision and we kicked field goals. We moved the ball with ease and you have to believe you can get one yard and if not you make them drive the ball 90+ yards. I could tell by the offensive players looks on the sideline they were very frustrated with these decisions as it gave the impression the coaches lacked confidence in their ability. We should have put this game out of reach early and then the officiating would have been a non factor. I've said it before I'm not sold on Coach Stig taking us where we need to go!

[SDSUFAN]

Re: Winona State

Over on D2Football even the WSU posters have questioned our 4 and 1 calls.  Watson is a strong guy, but if Stig was worried about momentum, that I think it was a ligitmite concern. WSU as Jackguy said was a very good team. If WSU had gotten two scores up on us, I think we would have been a rough rioad making it back. There are 18 experienced seniors on both side of the ball so if they dont go to the top this year, its going to be a while.

I think the one announcer was a former player for them named Shoemaker.  He posts over on D2football and is a good guy. I think he is very passionate about WSU and he also the Development Director guy at WSU. He was responsible for the free brats etc from Wells Fargo.
I think in being a homer he was only doing his job.
89rabbit being in sales, I think you can understand that role.

This was one game were SDSU was alway on the verge of taking control, but never did.  The holding calls and the refs do bother me,but again not much you can do about it now.

Western Oregan, appears to be a real mystery. If you judge their performance on WWU and Humbolt State, it appears they have the capability of getting up for good teams.

WSU felt this was a great opportunity to get the Jacks in their house, and maybe WOU might feel the same way. We have to be ready.

[89rabbit]

Re: Winona State

I also was at the game and while the officiating was terrible in key situations and Winona is a good team our conservative approach is what handed them the game. When you have the size advantage our  offensive line had over their D Line you don't kick a field goal on 4th and one on the two yard line. Twice in the first quarter
we had the ball inside the 10 yard line with a 4th and one decision and we kicked field goals. We moved the ball with ease and you have to believe you can get one yard and if not you make them drive the ball 90+ yards. I could tell by the offensive players looks on the sideline they were very frustrated with these decisions as it gave the impression the coaches lacked confidence in their ability. We should have put this game out of reach early and then the officiating would have been a non factor. I've said it before I'm not sold on Coach Stig taking us where we need to go!        

Amen, brother!

Go State!

[89rabbit]

Re: Winona State

Over on D2Football even the WSU posters have questioned our 4 and 1 calls.  Watson is a strong guy, but if Stig was worried about momentum, that I think it was a ligitmite concern. WSU as Jackguy said was a very good team. If WSU had gotten two scores up on us, I think we would have been a rough rioad making it back. There are 18 experienced seniors on both side of the ball so if they dont go to the top this year, its going to be a while.

I think the one announcer was a former player for them named Shoemaker.  He posts over on D2football and is a good guy. I think he is very passionate about WSU and he also the Development Director guy at WSU. He was responsible for the free brats etc from Wells Fargo.
I think in being a homer he was only doing his job.
89rabbit being in sales, I think you can understand that role.

This was one game were SDSU was alway on the verge of taking control, but never did.  The holding calls and the refs do bother me,but again not much you can do about it now.

Western Oregan, appears to be a real mystery. If you judge their performance on WWU and Humbolt State, it appears they have the capability of getting up for good teams.

WSU felt this was a great opportunity to get the Jacks in their house, and maybe WOU might feel the same way. We have to be ready.

I can understand/respect his passion and I am sure he is a good guy.  I know it was a big game for them.    However, being a former sports announcer for 910 AM, there is a line you shouldn't cross.  It is tough, I covered some BHS games when I was only a few years removed from the program, but you have to call it differently then if you are talking about the game with your buddies in the basement.    One play in particular that comes to mind is a fumble (that we got back) where he screamed "its our ball its our ball" when you could clearly see that we got it back. There wasn't a WSU player anywhere near the ball. A better way to call that would be to get the facts straight, and then say (if indeed WSU had recovered the ball) "Warriors recover on the. . .Big play for WSU. . .or something like that.    The guys at WNAX do a great job of broadcasting with passion for the Jacks without looking like homers.  

All that being said, please understand that for me this was a very small issue.   I was glad I could watch the game.  It was just a little hard to listen to until I could get WNAX up and running.

I agree the most frustrating part for me was watching us on the verge of putting them away and never being able to do it.  That and every time we had a huge play waiting for the flag to come out.  I kind of reminded me of last nights Vikings vs Bears game except the Vikings won.

What is done is done though, so all we can do is get ready for the next one and hope the team and coaching staff learn something from this.  

Go SDSU, beat WOU!

[JACKGUY]

Re: Winona State

The PA announcer at Winona was the most bush league
I've ever heard as it was one commercial after another. I had never heard anything like it. It was a cheap side show to the real game. The Jack faithful were there as always in full force. It was funny to watch Winona State people who are accustomed to coming in late from the tailgating to sit on the visitor side and not being able to find seats with all the Jack Fans. Winona is in a beautiful setting and is a nice college town on the Mississippi.

[89rabbit]

Re: Winona State

Hey JACKGUY,

The guys on TV said that we brought between 500 and 1000 fans. They kind of down played the Jacks fans. They said that our ticket office told WSU that we would bring around 1000. They said that the University brought in extra bleachers for the game.  So since you were there how many Rabbit fans do you think made the trip?

Go State!

[SDSUFAN]

Re: Winona State

Yes the PA guy was really something else. Announcing the score when WSU took the lead and he continued to to do this until the final play. Its was like everyone there was blind or drunk and could not read the scoreboard. That being said I think we did have maybe a 1000 fans or a little under.. It was kind hard to tell but we have quite a few alums in southeastern Minnesota.

There was no pre-game get together. I ask VJ about that last week and the reason, none was organized is that Ryan Howlett, who has done a banner job getting these things organized left in June to go to work the Daschle re-election campaign, The new guy for social events who replaced Ryan has so many things on his plate, that VJ said he did not try to do something.

I think we had a good showing. I would not be surprised to see a good group of SDSU fans in Oregan.

[JACKGUY]

Re: Winona State

I think 1000 might be a high number but ther were somewhere between 500-1000. The band split our fans down the middle and so it was hard to gauge. It seemed at times the Jack chants and cowbells were drowning out the WSU faithful. There didn't seem to be a lot of open seats on either side or the endzone. Hope we have a good following to fargo! Away games can be a lot of fun.