JUST MY BOTTLE OF WILD TURKEY & ME....   (10/26/2005) Off My Office Floor.... Chocolate salty... The Bison gear and an extra pair of boxers are already packed. The airline tickets for Salt Lake City have been placed in a secure but accessible site inside my rig. The pickup is full of petro for my drive from Watertown to Bismarck tonight. No Bison Chat for me... As Bob and I are hitting the friendly skies on a Canadian Air Regional Jet at approximately 1:08 p.m. Thursday afternoon via the Bismarck Municipal Airport. Exciting! But anyway, I don't have much time to finish my column, so I'll keep it short and sweet this week... Fargodome or Assisted Living Center... I don't know how many times this must be said. Football is a spectator sport. Spectators are a big part of the game by creating NOISE and extreme excitement levels. At University of Nebraska football games, the crowd stands the whole game. I'm tired. I don't understand how Bison fans can be so apathetic. Wait a minute... Probably more pathetic than apathetic. Life is too short to be lazy and boring... Golden age... We should hear today from the Bison Athletic Department about something that we have been anxiously awaiting. A press conference has been called for later today (not sure what time) to announce that the Bison have added the University of Minnesota to their 2007 football schedule. Do the Bison have a chance to win this game? Most likely slim to none... But right now, I really don't care. NCAA Division I is the place to be... (*Update - Game scheduled for Saturday, October 20, 2007 in Minneapolis) An offensive odor... Do you find the Bison offense as repetitive and boring as I do? Not to nag on the coaching staff, but I'd like to see at least a minor change in the game plan from week to week. Has the Bison offense ran a miss direction play all year? Do they have one on their sheet of plays? Will the fullback ever run the ball again? When is the last time the Bison ran a successful screen pass? And I don't mean the vaunted wide receiver screen... That play has been good for about nothing the last how many years. Just something to get this sluggish Bison offense started!! Maybe some no-huddle offense the first series of the game? Show some crispness in and out of the huddle... instead of slowly meandering to the line of scrimmage. My old high school coach used to be some kind of 'huddle freak'. If Coach Hovland didn't like how we huddled and broke huddle after watching game tape, he would actually make us run huddle drills during the next practice. Huddle, call the play, go to the line of scrimmage, snap the ball... sprint 20 yards and repeat the process. The drill really starts to suck about the 4th or 5th time down the football field. Does this improve execution of a play? Maybe and maybe not... But at least it keeps your head in the game or gives each player a sense of urgency that every possession is important. Which can be the difference between winning and losing... The Southern Utah Offense.... Base Offense: Pro-set or 1-back/3-wide... Leading the Southern Utah offensive attack is Senior QB Zac Connors. The 5-11, 185-pound Clayton, California native has completing 66 of 120 passes for 669 yards and 5 touchdowns, while tossing 5 interceptions this season. On the ground, Connors has racked up 65 yards on 24 attempts. Leading the Thunderbird wide receiving crew are Jerome Eason and Joey Hew Len. This season, Eason, a 6-3 215-pound senior from Lancaster, California has grabbed 23 passes for 251 yards (10.9 ypc) and 3 touchdowns. Eason was a 2004 All-GWFC and a 2005 1st Team All-GWFC pre-season selection. Hew Len, a 6-2 220-pound senior from Sacramento, California, and a transfer from the University of Hawaii; has hauled in the pigskin 21 times for 313 yards (14.9 ypc) and 2 touchdowns. Although Southern Utah utilizes a backfield by committee, freshman RB Jamar Lee maintains the starting role. The 5-10 185-pound, Layton, Utah product has carried the ball 42 times for 151 yards (3.6 ypc) and 1 touchdown, while catching 7 passes for 29 yards. Through six games, the Thunderbirds have racked up an average of 284 yards of total offense, including an 86 yards by land and 198 yards through the air... *Note: The Southern Utah attack is mainly aerial, but the Thunderbirds coaching staff will try to establish the running game... The Southern Utah Defense.... Base Defense: 4-3 Variable... On the defensive side of the ball, the Southern Utah defense is led by 2004 All-GWFC selection LB Steve Smith (6-0 215-pound senior Salt Lake City, Utah). This season, Smith leads the Thunderbirds with 2 interceptions and in tackles with 48 including 2 sacks. The Southern Utah defense also features LB Josh Raban (6-0 200-pounds). This season, the senior from St. Johns, Utah, has 33 tackles with 2 for loss. The Thunderbirds defensive line is anchored by DT Derek Hood (6-1 250-pound junior Abingdon, Virginia) and DE Levi Erickson (6-2 250-pound junior Salt Lake City, Utah). Hood has pulled down 24 opposition ball carriers including 9 for loss (1.5 sacks), while Erickson, a pre-season All-GWFC selection, has 27 tackles including 6 for loss (2 sacks). This season, the Southern Utah defense has given up 389 total yards per game, including 179 rushing yards and 210 yards through the air... *Note: The Southern Utah has shown a drastic improvement the last couple weeks against Northern Colorado and UC Davis... So you shouldn't expect this defense to roll over and play dead against a struggling Bison offense... History.... Saturday’s game will mark just the second meeting between the two schools. NDSU holds a 1-0 edge in the series which began with a 27-21 Bison win in Fargo, N.D. last year. Show Me the Keys.... * The Bison offensive line struggled against the speed defensive fronts of Cal Poly and UC Davis... Well guess what? Southern Utah also features speed along the defensive line. The Bison hogs MUST do a better job of establishing/maintaining their blocks (w/o holding). Three rushing yards against UC Davis is a total disgrace. ... * As Bison QB Steve Walker plays, so does the Bison offense. He is THE KEY to starting the engine. If his feel for the Bison passing game doesn't improve... the Bison will continue to see 8 and 9 man defensive fronts. A few times last Saturday, UC Davis had all eleven of their defenders within 8-10 yards from the line of scrimmage... Meaning? No running game... * It's time... The Bison desperately need a kick or punt return for a touchdown. Washington needs to set a fire... * Sacks, interceptions, fumbles... Goal for takeaways this week for the Bison defense? Three... Three turnovers from the Bison defense equals a quality win this Saturday... Five sacks means a lop-sided Bison win. It's been a while since the last Bison defensive touchdown... * Control... The Bison offense must finish what it starts... Field goals no longer are good enough. Once in the red zone, the Bison offense needs to maintain the momentum and push the ball into the sacred land. No Penalties. The Bison offense isn't good enough to overcome multiple penalties... * Score early! Slow starts plaguing the Bison, especially on the road. Get prepared. Get some sleep. Get ready to fire out of the gate. A fast start for the Bison can only improve a lagging confidence... * This is a very important week for the Bison coaching staff. Preparation. Preparation. Preparation. Expand on what you do well offensively. Get rid of all the crap. Try something new... * One word -- 'Consistency'.... from play to play; from game to game. The youth of some Bison players has become quite evident the last four games... too many mistakes. Again, Bison consistency on both offensive and defensive will make the Bison awfully tough to contain. The maturation of young players such as LB Nick Compton, LB Mike Maresh, FB Tyler Jangula, WR Kole Heckendorf, FS Nick Schommer and any true freshman (Humber, Bowman, Champ, and Ogbetola) is crucial to the success of the Bison program during the final games of this season. And help the Bison climb to the top of the Division I-AA mountain.... Jottings.... - The weight in the trenches: Offensive line: NDSU 307, Southern Utah 271 Defensive line: NDSU 275, Southern Utah 256 - Injuries this week: FB Travis Roehl - out; WR Travis White - out; LB Tony Bizal - out (knee) - Southern Utah posted team season-bests in 11 statistical categories at UC Davis and bettered two of those against Northern Colorado. At Davis SUU posted its highest rushing total (119 yards) and its highest average per rush (3.5 ypr) to that point but bettered both those figures vs. UNC, with 131 rushing yards and a 4.2 ypr average... - QB Zac Connors lost the starting job after suffering an injury at Texas State but he got it back again after Wes Marshall went down with an injury of his own at UC Davis... - After failing to break the century mark rushing in the first three games (although the team finished with 98 yards at Northern Arizona), SUU has tallied over 100 yards on the ground the last three games, with a season-best 131-yard attack against Northern Colorado. In fact, the last three times out the team has bettered its previous best, with a 119-yard effort at UC Davis and exactly 100 yards vs. Stephen F. Austin. RB Jamar Lee ran for a team season-high and a personal-best 85 yards and a score in the UNC game... - LB Steve Smith had some big shoes to fill after moving from safety to take over at two-time all-American Nick DiPadova’s outside linebacker spot. Smith, who has finished among the team’s top tacklers the last three seasons – and is the Thunderbirds’ top returning tackler – has been among the Thunderbirds’ top three tacklers in every game, leading or co-leading the squad four times while finishing second at UC Davis and third vs. Northern Colorado with seven in each game... - Two weekends ago, SUU won virtually every statistical matchup at UC Davis, out-gaining the Aggies both on the ground (119 yards to 42) and through the air (258-202) for a 377 yard to 244 yard edge in total offense. SUU had more return yards (151-84), fewer penalty yards (30-86), had the ball 7:48 longer than UC Davis and averaged 4.2 yards per play to the Aggies’ 3.9... - Audio of Southern Utah football games is available on the internet free of charge. Click Here to listen... - Linebacker Steve Smith is a semi-finalist for the coveted Draddy Trophy, which is known as the Academic Heisman. Smith, a senior communication major from Salt Lake City, is Southern Utah’s second Draddy Trophy semi-finalist in the past six years, joining fellow Highland High School graduate Matt Cannon, who went on to become one of 15 finalists in 2000 before seeing Nebraska’s Kyle Vanden Bosch ultimately win the trophy... - North Dakota State has been very tough against the pass this year, limiting opponents to 138.0 yards per game through the air while giving up 141.1 on the ground. Offensively NDSU has been balanced, averaging 171.6 passing and 145.1 rushing yards per contest. The Bison have also been effective with their return teams, averaging 15.6 yards per punt return and 20.4 on kickoff returns... - Poll Watch: This week the Bison are currently ranked #23 by AnyGivenSaturday.com; but dropped out of the Sports Network and Bison Insider Top 20 polls.... Southern Utah did not appear in any DI-AA polls this week....