For those that were reading my posts about every UNI football game, it has become obvious I stopped. Ultimately, I was struggling with what I had to say. I am not a journalist. I cannot nor will I make a story out of every game. I analyze them for the quality of football to improve for the next week in the progression towards a championship. I look at a football game and team from the perspective of a coach in many ways. The result was I really was not happy with what I had to say about each game. It was too difficult for me to remember the critical plays and situations necessary to write a proper analytical piece. This resulted in me not writing immediately on the North Dakota State game when I was almost caught up with the latest game played. Anyways, I have decided to undertake the task once again.
UNI managed to squeak out a win over a newly developing rival in North Dakota State. The score was 42-27 thanks to some late points to make it look like a slightly safer win. The game was strange due to the number of penalties, most notably coming from personal fouls from rising emotions. The Bison have not been in the Missouri Valley Conference long, but it is clear they already do not get along with the Panthers. Adding to this, the game took on a physical nature thanks to NDSU having the best running game in the nation as I recall. UNI was the top rushing defense in the conference, but I attribute that partially to playing poor competition or having a lead the entire game when we did play decent teams. The result was teams did not have a lot of time to attempt to rush against. North Dakota State was the first team capable of pounding the ball for an extended period of time against the Panthers. The Bison were able to make a dent in the formidable UNI defense. However, they were slowed down enough to prove that while stopping the rush may not be UNI’s greatest strength, they are still can hold their own.
In the end, the Panther offense came alive late to seal the game. However, for the first time, UNI seemed mortal while playing an FCS football team. At this point in time, they had won every game by 28 points or more excluding the FBS Iowa Hawkeyes who were undefeated and ranked #11 in the AP Top 25 poll following this week. In all, it was shown that the UNI defense was potentially vulnerable to the run and the offense still was not fully clicking. However, it would take a team with more athletic talent and properly built to truly attack the weaknesses of the stout defense to pull off a victory against the Panthers.