Viking Victory Reaction

What an unbelievable game on Saturday night.  UND beat fellow Big Sky member Portand State 45-37 in what was probably the wildest game either of us can remember.  There were plenty of fireworks from both sides.  However, there were plenty of miscues made by both sides also.  The bottom line is UND got the win and is sitting at 2-0 as they head out to San Diego State to take on the 1-1 Aztecs at Qualcomm Stadium.

1. Our tip of the cap to the QB:  The no-brainer without a doubt player of the game was Marcus Hendrickson.  The senior from Perham, MN absolutely shredded the Vikings defense to the tune of 6 TD’s and 294 yards passing.  He threw TD passes to 4 different receivers and looked in sync all game.  It was hard to tell that he hasn’t played QB since 2010.  There were even a couple bad drops at the beginning of the game that would have ran his total even higher.  Cannot say enough about the way he led the team this past weekend.  He also had a nice 13 yard scramble on 3rd and 11.  Hendrickson ended the game with 50 yards rushing.
2. WR Greg Hardin was virtually un-coverable yesterday.   He had 3 TD’s of 66, 26, and 49 yards in the first half alone and ended the day with 6 catches for 190 yards.
3. True freshman Kenny Golladay had his redshirt pulled, like we had anticipated.  He showed only a glimpse of what he is capable of which a couple nice catch and runs, and an almost amazing catch on the one hander he lost when he hit the ground.  He also threw a very nice crack back block on a QB scramble.
4. Hendrickson and Greg Hardin  both received the College Football Performance of the week for their positions.  Nice national recognition for those two.
5. The pass protection by the UND offensive line was better this week.  Going against an aggressive, talented front, the UND hogs stepped up after a shaky effort last week vs. Mines.  PSU got 2 sacks on the day.  In the run game, the UND o-line got pushed around to a degree by a very stout front 7.
6. The UND running game was virtually non-existent.   They did end up with 107 yards but it was on 35 carries and 50 of the yards were by Hendrickson.
7. The UND defense did not have it’s best day.  They gave up an unacceptable 515 yards of offense to PSU but got themselves out of trouble at times with opportune plays.   There were way too many missed tackles and poor technique in the secondary.  They are going to go against players like Monahan and Adams on a weekly basis and need to be ready to play at a high level every play.  It is obvious that teams are going to test our secondary, as PSU did  throughout the game on Saturday.  The corners have got to be better in coverage.
8. DJ Adams is a stud running back – maybe the best they will see this year. The University of Maryland transfer had 148 yards and 1 TD on the day and was very hard to bring down.  We can see how he scored 10 TDs as a true freshman in the ACC.  Impressive.
9. PSU freshman QB Kieran McDonagh is going to be a pain in the ass for opposing defenses in the Big Sky for the next 4 seasons.
10. Special Teams proves to be huge again for UND.  This was especially big because of PSU’s reputation as a strong special teams unit.  UND dominated this facet with the exception of the fumbled punt by Erik Mersereau in the 1st quarter.  UND blocked three kicks, as we predicted they would get at least one.  They blocked the first extra point of the game and also got a piece of a FG.  The biggest one was a punt block by Casey Young late in the first half that setup the UND offense on the PSU 7 yard line.  UND capitalized on a fade route from Hendrickson to RJ McGill to take a 35-24 lead into the half.
11. Way too many penalties.  UND had 12 penalties for 103 yards, while PSU was equally as penalized with 12 for 109 yards.  UND has to clean that up before they enter Big Sky play, they are not good enough to withstand that many penalties on a weekly basis.
12. To put it mildly, we were surprised with the number of gadget and gimmick plays that PSU ran on Saturday.  They ran a flea-flicker and a double pass in the first four minutes of the game (hitting one for a TD and dropping the other).  UND might go the rest of the season without seeing another one.  Besides that, they ran countless double moves in their passing game.  They even added in a rollout left…roll back to the right..throw the comeback route that wasn’t completed.  We don’t even know how to explain it (as you can tell).  Seeing all these type of plays by PSU makes us wonder if this is their main offense or if they added that in knowing they couldn’t just run the ball.  Whatever it was it was odd to say the least.  A team can’t go though an entire season running that stuff.