General Information

Statistics

Statistic	North Dakota	Texas Tech
Pass Offense	245.60	413.15 (1)
Rush Offense	145.80	117.84 (94)
Total Offense	391.40	531.00 (4)
Scoring Offense	32.10	43.77 (3)
Pass Efficiency	-	158.76 (9)
Sacks Allowed	2.70	1.00 (4)
Pass Defense	267.50	242.23 (94)
Rush Defense	113.20	140.38 (61)
Total Defense	380.70	382.62 (79)
Scoring Defense	26.30	27.85 (74)
Pass Efficiency Defense	-	130.56 (72)
Sacks	1.60	2.62 (18)
Tackles For Loss	-	4.85 (95)
Turnover Margin	0.82	0.62 (22)

Top Returners

A Few Things

I'm not sure that I need a disclaimer, but I'll go ahead and give it anyway. I've never seen a single play of NDU football, so all of these observations are based on the statistics above.

1. NDU vs. NDS:  When I first started this, I found the statistics for what I thought was North Dakota, but was actually were the statistics for North Dakota State, obviously an entirely different university.  Not noticing the difference I had typed it up quite a bit until I realized what I had done. I can only imagine the ire that I would have received from faithful Fighting Sioux and Bison had I continued with my mistake.
2. New Quarterback:  ND loses their starting quarterback and much like Texas Tech, the Fighting Sioux will be relying on a new signal caller. It's tough to tell from the limited action what type of success Landry will have, but he's got a great last name. Of course, Landry's biggest hurdle is being good enough to win on the road.
3. Murray Returns at Running Back:  The backbone of the NDU offense is led by RB Josh Murray with 114 yards a game and I could imagine that the NDU offense will rely heavily on Murray for the first game, in Lubbock.
4. Replacing Defense:  NDU loses 3 of their top 4 tacklers from 2008 and considering the defense gave up over 260 yards a game last year might mean that NDU is going to have a tough time with Texas Tech.
5. Hawkins the Ballhawk:  The Fighting Sioux's best defensive player appears to be Dominique Hawkins (6-0/180) and had a great redshirt freshman year in 2008 and would expect that to continue in 2009.
6. Catching On:  NDU also loses their top two receivers in Brady Trenbeath (69/859/8) and Alex Nichols (39/444/6), leaving Bamba as the top returning pass catcher. Josh Murray is also a pretty decent receiving threat, grabbing 21 catches for 187 yards.