No, said Gorder. This will be my fourth year here. I ve been through spring ball before and I ve played in spring games in the past. It s not the same playing against your own team. Everybody knows each other and you know what everybody is going to do.
Spring games are mostly fun.
If you believe Gorder sounds confident, you re correct. But based on the sneak previews we ve had of Gorder, perhaps he has reason for that confidence. More impressive, Gorder came in after Johnson suffered a knee injury in the first quarter of the NCAA Division II quarterfinals at Omaha. The Bison trailed 14-0 at the time, had not gained a first down and looked on the brink of being blown clear back to Fargo by the Mavericks dominating defense. But Gorder completed a key third-down pass to tight end Jared Peck for a first down and rallied NDSU to 43 straight points.