There usually isn't much to learn from a college football season opener that sees the home facility's cleaning crew sweeping garbage out of the stands before the game is over.
With the rout on early and the faithful hitting the exits, UND coasted to an easy 69-10 victory over non-scholarship Valparaiso on Thursday night at the Alerus Center.
With such a lopsided score, it's tough to tell if UND's defense is any tougher or its run game is any stronger. When you play Valpo, enough is never enough.
Both the defense and the running game were poor over the long haul last year but looked strong in the 2012 season opener against another weak matchup in South Dakota School of Mines. Results are relative in these situations.
But regardless of beat down or nail-biter, we can universally agree that we learned one thing against the Crusaders: UND and its fans shouldn't fear about possessing four freshman quarterbacks that, before Thursday, hadn't played a single down of college football.
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If UND is going to struggle this season, it won't be because of Ryan Bartels or Joe Mollberg.
The starter Bartels, a redshirt freshman quarterback, took his first collegiate snap and turned it into a 75-yard touchdown pass to Greg Hardin, who torched defensive backs and coasted under the long pass.
If that didn't answer the doubters, Bartels cruised from there, finishing 10-for-12 for 212 yards. Mollberg, who's also a redshirt freshman, took over late in the second quarter and finished 6-for-7 for 74 yards.
"The quarterbacks looked good," UND coach Chris Mussman said. "They both did a nice job managing the offense."
Both quarterbacks were impressive enough that neither is the clear-cut starter for the long run. Mussman played both deep into the second half.
"We weren't going to hold them back because we're continuing to evaluate," Mussman said. "We knew this would be the case. We have two good guys. We'll continue to see both those guys throughout the year."
UND set school passing records last year thanks to the play of seniors Braden Hanson and Marcus Hendrickson.
With the talented wide receiver corps returning, the only spot to place blame for a letdown in the air attack this year would be with the unproven signal-callers.
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But UND wideout Kenny Golladay, for one, wasn't surprised by Thursday's quarterback play.
"We knew (they'd be good) because we've seen them do that throughout spring ball and fall camp," Golladay said.
And even though we've only seen them for one actual game, we've seen enough to agree with Golladay.
