AJS

Good info. Curious why you'd be on the Pawlak side if internal than? Or just being a college starter at any position is the pre-requisite to being a competent OC?

What does his stat line in college have to do with how effective he is as a coach?

Let's talk this into existence. Bubba will take the decision completely out of Chaves hands. The Freund news was a shock to the system, but it also helped Bubba realize that what's best for the program is for him to step aside. 2024 will be his last year. The next 12 months. King hired. Great spring camp, continuity among the offensive side of the ball (no portal transfers), defense surprises. Bubba announces this will be the last year (before season). 8 wins. Bubba retires. Freund hired.

Starting to really hope for Sam King. This is of course if he's well respected and liked with the players. I'm absolutely convinced there wouldn't be some huge step down from a play calling standpoint, so keeping continuity and more importantly, the players offensively is priority #1. The bigger picture, how to move on from Bubba as quickly as possible, without him burning the program down on his way out. Ideally. Promote King, keep continuity. Get portal transfers defensively. I'll take 7 wins. Bubba retires. Freund hired. Let's start the new era, Phase II done.

Not an important argument, I'm genuinely curious why having Sioux Falls being 58 miles away from campus has any benefit to SDSU for recruiting student athletes.

I'd argue that's a good thing. They rarely if ever worked last year when they tried them. Wish they would have taken that approach with 2-point conversions. If you never complete them, maybe stop doing them unless completely necessary.

Repeating how the mass majority feels, but the way I also see it, the issues with the program currently are in this order (1) Bubba (2) Funding. The issue being, taking the next step as a program. Which will not happen as long as Bubba is here. The concern today, which wasn't there yesterday, is there's a chance Bubba burns this thing down on the way out. Chaves would be as to blame as Bubba if that happens. Let's circle in on the Freund decision. For those of us that watched all the games, the magic he had previous years was gone this year. If he did some self-reflection, there might have been some doubt (rightfully so) that he won't be the guy after Bubba. Still think if he thinks he's the guys in the next two years, he wouldn't leave. What's next. Need Chaves / Bubba to really dig deep here. The Hail Mary here is this is embarrassing enough to really reflect. Chaves makes it a point to better fund the program. Bubba thinks of his legacy a bit. Hopefully a bit humbling. Sell the OC hire as there's a really path to the head coaching position in short time.

That's a wild statement. Everything up to the geography of the matter, I do agree.

Anything from SDSU / Montana’s top returning players & the portal? Going to be tough to beat either (like w/ NDSU), if these teams aren’t losing anyone outside of those that are graduating.

To be fair, I think it’d be extremely difficult for any FCS program to really elevate their program to the next level based on the transfer portal. Old fashioned way for FCS will absolutely still work if you can retain & develop. UND like w/ their HS recruits is going to have to find guys w/ limited offers in the portal that turn out to be players. All that being said, still extremely frustrating they so rarely win recruiting battles. That needs to change.

What these last two seasons have taught me is this coaching staff absolutely cannot recruit the portal at all. Too much competition. Going to have to do it the old fashioned way.

Committed to Youngstown

Why would someone wait until Spring to transfer outside of getting buried on the depth chart? I would also say, for "a lot of players" not being a fan of Schwenzfeier, only losing three defensively players to the portal, isn't too bad. You have few, but certainly interesting posts. I'm guessing any future posts will follow the same lines as the first few.

Sign me up for these lines. These are as close as I've seen to skill / ceiling being slotted correctly. An argument can be made for Strinden / Berg as 2/3 C. Those two can be switched around. I'd be fired up if we saw those lines.

By my count, between returners and transfers, there are 7 Safety's. Two questions, what's the confidence level that there are two legitimate starters in that group? Second being, are there two others you feel good about filling out the 2-Deep with? Transfers: Martens (So), Martin (Jr) Last Years Depth: Ball (SR), Davis (JR) Last Years Youth: Sutton (So), Pfeffer (So), Erkman (R-FR)

Hard to see this team sweeping this weekend. This team has an issue consistently scoring goals. Would like to see some sort of shake up in the lineup.

209lbs. Would they be moving him back to OLB? See he’s listed as a DL.

Based on Schwenzfeier's twitter, I think the only offer out that would potentially be accepted is Gabe Duffy. The other offer's that were out, he no longer follows. He does follow two NAIA All-Americans. Not sure how that would translate. Appears to be pretty bare right now. Would have been nice to have at least one LB / DL transfer here for Spring Ball. I still strongly feel to give this team a chance next year, they need 2 Safety's (check), 2 OLB's, 2 DL's from the portal.

Twitter bio now says @undfootball safety

That would be nice if there was actual recruiting news to talk about.

For many majors in all colleges, the only reason one would become academically ineligible is strictly effort. Frustrating for Duluth.

I will say this, it's exciting to see those five names listed. Bluiett expected, not surprised with Schultz / Rucker either. Mohr / Erkman, rave reviews for both. S - #1 most nervous spot with a bullet. Minimum you need one more from the portal. D-Line: Three from the portal OLB - Unless Boecker takes this huge step, there's nobody behind the two starters. Need from the portal. How's this for optimism. I don't think you could get worse than last year at 2 of the 6 positions listed (OLB / DE). As it stands now, this group could be rough. Get a handful of quality transfers and that can change quickly.

Feeling good about this one. Joel’s been liking all his tweets.

I would more say, reporting what they were told. I just highly question what they were told. I'm not saying a player or two turning down big time $ would be unheard of. What I am saying is everyone turning down that type of money doesn't compute with me. This goes two-fold that the players choice was not picked as Coach. I would be interested though if the Fargo media actually ever believed it. Or if they were skeptical, but hey, just reporting what you were told.

Let's circle back to this. I also was very skeptical of the numbers that were being tossed around. Originally, multiple players were reported to have 6 figure NIL deals. McFeeley reported 250K that one had, Izzo said 1/2 million this week on his show. Those numbers were clearly not accurate. Are we thinking they were reported 2X, 3X, 10X the actual number? I also don't believe as many players that were reported had them. Kudos to the Coaching staff / players. I'm sure the collective is still pretty modest, but boy did they get the ball moving by completely exaggerating what was happening.