SiouxAlum09

Huge bummer! A large percentage of kids that are offered and ultimately sign are kids the staff gets to see at camp, and the summer leading up to a senior season is a big summer for both schools and student athletes..... They'll have a plan just like everyone will have a plan, but it's still unfortunate for everyone involved. Stay healthy everyone!

Yes those are the main components of Phase 2 that is going to be built next to the indoor practice facility.

This is my understanding as well.

Yes the outdoor track will remain as far as I've heard.

From what I've heard, Memorial is coming down and a new mixed use building is going up. As part of the bid to get the land that Memorial is on, the company building the mixed use building will be contributing money towards Phase 2. I don't know much more than that, other than the coaches/team tentatively plans on being housed out of Starcher Hall and Hyslop for a couple years until Phase 2 is complete. Also as part of of the overall complex, the on campus football stadium is not in the current plans, but the plan is to make the current field at Memorial the home field for Women's Soccer. Main reason for football to stay at the Alerus is $$$ to build and to run an on campus stadium as opposed to just renting for a short period of time during the football season. Overall big things are happening and it's exciting to see!!!

Yes Brett is a former player, but he's only been on staff for one year, so it's hardly an "inbred" hire in terms of having a coach being brought up through the program and only having coaching experience within the program. He's pulling from experience that he has gained from a Big Ten program, a very good defensive coordinator at a perennial power at the D3 level, and coordinator experience (both DC and ST) in a very strong D2 conference. Pair that with the pride that comes with coaching for your alma mater, Brett will do a great job in getting the guys organized and playing good defense. Advantage for him as opposed to an outside candidate is that he knows all the guys on the team and what they do well and what they need to improve on, huge advantage going into a coordinator position as opposed to "New Blood". Looking forward to seeing how Brett does with the defense and I wish him nothing but the best!

Former UND assistant under Coach Lennon who was just let go as the HC at Northern State (Aberdeen, SD; D2 NSIC)

And if we are going to get into deep thinking, processing speed is huge on defense as well. They watch film all week on their keys and can identify things when they watch back the film a million times, but then to be able to read a key and appropriately process that key and react in a game situation is huge as well. Anyone can identify tendencies in a film room, it's the special ones that can identify them in a game and react accordingly under the pressure of a game situation. Wow, some great conversation spawned from whether or not we think this recruit is fast enough for the MVC, good stuff!

Agreed. The only time a 40 time really correlates to football is on Kickoff. And to that point still no pads, and the 40 doesn't show the ability to avoid blocks or engage and get off blocks. I think the shorter change of direction drills like the pro agility show much more about your athleticism than a 40 does. But again, it all means nothing if you don't have instincts for the game, which can be taught/improved upon, but also is something guys are born with.

Absolutely, that was the reason I brought Digger up because the initial question was whether or not Kason Kelley was fast enough for the MVC. He may not be track/40 fast on paper (I have no idea what his numbers are in the 40), but it looks like he has good instincts which will help him play fast, similar to Digger. On paper Digger may have and probably was overlooked by bigger schools coming out of high school because of size/track speed, but I'd say he would have been more than capable playing at an FCS level, which is our hope as fans for Kason as well.

I'd say time will tell, instincts go a long way as well in terms of being fast enough. Digger Anderson was only a 4.8 forty type of guy, but his instincts were off the charts which led to him getting to the play fast, granted that was in the D2 days. I like how this kid tackles, looks like a wrestler getting takedowns all over the field, refreshing to see a kid with good tackling mechanics when so many kids playing HS football don't wrap up and run through the tackle. Best of luck to him the rest of his senior year and into the future with UND!