Excellent! I was really hoping we'd get one of the two very talented Wisconsin backs considering UND (Ewing being the other). Sutton led the state of Wisconsin in rushing, and as mentioned in Walrus's post he was the WI Gatorade POY. Last spring, wissports.net rated him as the 19th-best senior-to-be in the state. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he'd now be ranked higher than that among WI seniors after the amazing season he had.
Bakken blog.
Methinks Bakken just got himself removed from the Roebuck Christmas card list (if he's saying what it appears he's saying).
While I would agree that this is a game the Sioux could lose if they don't bring their "A" game, Mankato really hasn't beaten anybody of note. Their one real test was Concordia-St. Paul, and they lost that one by 12 in Mankato.
Ashley Langen should pass Kristi Boese on Thursday to move into third-place on the all-time UND scoring list. She'll also likely pass Sheri Kleinsasser at some point during the conference season to move into second place behind Jenny Crouse.
I suppose it's difficult to compare teams at this point due to the varying degrees of schedule difficulty, but the NCC and the region as a whole look pretty tough this year. UND and Concordia-St. Paul are the only unbeatens, but Mankato, USD, UNO and Fort Lewis all have just one loss so far.
It's interesting that another former NCC coach--Beau Baldwin from Central Washington--just took the head coaching job at Eastern Washington, which like SIU was a FCS playoff team this past year. However, he'll "only" be making $100k, which is half of what Lennon is getting at SIU, and less than what Lennon was making at UND in dII (at least in terms of base salary).
Last night on the WDAZ sports, Mannausau and Belmore were interviewed, and it certainly seemed as though both were pleased with the hire and planned on staying.
I believe Jones showed he's pretty strict given the length of Youmans' suspension last year for getting into a fight with a teammate. It sounds like young Mr. Callahan has some growing up to do.
I never actually saw the kid play, so it's hard to say. Based upon his high school accomplishments, I think he has a chance to be a player at SDSU, but I'm not sure I'd necessarily call this a huge loss, either. Time will tell, I guess.