UND92,96

Kolpack blog questioning why Lennon would be interested in the Montana State job.

One other obvious potential candidate I forgot to mention--Jeff Tesch. Winning at Bemidji State with very few scholarships is quite an accomplishment. Also a former UND assistant under Roger Thomas.

It sure seems like it would have made sense for there to have been a UND-BSU football game this year. I know a few years ago Tesch made no bones about the fact that he didn't feel his program was ready to compete with an upper echelon NCC team, but it seems like a game against a team like UND would be more beneficial to his program at this point than their yearly meeting with Minot State.

Lennon will interview in Bozeman on Wednesday. link.

I happened to be at the Can Ad on Friday, May 25, when either this was going on, or at least when many of the participants were at the hotel. I can only imagine that there were some rather interesting conversations going on there... From the above link:

I just didn't think there was a compelling reason to change it. Obviously, in time it will probably catch on, but I still think of MSU-Moorhead as Moorhead State, too.

Lots of good points here, Bob. For several of the reasons you mention, I don't really expect Lennon to take this job if offered. However, unless Buning is either forced out, or else dramatically changes the way he deals with the coaches, I'd expect Lennon to leave for a different job within the next year or two. With regard to the part of your post I highlighted, I agree 100%. Don't underestimate the political clout of the football alums.

I'm with this guy (Brian MacPherson of the St. Cloud Times) when it comes to the name change from I-AA: If you're going to change a name that has been in use for a long time, you'd better be prepared for a lot of people to ignore the new name for a long time.

I realize there was a Herald article on Saturday, but the fact that none of the sportswriters has done a blog entry on the Lennon issue is perplexing to me. You know for a fact that Kolpack/Hallstrom would have written several entries by now if Bohl were a finalist elsewhere.

I realize being in charge of an athletic department isn't a popularity contest, but to have this many coaches--including the three highest-profile ones--being seriously unhappy tells me there's a problem. A big problem. And as we know, some of those coaches have friends who have a bit of influence...

The thing that I personally don't like about Ralston's position is that she's married to somebody who holds a pretty high position at UND--Don Kojich, whose title is Executive Assoc. V.P. for University Relations. Maybe this doesn't give her more power than her job warrants, but on the other hand, it could. From the outside looking in, she certainly appears to wield a heck of a lot more power than her predecessor did. Let's be honest here, the fact that a seemingly unqualified candidate made the list of finalists for the men's basketball job due to Ralston having once worked with him at Eastern Illinois certainly didn't make her (or by extension the LTC) look very good.

I think it would go 1. Tibesar; 2. Bubba; 3. Mussman or Hedberg. The "x" factor in my mind is this--if the perception is out there there Lennon left primarily due to not wanting to work for Buning anymore, how likely is it that any of his friends and/or current or former colleagues would really want to try work for somebody if Lennon couldn't? And regardless of what Lennon says publicly, I firmly believe that if Wanless or RT or Rob Bollinger or any number of other people were a.d. right now, he would have said "thanks, but no thanks" when Montana State called.

Lennon is a finalist for the Montana State job. [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=39681

I believe he took a job with Bankforward, a new bank in Grand Forks.

Has Jeff Bowen's old job with the alumni association been filled yet? If not, that would be a possibility.

Idalski names his first assistant.

I was in Tavern United last Friday, and I was pretty impressed with it. The beer was surprisingly cheap ($1.50 for a bottle). From what I saw of the hotel--which was really just the lobby/restaurant/water park area--it looks very nice. Despite not having done any sort of marketing yet, I was told the hotel was about 80% full for this past weekend.

If I'm not mistaken, he's a former UND basketball letterwinner, as is his brother Pete.

Herald [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=38599

I have to think that quite a lot will be expected from Derek Benter next year. He was listed as 6'8", 225 this past year as a red-shirt, so hopefully he'll be up to 235 or more by October. He was a good tight end/wide receiver in high school, so I assume he has above-average athletic ability for a big kid. He also apparently has some shooting range, so hopefully he can create a matchup problem for many teams. I'm still concerned about how the Sioux will be able to defend bigger teams like USD, but I also foresee the Sioux being very difficult to guard.

I believe only one thrower in North Dakota history (Howard Hausauer) has thrown farther than Quesenberry's best of 62'3". Jim Kleinsasser's class B record is 62'2".

link

Lots of information in this Herald [url="http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=38198

I don't foresee him playing football again, but congrats to him for winning the NCC title in the discus this past weekend!