UND92,96

A few more GFC hockey players are Paul Graveline, who played at Wisconsin in the mid 80's; Dave Hanson, who played for Denver in the mid-to-late 80's; and Paul Markovich, who played at CC around that same time and was a Rhodes scholar, as well.

I guess I am getting pretty old (GFC class of '88). Salander graduated in about 1994 or so, so that SEEMS pretty recent to an old geezer like myself.

One more fairly recent GFC track and field dI athlete was Disa Salander, who threw the shot and disc at Kentucky. And although it was a long time ago, GFC has also produced two olympic track and field medalists--Cliff Cushman (Kansas; silver in 400m hurdles in 1960) and John Bennett (Marquette; silver in long jump in 1956).

GFC (since the mid-80's) Mike Markovich (Denver hockey) Jay Ness (Lake Superior State hockey) Chad Johnson (UND hockey) Tony Gasparini (UMD hockey) Jake Moreland (SCSU hockey) Jay Panzer Jeff Panzer Nick Fuher Joey Gasparini (Vermont hockey) In terms of non-hockey, there's been a few from track: Wade Juntunen (AZ) Dani Parkos (MN) A few other throwers, but I can't remember who went where.

It depends on how far back you want to go, and it would be very hard to say with regard to dII, but in terms of dI, I'd say in no particular order--Central, Red River and Fargo South. Central has obviously had a lot of hockey players go dI over the years.

Central Washington will be starting an offensive line consisting of three red-shirt freshmen and two sophomores link so I would certainly hope that UND's front seven will completely dominate the line of scrimmage. I know CWU is very high on their quarterback and receivers, and I would expect a lot of three-step drops as they likely know that UND's pass rushers will be in the qb's face all day if they do much of anything besides short drops. I also wouldn't expect CWU to be able to effectively run the ball. Defensively, CWU is very inexperienced and quite small. As has been mentioned, they lost their entire front seven from last year. I definitely don't expect that they have an NCC-caliber defense this year. The forecast is for a hot (upper 80's) and windy (20-30 mph) day. That would seem to indicate that passing might be difficult for at least half of the game.

A couple of Canadian players UND is apparently recruiting are running back Justin Andrushko from BC, and linebacker Curtis Dublanko from the Calgary area.

Bismarck High's top player is probably OL/DL Dylan Glasser, who is about 6'3", 270. Weston Dressler's younger brother Ryan may be someone to keep an eye on, as well, although I don't believe his speed compares to Weston's. Bismarck High plays at Grand Forks Central tonight and that should be a very interesting game.

It's official. link

Let's say hypothetically that UND did go dI/IAA without a conference invitation in hand, and assuming NDSU and SDSU are still in the Great West for football, would their bitterness towards UND override common sense by lobbying for the denial of Great West membership by UND? Keep in mind that the GWC is desperate for members now that they're down to five after this year.

It seems that every time Bellecourt opens his mouth, his foot ends up squarely planted in it. I have no idea how many members this coalition has, but can't they find somebody a little more diplomatic (and less offensive) as their mouthpiece?

Here is a release from the GNAC conference. You need to scroll down a bit to get to the team previews. CWU is very young on the offensive line, and lost the entire front seven on defense from last year.

Matt Anderson from Cavalier will likely be the most sought-after player in ND this year. Other area kids who should draw some considerable college interest are Jake Landry and Ryan Kasowski, and possibly one or two other kids from Central. I'm sure there are others, particularly in northwest Minnesota.

I could understand not going out for football if a kid has legitimate dI hockey ability and could be jeopardizing a scholarship by getting injured, but truth be told, there are very, very few kids who have that kind of hockey future. If Jake Marto can play football, I don't understand why some kid at RR who will be lucky to even make a USHL team after high school can't do the same. Even if you just have all the best non-hockey-playing athletes, RR should still be able to put together a competitive team. As mentioned earlier, some of the 80's Cichy teams were quite good with minimal contributions from hockey players. Losing becomes a vicious cycle. Red River has had a couple of terrible teams, which turns off the middle school kids, and they don't go out once they get to high school because they presumably don't want to be associated with a losing program. I'm an ex-Central player, but I do hope Muir can get the program straightened out because it's embarassing to have a school the size of RR be one of the worst AAA football programs in the state.

Here's the official UND release for the first game. It would appear that the rumored loss of another offensive lineman to injury/illness is true as Brett Bauer isn't listed on the 2-deep depth chart. Will Kusler is now the starting left guard, and Brian Troen, who was slated to be the starting left guard, is now at left tackle.

So why is it that Red River football has gotten so bad? I suppose it's easy to say that too many kids concentrate solely on hockey, but I don't buy that as being the primary reason. Nick Cichy had some excellent teams in the 80's, and I don't think those teams had many players who also played hockey. I know the 1987 state runner-up team had very few hockey players on it, and I suspect it was the same with the 1982 state runner-up team. Clearly it's not just a problem with Grand Forks in general, either. Even with far fewer base kids than there used to be, Central is doing quite well lately, and will probably be one of the top two or three teams in the state again this year, and of course EGF is coming off a state title and looks solid again.

I don't know what point you were attempting to make with the highlighted quote, but in any event, it's better to host playoff games which don't sell out as opposed to not hosting any playoff games at all. I believe the finances of UND's football program are actually quite healthy compared to most fully-funded programs in dII.

My understanding is that those banners will be in the Alerus this season. I was at the shrine game in July, and there was one up already from the 1930's, so they were evidently just starting to hang them.

This article was in the Forum today. McFeely also had a column about it.

I noticed in the UND press release that the duties currently handled by Bruggeman will be assumed by the new senior women's administrator, to be hired in September. By combining those two positions, it will presumably save a decent amount of money. Getting the budget balanced is obviously one of the most important tasks Buning faces, and this would seem to be one step in that direction.

There is a scrimmage in EGF tonight at 5:30. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend, but if anyone goes and could maybe post their thoughts, it would be appreciated. Specifically, I'm wondering who looks to be starting on the offensive line besides Kuper, Buisker and Storhaug. A poster on d2football.com indicated that another UND offensive lineman may be out with mono, but he didn't know the player's name. Also, how does new running back Brandon Brady look? Thanks in advance.

It will be interesting to see how Benter develops this year. I saw him play in the first round at the state tournament last year, and he struggled a bit as I recall, although he apparently played much better in the two games after that. He was also recently named to an all-tournament team for a pretty big AAU tournament. link. The kid from Williston is Brian Qvale, and he'll be a junior this year. At this point, I'd kind of expect him to go to at least a mid-major dI.