UND92,96

Far too many turnovers and UND's lack of scoring depth showed itself last night in the loss to Mankato. Lindahl apparently played well, Rypkema was close to his average with 13, and even Jahner of all people scored 10. But nobody else stepped up. It looks like road wins in the NCC will be extremely difficult to come by for the Sioux. Also, it looks like it's going to be awhile until Austin is going to be the player that we know he can be. The good news is how far Lindahl has progressed from last year to this year. He went from not being able to beat out Josh Johnson--a guy with no offensive game to speak of--to being a legit all-conference caliber player. With two years of eligibility remaining, he is going to be very good. I would be satisfied with a .500 conference record, getting Austin back into game shape so he can be a 15-20 point a game scorer, continued development of Lindahl and Rypkema, and the addition of one or two other solid contributors in the off-season to go along with Johnson, Parks, Nobles, Doyle, Harkins, possibly Gutter, and whomever else from the current team who can show something the remainder of this season. I think guys like Jacobson, Bradley and Stoute need to step it up if they expect to see any playing time next season. Jacobson and Bradley in particular need to be able to knock down shots, and neither has done so with any consistency this year.

Looks like NDSU is also losing an assistant coach. link

I had forgotten about Terry. I didn't include Sannes because I'm almost positive he's a walk-on. The other kid is Seth Nieman (sp?) who played at Langdon. I believe there have been a few other kids at the military academies, as well, although obviously the military academies are something of a different situation from other dI schools.

I was just thinking about ND high school players who have earned division I football scholarships since about 1990. By my count, there have only been approximately 10: Chris Berg at Stanford Justin Conzemius at Minnesota Peter Hiestand at Minnesota Sean Hoffman at Minnesota Dan Kwapinski at Minnesota Greg Eslinger at Minnesota Brooks Bollinger at Wisconsin Andrew LeClair at Kansas Ben Murphy at Wyoming Brandon Casavan at Wyoming I may have missed a few, but probably not too many. In any event, I can't recall a single ND kid going to a IAA school, at least on scholarship, over this time period. Whether this is significant or not, I don't know. There isn't much question that there have been numerous ND natives at both UND and NDSU who could have easily played at that level. I'm just curious whether the lack of ND players at IAA schools is due to the fact that no IAA schools have recruited here, that most in-state kids have preferred to play at either UND or NDSU instead of a IAA school, or perhaps some other reason. Any thoughts?

More on Brandon Jordan from allcanadagridiron.com: If I'm not mistaken, Cooper Harris is a former grad assistant at UND.

It looks like a very strange NCC schedule this year. With just eight teams in the league, that means that there are just 14 conference games. The first half of the season has UND on the road for five out of the seven games. The good news, of course, is that in the second half of the conference season, five of the seven games are at home.

Yilek was also named all-state by the Pioneer Press. This was his all-state bio from the Press:

Mike Mannausau has been hired to fill one of the vacant defensive assistant coaching positions. link

Northern Michigan's program is really struggling. They're coming off a 3-8 season, and several of the losses were blow-outs. I would think that there's a pretty good chance that if UND makes a decent offer in terms of scholarship money, Jordan will come here. I have no idea, however, how many corners UND is recruiting, and who the number one target is. With young corners like Hoffschneider and Alexander already here, that may scare off some potential recruits.

Mike Mannausau has resigned as head coach at Grand Forks Red River High School and it's expected that he'll be named as an assistant coach at UND shortly.

I believe the statement was in regard to the fact that those schools have recruited heavily in Canada in the past. Boise St. has been a very good program considering its location and the fact that is was once a jr. college not all that many years ago.

An updated recruiting list (again, I can't vouch for the 100% accuracy of this list, and it is definitely not all-inclusive): verbal commitments: Weston Dressler, rb/wr/returns, 5'6", 150, Bismarck Jake Caufield, wr, 6'2", 190, Minot The following either are or were being recruited by UND according to at least one internet source: Jordan Armentrout, rb, Madison (WI) Memorial Jared Bardon, te, 6'3", 225, Deforest (WI) Allistair Blair, rb, 5'10", 225, Toronto Central Tech Tristan Black, lb, 6'2", 228, Toronto Central Tech Ricky Clarke, wr/returns, 6'0", 180, Toronto Central Tech Bobby Coy, rb, 5'10", 175, Heritage (CO) Tyson DesCamps, rb, 5'9", 190, Aberdeen (SD) Danny Freund, qb, 6'1", 190, Kenosha (WI) St. Joseph's Zach Harrington, dl, 6'2", 270, Carrington Kole Heckendorf, wr, 6'2", 175, Mosinee (WI) Brandon Jordan, wr/db, Winnipeg Mike Klepatz, te, 6'6", 225, New Berlin (WI) Matt Lien, wr/db, 6'3", 190, Duluth Denfeld Rory Manke, qb/wr/db, 6'1", 195, Detroit Lakes Jordan Meier, qb, Madison (WI) Memorial Tyler Morrow, lb, 6'3", 232, NDSCS Mike Stadnyk, de, 6'3", 235, Miller (in Sask.?) No confirmation of being recruited by UND but probably are receiving at least some interest: Trevor Dally, ol, 6'4", 285, Fosston Chris Erdmann, qb, Crookston Josh Karch, lb, 6'2", 195, Moorhead Jerry Netland, fb/punter, Bagley Nolan Oliver, lb, 6'1", 205, Moorhead Wayne Samson, ol/dl, 6'4", 275, Cavalier Eric Schaumberg, db, 6'1", 165, Mahnomen Brady Trenbeath, wr, 6'0", 175, Cavalier Dustin Timmersman, fb, Roseau Jesse Vote, db, Cando

From allcanadagridiron.com:

UND is recruiting a receiver/safety from Duluth per this article. I have heard that the coaching staff feels that this kid could really be good.

It's great to hear that Austin will be playing. He is a difference-maker. Now, if he can shake off the rust, UND will have a star and three other solid players who can score in double figures most every night. Barring further injuries, that could get the Sioux into the top three or four in the league, and hopefully set the stage for a decent run next season when Parks, Nobles, Harkins, Doyle, Gutter and hopefully Winkelman arrive or return from injuries.

That's fine, I can buy that. My point was that recruiting juco's (at least for football) is not generally the way to go because you can recruit talent good enough to win from the high school ranks. I'm sure we can agree on that. If it's a matter of more or less evening out the classes to compensate for some of the attrition from some previous recruiting classes, then it makes a certain amount of sense. If it's more based on an attempt to upgrade talent, then the results have been mixed. I believe that out of the approximately eight or nine juco players signed by NDSU in the past two years, only three have been impact players or at least solid starters (Malone, Ware and Summerville). Five or six others have been something less than that (Cooley and one other linebacker from the 2002 team who may have red-shirted and whose name escapes me, Mamula, Byrd, Irby and Fleming). In the interest of fairness, I believe UND and NDSU have each recruited a very comparable number of juco basketball players in recent years. Unfortunately, it's somewhat necessary in basketball because there are so few dI or even high dII caliber basketball players from this area.

You are correct. I believe he got his master's degree from NDSU.

All this speculation regarding Lennon's future employment got me thinking of Rocky Hager and his tenure at NDSU. I know he was an NDSU grad and if my recollection is correct, he used to talk like being the head coach at NDSU was his dream job and that he wasn't interested in going anywhere else. My question is this for Bison fans: if the problems that led to his dismissal had never occurred, would he have voluntarily left NDSU before he was ready to retire? No flame intended here, I'm just curious.

Don't worry about it, sodakfan. Most of what's posted in this thread is speculation, so it's pretty tough to be too upset with someone for being wrong about something. I hope you continue to update us on the recruitment of DesCamps.

Yeah, whatever. I think I'm quite real, thank you. While I may disagree with many things written by NDSU fans on this board, I never attack anyone, so it surprises and amuses me that you would apparently interpret my post(s) as being combative and/or paranoid. My point was, and still is, that it's indisputable that certain NDSU fans have somewhat of a preoccupation with Lennon's future. Why that is, I don't know.

It's not as though UND hasn't gone through several coaching staff changes over the past dozen-or-so years. Obviously, Lennon replaced Thomas as head coach. At offensive coordinator, off the top of my head, there's been Rob Bollinger, Randy Hedberg, Jeff Menage and Chris Mussman. At defensive coordinator, it's gone from Lennon to Schweigert and now to Tibesar. Of course there have been numerous changes among the position coaches as well. And yet, aside from the forgettable 2002 season, every year from 1990 to the present has been pretty successful. Lennon is a great coach, but there's no reason to think that UND's program is going to all of a sudden collapse when he eventually does leave. Especially now that UND and NDSU are no longer going to be competing against each other aside from recruiting some of the same players, I don't understand why certain Bison fans and Fargo media members seem so interested in Lennon's future and are so anxious to see him go.

I realize you're trying to be facetious, but in the world of dII football, schools like Grand Valley St., TAMUK, Pitt. St., NW Mo. St., etc. are big-name opponents, as you well know. I just hope that UND is able to schedule home-and-home's with one or two of the best-known (is that a better way to describe them?) dII programs. Next year, in particular, that is important since the home NCC schedule doesn't look like it will be very good. I believe Central Wash. and Mesa St. will be coming to GF, so that's a pretty good start to the non-conference schedule. At least two and preferably three more non-conference games are yet to be scheduled.

Although the BSA as a whole is not a very good facility, its track isn't bad. Compared to Hyslop's track, it's phenomenal. Since much of the track season occurs in the months of January, February and March, a decent indoor facility is an absolute must. NDSU has one, and UND does not. I believe that is the major difference between the two schools' track programs. Somewhat surprisingly, ND, SD and Minnesota actually produce quite a few very good track athletes, and NDSU has been able to get many of them due in no small part to its facility being far better than UND's. It's also possible that NDSU devotes more scholarship money to its track programs, but I don't know whether that's the case or not. It's actually kind of amazing that UND has had as many good individual track athletes as it has over the years, particularly on the womens side, considering the poor indoor facility. Not coincidentally, most have been middle and long distance runners, and field event competitors. The distance runners, I believe, do a lot of outdoor road work even in the winter, and the throwers and high jumpers don't rely on the actual track very much. Memorial is okay as an outdoor track, although I haven't run there since the late 80's so I don't know how well the track has aged, or whether it has been re-surfaced. Since it's still good enough to host the state high school track meets every other year, it must still be okay. NDSU's outdoor track was built long after my competitive days, but I assume it's good.

From allcanadagridiron.com: Stadnyk is a 6'3", 235 lb. defensive end, and runs the 40 in 4.80.

I couldn't agree more regarding the indoor track. It has been approximately 15 years since the Grand Forks high schools have even had an indoor meet there, and the only meets now are a few of the NE North Dakota Class B schools a couple of times a year. It's horrible. I'm as big of a track fan as anyone, but without a decent indoor track, having a track program is almost pointless. It's hard for me to believe that nothing has been done about this yet as it has been a problem for a long, long time.