UND92,96

The SFI guys are hearing Rudolph's name being mentioned, too. I would guess there's something to it.

I'm not sure it's even possible for a school like Minot St. to succeed at the dII level. However, while he and Hedberg were at SCSU, they had a fair amount of success despite operating with fewer scholies than most other NCC schools. When SCSU had players like Keith Heckendorf and Matt Birkel, they were a formidable offense. I think he'd be the most experienced and proven OC UND has had in many years.

SFI just tweeted that they are also hearing rumors of Rudolph being UND's new OC.

I just saw on footballscoop that UND applicant Mike Cummings is going to be OC at UConn.

I think he was referring to Bill Bleil applying for the football job.

I believe Jones is only under contract through next season. Does anybody know for certain?

I would be fine with Rudolph. He was in charge of some pretty good offenses while at St. Cloud St. He could also be an asset in recruiting given his ties to western ND (from Stanley and has coached at Minot St. for several years) and also his time in St. Cloud.

McFeely had a blog a few weeks ago on this subject: http://kfgo.com/blog...sters-blunders/

Hoffner was hired at Mankato at essentially the same time Lennon, Bubba, etc. went to SIU and Muss was promoted at UND. Ironically, Muss was considered somewhat of the favorite for the Mankato job had Lennon not left UND when he did.

How many scholarship corners are left on the roster right now? Possibly as few as one depending upon the status of Konowalski? Aside from Chris Brown, I'm not sure there are any others who have ever seen the field. I assume this is one position Bubba is going to have dip into the juco ranks pretty hard.

I think you can look at Southern Utah as an example of a program that was actually far lower than where UND has been, and how Ed Lamb fairly quickly got them to respectability when he took over after the 2007 season. As many recall, then dII UND played at and dominated SUU in 2007. SUU was 0-11 that season. Lamb took over and got them to 4-7, then 5-6, 6-5 and eventually to the playoffs in 2013.

I think that depends on who you ask. I will say this--with Bubba and probably Schmidt, I feel like UND is in its best position to recruit within the state of ND since 2005 (the Chappell, Stroup, etc. class). Obviously there were some other factors at play in recent years as well, but Muss vs. Bohl was a blowout recruiting-wise for the most part. I would look for things to change significantly with the mostly new staffs in the coming years.

I have no opinion either way on Freund as a coach, because I have no idea. But Faison did keep him around, at least temporarily, and Bubba knows him well. Usually even if it's a new coach with no connections whatsoever to the school you see two or three assistants retained. And since Bubba is far from new to the school, it stands to reason to think maybe guys he actually knows would have the best shot to stick. Pure speculation on my part, however.

Does this mean Freund is likely retained? I also wonder whether Schleusner might be kept, although presumably not as OC? It would be nice to have him continue his Illinois recruiting prowess.

Unless Faison really does make an announcement today or tomorrow, which would be pretty classless IMO, this process looks like it will take at least 38 days to complete. If somebody can find an example of a division I school in a state other than North Dakota where a similar search took anything close to this long, I'd love to hear about it. The longest search I'm aware of was Western Illinois when Nielson was hired, which took 30 days.

The list of grievances just grew again...and there will be no Festivus Miracle this year.

Todd Bakken.

I remember that 1981-82 team was really good with Clausen, Sonat, Brekke, Aaron Harris and...Rod Merriam maybe? I can't seem to recall the fifth starter off hand if it was not Merriam.

Jon Sonat

Isn't this what happened with the AD search after RT left? I seem to recall there being three finalists, and then all of a sudden Buning, who was not one of the three, was interviewed and got the job. At this point, nothing would surprise me.

No problem.

Ummm, care to elaborate? I'm certainly not defending UND's process. Frankly, it drives me crazy. But clearly public and private schools are not really comparable in terms of their procedures for hiring.

Happy Festivus everyone! I'm really looking forward to the feats of strength later today. I hear it's the final component of the interview process.

It's a private school, so I believe the process is completely different. I also believe their coach announced prior to the season that he was retiring, so I guess technically they had been looking for a new coach since July or August.

Congrats to Kotelnicki. I hope he does well. It's pretty interesting that despite the lack of success UND had under Muss, three of his former assistants are presently head coaches at either the division I or II level--Carey, Breitbach and now Kotelnicki.