UND92,96

The other factor favoring Freund's retention is that at this level, I think it would be unusual for a new coach to not retain anybody from the previous staff. And when you factor in Bubba's history here and the fact that there are a few UND grads among the previous staff, it would make it all the more difficult to believe he wouldn't retain anybody. Just my opinion. It's kind of too bad that it sounds like Kotelnicki's hands were a bit tied with regard to hiring a staff. I think he basically just had to retain everybody. Otherwise, several of the coaches from last year's UND staff probably would have had a good shot at catching on at UMary.

IMO, it would be pretty tough for Bubba to cut loose former players unless he's got somebody else lined up who is clearly better. Bubba strikes me as a pretty loyal guy. I think the responsibilities on Freund's shoulders would be far less than last year given Rudolph can and probably will working closely with the quarterbacks, whereas I don't think Schleusner had that kind of experience/expertise.

Sounds like Drew Greely was impressed with Bubba at his in-home visit, per a re-tweet by Tom Miller.

I think it was some kind of tryout for the Beez. Not sure of the exact details of it. He had only played in a few games for UND before that information came to light. And just like that, his career was over. EDIT: Here's an old thread about it: http://forum.siouxsp...en-eligibility/

As I recall, Beasley was not even considered the jewel of that year's class of juco transfers. Robert Lolar was supposed to have been the star. I think Beasley caught everyone by surprise with how good he ended up being. He had only averaged something like 8 ppg as a juco sophomore.

Kyle Myers is not being retained by Bubba per footballscoop.

I just watched the UND Sports Zone webcast, and the Herald guys had a good point about Rudolph--he has a good track record of developing quarterbacks, at least from his SCSU days.

Marty Rodgers hire now official.

You beat me to it! At least he got his "natty" last night for "Nole Nation".

And fortunately the forecast is actually quite nice for this weekend, with high temps from the mid-20's to low 30's ABOVE zero.

Per an SFI tweet, it appears Schmidt will be responsible for recruiting ND. According to a Forum article today, Hedberg will recruit ND for NDSU. Should be interesting.

It's a bit perplexing that a program can go five years between signing a 4 or 5 out of high school. We have one coming in next year, and that will be the first since Brekke. I get that sometimes transfers are necessary, but I have a hard time believing there wasn't another project coming out of high school in the past three or four years that UND could have taken a chance on.

But I don't think they had to assemble nearly their entire class in basically one month. That's a lot to ask of any staff, particularly one not even close to being at full strength yet.

I'm not in a position to make that call. My main concern is that even if most of the players who have departed hadn't proven they could play, their departure now means UND is apparently going to be a position where true freshmen, and perhaps juco transfers are going to be asked to play immediately in large numbers. And particularly considering the abbreviated recruiting season, that's kind of a scary proposition.

I can't help but wonder what is the bigger factor in this mass exodus--the unreasonably long delay in hiring a coach, or Muss simply recruiting a lot of the wrong kids? I'm not sure we've ever seen the kind of roster overhaul in one year that we're apparently going to see from 2013 to 2014.

I really hope Bubba gives Hoffner a chance to get back into coaching. Maybe OL coach?

I'm not sure there is a simple explanation. The thing that makes it all the more difficult to understand, as I've mentioned probably too many times in the past, is the relative success Stiegelmeier has had at SDSU after being essentially a mediocre dII coach for seven seasons. I think he was something like 1-6 vs. Lennon at UND, and had zero playoff appearances. So all of a sudden they go division I, Lennon moves to an established FCS program, Stieg got better and Lennon got worse? It makes no sense. Lennon was great here, but no so much at SIU. Stieg has been very good of late at SDSU, but would he be anywhere else? Doubtful, IMO. Nielsen was great at UMD, but if Western Illinois never makes the playoffs, does that mean he's not still a good coach? I think the point is that at least at this level, coaches are often uniquely suited to certain parts of the country. I can't really come up with an alternative explanation, but that's not to say there aren't others.

Given the corner situation, I would think one of the first orders of business would be to sign at least two juco corners quickly enough to get them into school for the spring semester. It would be hard to imagine heading into spring ball with as few as one corner on the current roster. Who would be some candidates to switch positions to add some needed corner depth, at least for the spring?

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't hold any ill will towards Lennon. I think that in retrospect he made a mistake going where he did. And yes, it was the worst possible time for him to go, at least from UND's perspective. But nevertheless he did a lot for UND football, and is still a great coach no matter what has happened, or will happen at SIU.

Bubba and Schmidt had nothing but success while at UND. I think they deserve the full support of all UND fans. As far as I'm concerned, Muss was like Behrns, and Bubba will be like RT.

I don't think he is coaching anymore.

Tom Dosch?

Schmidt presumably sees the writing on the wall in Carbondale. Hypothetically, even if his loyalties to Lennon and Bubba are roughly equal, the lure of going home and getting a fresh start (as opposed to the situation at SIU--win now or else) should make the better and wiser choice fairly clear.