UND92,96

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.

One could argue Stiegelmeier was kind of a mediocre dII coach. Kill didn't do all that great in dII, either. The point being, it's sometimes hard to tell how somebody might do as a head coach under different circumstances compared to where they were. Does that mean Bubba would come back to UND and quickly turn the ship around? Not necessarily. But neither would I count him out based upon what happened at UMD or SIU. And for the record, I have nothing against DeBoer and would be fine with him, too.

That is disappointing to hear.

Ironically, even Muss is criticizing the length of this ridiculous process via twitter...

If there had been an actual a.d. back then, and if UND had conducted a national search, I firmly believe it would have been either Tibesar or Bubba. Very little chance Muss would have gotten the job under any other circumstances than the perfect storm (for him) that actually took place.

I don't think so. When you think about it, Bubba has kind of overshadowed Muss for a long time. First, Bubba and the defense (deservedly) got much of the credit for UND's success while he was DC. Then after the 2003 season, the two were finalists for the UMD job, which of course Bubba got. Now it appears Bubba may be called upon the clean up the mess left by Muss.

My understanding is that Gustafson is definitely among the top five, although he was way before my time and I never actually saw him play.

I can't help but wonder if Lennon's watching this process unfold, heading into a contract year and presumably under a fair amount of pressure, and asking himself whether he's making a mistake not pursuing the UND job for himself?

I just got done watching the "UND Sports Zone" on the Herald web site, which was posted about an hour ago. They talked as if Cummings was also expected to be a finalist. I wonder if he withdrew? Or maybe they were simply incorrect?

Agreed. There's also somewhat of a sense of frustration in that the rules governing the hiring process at UND are apparently not easily available for viewing, short of a trip to Twamley, which leads to questions as to whether this process could have been streamlined in this particular case. How much, if any leeway does Kelley have to suspend or waive certain requirements?

It appears they responded to a tweet from Jody Norstedt and said they are THE two finalists. No other confirmation as of yet.

Football Scoop is reporting that Bubba and DeBoer are the two finalists.