UND92,96

Mallory probably should go back to coaching high school ball in Iowa. She did well there. UND should hire somebody like Emilee Thiesse from MSU-Mankato. UND would be back to being a consistent women's basketball power quickly in my opinion.

I think it speaks volumes about the roster makeup when a true freshman PWO like Mathern is getting fairly significant minutes. That's not meant as a knock on her ability, but it really shouldn't be happening, at least his early in her career, with 15 scholarship players on the roster. In order to add the needed inside help for next season, I think it's safe to say there are going to potentially be several players leaving after this season. As it is, scholarships appear to be overcommitted, with presumably both Hillesheim and Harvey being scholarship players.

Hoskins bio from the 2023 Minnesota roster: HIGH SCHOOL: Attended Alexandria High School in Alexandria, Minn. • wore No. 13 for the Cardinals • as a senior, caught 83 balls for 1,185 yards and 15 touchdowns in 11 games, averaging 14.28 yards per catch • returned three kickoffs for touchdowns, including one for 89 yards in the state quarterfinals, and racked up 449 yards on 18 total kick returns • named a top-10 finalist for the Minnesota Football Coaches Association Mr. Football Award • as a junior, grabbed a team-high 41 receptions for 628 yards and nine touchdowns • totaled 74 catches, 1,009 yards and 11 touchdowns as a sophomore • coached by Mike Empting • also played basketball • consensus three-star recruit • Listed as the No. 3 prospect in Minnesota.

Things are further complicated by the fact that you have the identical situation going on in both the men's and women's programs--one year left on their contracts and nearly identical winning percentages at UND.

For those who aren't familiar with Red River football, former UND player Vyrn Muir is the head coach, and former UND player and assistant coach Mike Mannausau is an assistant. There are also former RR players who are on the team at UND right now, such as Paine Parks and Lawson Lotysz.

Haug is originally from Crookston. Played at Bemidji State. Presumably played for Schmidt in high school.

He played basketball prior to his senior year, but I don't think he ever played football in high school. With his combination of size, strength and footwork, he could have been a monster offensive tackle had he gone out his senior year, even if he had possibly never played before.

It's mind boggling how much he improved in the course of one year. From his junior year to his senior year in high school, he went from 41 feet to 63'11" in the shot, from 154 feet to 191'7" in the disc and from 154 feet to 185'7" in the javelin.

Interesting to read this article now, written nearly a year and half ago: https://www.si.com/college/washington/football/schmidt-has-been-ideal-defensive-fit-for-huskies

And incoming freshman Maxson? He looks pretty impressive.

South Dakota State has done pretty well with recruits no other division I schools offered: https://www.siouxfallslive.com/sports/college/south-dakota-state-football-a-program-built-on-underdogs

His bio is pretty interesting. I never realized he had no previous connections to Minnesota/the Dakota's (he's from Greenwich, CT) until he was hired at NDSU by Bob Babich 27 years ago. He's never really left the region since.

I think Bolte and Johansen would both be excellent candidates. But the more I think about it, I would also be pretty excited with a Schmidt hire, as nobody could have predicted he'd potentially be available less than one year ago. A relatively young coach from ND, with very recent experience coaching in the FBS national championship game under one of the biggest name coaches in the country, who was a great player at UND, and who presumably would have a lot of connections that could lead to portal additions, seems almost too good to be true in my opinion.

Different sport and different time, but when Rich Glas left, his primary assistant Randall Herbst was named interim head coach, and was ultimately named a finalist before UND eventually hired Brian Jones, so who knows? My guess is that the feeling was that Freuchte was best equipped to try hold together the recruiting class/minimize player exodus until a permanent coach is hired, which hopefully happens next week.

52.

I could be way off base here, but if Baldwin were to be hired, that might provide a major indication that Chaves isn't really on the hot seat after all. I certainly respect what Baldwin did at EWU eight-plus years ago, but I can't imagine you'd want your AD to hire a guy with no previous connection to your traditional recruiting areas, whose career seems to be on the downswing and whose candidacy seems to be mostly based on the fact that your AD previously hired him, if you really planned to can that AD soon.

I just meant that if, hypothetically, Nielson told him he was retiring after the season or even after next season, maybe he’d be less interested in moving on now due to already having the players to fit his system, not having to uproot family, etc. Obviously I agree that UND is the better job.

Along those same lines, Johansen’s interest may depend on 65 year old Bob Nielson’s plans at USD, since presumably Johansen is the heir apparent there. But if Nielson wants to coach a few more years, who knows? Maybe Johansen doesn’t want to wait and is ready to move on.

I think somebody else mentioned him in this thread several pages ago, but in terms of successful dII coaches from the region who have had done "more with less" than most of the other NSIC powers, Brent Bolte from Bemidji St. might be somebody to at least reach out to.

He was a former NDSU assistant, but was at Wyoming in 2023 so he was not an internal hire at the time.

I don't know what the actual "required" process is these days, but I know NDSU only took one week to name a new coach last December, and it wasn't an in-house hire. Hopefully UND knows who they are going to hire and just does it ASAP rather than dragging this out as long as it took when Bubba was hired.

Sounds like it just happened. Bubba steps down.

NDSU plays at a refurbished Dacotah Field. It’s a pretty nice facility with artificial turf. They won the conference this season. SDSU plays at a municipal facility well off campus with natural grass turf. It’s a fairly similar situation to when UND softball played at Apollo. They still seem to do well, finishing third this season.

You kind of have to assume that the softball situation is different due to the large donation made by one of the player's parents to fund the new facility. It's not Engelstad-type money, but hypothetically, if that player's parents are happy with the coach, it would be a bit more difficult to make a change at this particular point in time.

I realize there are several important differences in the two eras, such as the state of the program when they took over, but it's nevertheless interesting that Bubba's current winning percentage after nearly 11 full seasons (.559) is actually lower than what Pat Behrns' was at the time he was fired at the end of his sixth season (.571). Behrns was 8-3 in this second-to-last season, but followed that up with a 3-8 record in his final season, with an embarrassing 49-0 loss to NDSU to end the season, and that was enough to send him packing. But then again I'm sure Behrns didn't have three years left on his contract at the time.