UND-FB-FAN

Need to attack the transfer portal with an intensity unknown to mankind! This ain’t the 1970s anymore … transfers win games.

Correct, although no reason Schmidt can’t do big things at UND in year one with transfer portal and watered-down FCS. With all that, I agree with you - big things typically take until year 2.

Nah, didn’t even have the candidate pool right. There was more than 1 FBS coordinator that applied. Full-steam ahead with Schmidty - let’s do this thing.

Working on it, boys. $ talks (and in this case, gets the job done) It’s natty time at UND more the merrier, lets get it done

I don’t, respectfully, of course.

Yeah, it was the concern here too. As defensive coordinator, success was limited. Only time will tell how he is as a head coach. Will he be Bubba 2.0 or DeBoer 2.0? Or something in between?

“Should his mentor, Fighting Hawks coach Bubba Schweigert, now 60, ever decide he'd rather be ice fishing in Fargo or running with bison in Bismarck, the FCS school would probably offer Schmidt nothing short of his own Mount Rushmore-like profile across the Dakota state line in the North Dakota Badlands.” They predicted this one … good stuff.

Excellent point. I certainly hope he has thought this all out, and I’m sure he has, and we can see it rolled out sooner rather than later and pay dividends early. Need to enhance a lot of things, from recruiting against rivals (NDSU and SDSU) to developing players; even transfer portal and NIL utilization. I think we all as UND supporters are hoping and praying those five years at the FBS level for Eric will make all the difference.

Would consider keeping Fruechte, but if Schmidt can hire a capable coach from the DeBoer offensive coaching tree to be OC, you take it; Fruechte could be WR coach or co-OC. DeBoer does a lot of co-coordinator titles, maybe Schmidt will do that here.

Have to have good players, number one, but development via strength/conditioning and coaching the fundamentals of pass coverage and tackling matters. Need to call a good game. Lots of pieces to come together but don’t take much to be better than the mess of a defense we had in 2024…

4-2-5

Time to go to work. Build the staff the right way and crush the portal. Time to ACTUALLY end the monopoly in the Dakotas. Get it done. Go Hawks.

Hope not … they haven’t performed. Performance grades matter.

Don’t know the full pool of candidates, but gimme Schmidt. Looked back at Schmidt’s last game at UND in 2019; playoff game lost by UND’s offense, only scored six points. If Schmidt gets the job, I’d like to see all those recent FBS connections be truthful and turned into a big-time new coaching staff here at UND. We’ll see …

Let’s not beat a dead horse. Bubba routinely lost games even when he had more talent than the other team, especially on the road. Not sure how much more successful the new facilities would’ve made him. Still need to be able to make good decisions on game day. Need a coach that can recruit, but also develop, gameplan, and make adjustments. Also a lot of it is who you know, not what you know - need to put together a better staff. To be honest, especially on the defensive side of the ball, the defensive staff as a whole was not getting the job done at all.

It’s really quite all over the place. That tends to mean that Chaves and the athletics department truthfully don’t know yet who they’re gonna hire. I’m quite confident they got a good pool of candidates… this is an attractive job with the new facilities…and opportunity to elevate over NDSU/SDSU and get an FBS coaching gig as a result as you’d be put on notice by ESPN, etc. Rarely lines up that you have a head coach job open on the same year that brand new facilities are also gonna open …

That’s what I heard.

Other than Baldwin, he actually is and was my favorite candidate, but doesn’t sound like he is being considered like Eric Schmidt (and I guess not applying will do that …) My take on Luke: successful runs as offensive staff member at SDSU, knows UND and the Midwest, and as of late, he’s been doing very well as OC at Idaho. No head coaching experience, which is negative compared to Baldwin, but he’s a good recruiter and teacher, really a young innovative offensive mind in college football with the age and future prospects to look to move up and bring a program up to new heights on that journey upward.

If Schmidt gets the job, I hope he does amazing with his first head coaching opportunity, and his experiences over the past five years help elevate UND to the next level. Bottomline is we need to start competing with, and beating, the likes of NDSU and SDSU.

Disagree. In college football, turnarounds can occur in 1-2 years when you get the hire correct. Also, UND has a foundation per Bubba, remember? Plus the excellent new facilities. I would hope to see UND ascend quickly in 1-2 years or else UND got the wrong guy.

I absolutely agree. It’s called bias. I would love to have a buddy / acquaintance get the job, but I also realize that such biases got us Bubba in 2013/14 as well. I think we need to make this decision separate from such biases. Do not hire someone because of acquaintance and bias, but because they’re the best candidate.

Everything works a bit slower in North Dakota (especially at UND for football) …

A lot remains to be seen. Don’t know who is in the applicant pool and what the options are, don’t know what the salary pool will be, don’t know which assistants will be kept and who will be replaced, and who are the eventual replacements. Gonna be a lot to unpack over the course of this month … get buckled up everyone.

I wouldn’t just hire someone who is confident … that’s not nearly enough to imply you’ll be a good or great DI head football coach.