UND recruiting across the country

[FutureSioux]

Is this a sign tof things to come? Lennon has recruited kids as far away as Arizona and Texas? I dont remember ever hearing of this happening before. What are your thoughts?

[SirHinn]

Is this a sign tof things to come? Lennon has recruited kids as far away as Arizona and Texas? I dont remember ever hearing of this happening before. What are your thoughts?

Gotta start recruiting outside of North Dakota/Minnesota to continue to find top notch talent with the big move. In order to stay competitive, you must expand your recruiting base. Good to see Coach Lennon expanding his recruiting base.

[UND92,96]

Is this a sign tof things to come? Lennon has recruited kids as far away as Arizona and Texas? I dont remember ever hearing of this happening before. What are your thoughts?

Keep in mind the circumstances behind the two kids in question. Ankenbauer is Gene Roebuck's wife's nephew, and his father grew up in North Dakota. Schaan's grandparents live in Devils Lake, and he had gone to UND camps in the past. I don't think we're going to see much football recruiting any farther south than Nebraska, or west of Colorado, unless there's some sort of family connection to UND and/or North Dakota.

[mikel12503]

True, but we will still have to try and recruit a higher caliber of player, if we want to be competitive in D-1. So, even if the recruiting area does not widen, we will have to recruit against the Gateway and MAC for a lot of the same kids.

[UND92,96]

True, but we will still have to try and recruit a higher caliber of player, if we want to be competitive in D-1. So, even if the recruiting area does not widen, we will have to recruit against the Gateway and MAC for a lot of the same kids.

In football, I honestly think UND can continue to recruit mostly in its usual recruiting area (ND, MN, WI and Canada), while expanding somewhat into Montana, Nebraska and Colorado. UND has gotten some Colorado kids over the years, but will probably start to recruit more heavily in the Denver area. I just don't see UND getting involved heavily in Texas, California, etc. That's a long ways away, which gets expensive, and what are the odds that a really good kid is going to want to come this far north? I'll reserve judgment on NDSU's Texans until we see how they all pan out. Maybe they'll be really good. Maybe most of them won't last more than a year or two. Time will tell.

[FutureSioux]

i believe regardless of expense UND should recruit farther south. texas. lousiana and other southern states have traditionally the best talent of any other states.

[UND Fan]

i believe regardless of expense UND should recruit farther south. texas. lousiana and other southern states have traditionally the best talent of any other states.

What is your definition of "regardless of expense"? If dollars are not in the budget for that kind of travel/recruiting expenses, how would we pay for it?

[BigGame]

i believe regardless of expense UND should recruit farther south. texas. lousiana and other southern states have traditionally the best talent of any other states.

Good players can be found anywhere, you just have a lot more of them to pick from in a place like TX.

[FutureSioux]

a school like UND can afford to recruit players from around the country. i dont mean change your whole recruiting base, but if u want an edge pick a few recruits from other regions. (texas just an example)

[UND Fan]

a school like UND can afford to recruit players from around the country. i dont mean change your whole recruiting base, but if u want an edge pick a few recruits from other regions. (texas just an example)

While I certainly agree with you in my hope that UND is able to expand its recruiting area greatly (to be as successful as possible, we need to); however, it is much more easily said than done. With the cost of 1) traveling to see and talk to recruits, 2) transporting potential recruits to Grand Forks (which is expensive) and 3) many more athletes from states with which we do not have tuition reciprocity agreements .... we may not have the money to do so.

As an analogy, if I live in a big, fancy house, one might assume that I have lots of extra money. That may or may not be true - in many cases, it is not true. Just because UND is moving to DI does not mean that we will have the money to do a lot of things that we would like to do!

If you think we will automatically be able to recruit nationwide, I suggest you talk to a few of UND coaches. They have specific budgets for recruiting. Everyone of them feel that that should have more - and that refers to being in DII. We just don't have the $ for it. All are concerned if their budgets will be increased enough to truly bring in more and better quality athletes!

[UND92,96]

The is probably overly simplistic, but if you took an all-star team of NCC players from any given year (exluding the Washington schools, since they're in a completely different recruiting area), how would that team compare athletically to some of the best in I-AA? Pretty well, I think. Obviously, I'm not saying UND is going to start getting everybody it wants when recruiting against the soon-to-be-former NCC schools. Rather, the point is that the vast majority of players in the NCC were not offered scholarships by I-AA schools, but that doesn't mean they're not I-AA caliber players. My hope is that with an additional 27 scholarships, UND should get not only its traditional share of very good players from Minnesota and Wisconsin, but also start taking even more players away from the St. Cloud State's, UMD's, Augustana's, etc., particularly since those programs are likely facing scholarship cuts due to the NSIC scholarship ceiling. Furthermore, I'd like to think UND can start stealing a few talented Nebraska kids who historically have gone to UNO. Players such as Chris Denney, Chris Bober, Chris Cooper, etc. These were all future NFL players who (presumably) didn't have any I-AA offers. Would they have been willing to travel north for a full scholarship, as opposed to the partial they were likely offered by UNO? Very possibly. UND also has to the potential to do very well in Colorado, particularly with the trainwreck that UNC has become. Throw in some more Canadian recruiting, and I think UND could really upgrade its talent level without having to try to compete with the countless other I-A and I-AA schools already trying to recruit in Texas, California, Florida, etc.

[The Sicatoka]

Coach Lennon says recruiting starts in the back yard and works out from there:

Weston Dressler - Yeah, he's OK.

Brady Trenbeath - He, not Weston, has most of the freshman receiving records.

Brandon Hellevang - He's on pace to break the PK records of some hack named "Jeff Glas".

Bobby Stroup - Digger or Eric Schmidt aren't the freshman sack record holder.

Ryan Chappell - Phillip who? Moore what?

Find the local gems and work out from there to meet the needs.