The blog keeps getting bigger! Join The Forum’s Jeff Kolpack and WDAY’s Dom Izzo as they welcome NDSU Athletic Director Gene Taylor to Media Blog Studio.
Bison Video Blog: AD Gene Taylor in studio!
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Kory Brown
First off what a weekend for the NDSU Spring teams. The men’s and women’s track teams continued their downright dominance of the Summit League, women make it 5 straight, men 4 out of 5. More impressive perhaps that the home fans got to watch these teams perform this weekend, they travel so much so to win this in Fargo has to be extra gratifying. Congrats also in order to Darren Mueller and his softball team, pushed to the limit in a winner-take-all game, junior Whitney Johnson came thru with a terrific performance and the Bison won a 4th straight Summit title. We’ll find out tonight who and where they’ll play (9pm ESPNU).
Now onto the newest member of the Bison men’s basketball team, Kory Brown from El. Brown is 6’4, a two-time conference MVP that averaged 16 points and 8 rebounds a game last year. Elgin head coach Mike Sitter told me today biggest reason why Brown was still available college coaches don’t know what position he’ll play.Sitter said coaches were not sure if he can play guard at the next level. Sitter was convinced that Brown is a impact player, he shot 60% from the field, 33% from 3. The most impressive stat that Sitter told me was that “when Kory steps on campus he’ll be the best defender there.” Music to Saul Phillips ears. Brown had offers from SDSU and Western Illinois, Sitter told me Brown was pleasantly surprised on his trip to Fargo, he’s 3rd member of 2012 class joining Brett VandenBergh from DePere an Dexter Werner from Bismarck. NDSU was the first school to offer Brown, Sitter will join me on Dizzo’s Den tomorrow at 6:45(970 WDAY)
Remembering Stacy
The stories continue to flow about Stacy Robinson, the former Bison and New York Giants receiver who passed away last night. Story is here.
Stacy, I believe, was my first interview as a cub reporter back in the day. I don’t remember the specifics, but I’m pretty certain he answered the questions with respect, which he always did. I always remembered him as a really good guy and I’m not alone on that one.
Don Morton relayed the story last night how Stacy was having some trouble catching passes. It stumped the coaching staff because he was such a great athlete and it just didn’t seem right. Turns out he needed glasses and the rest is history. Morton also talked about how Robinson transferred to NDSU from a smaller Division I school in Texas as a quarterback. That’s where he started with the Bison before he was switched to receiver. It wasn’t easy back in the veer option days for a kid to go from QB to receiver, but he handled it very well, former players and Morton said. “He wasn’t a guy who demanded the ball,” said center Mike Favor.
My best memory of watching him play (and maybe somebody can help me with the details of when and who it was against if that bleepin comments technicality is fixed) was a long pass that Robinson went horizontal to the Dacotah Field turf and caught it on a flying dive. To this day, one of the best catches I’ve ever seen.
Keep Stacy in your thoughts
Stacy Robinson was one of the greatest Bison football players ever and is just as great of a man as well. Keep him in your thoughts and prayers:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/stacyrobinson
Change benefits the Missouri Valley
NDSU's FCS measuring stick with Georgia Southern won't last too much longer.
It is becoming increasing clear that change in the FCS is almost a certainty, not just talk, and the beneficiary of it all stands to be the Missouri Valley Football Conference and to an extent, the Big Sky Conference. With Georgia Southern and possibly Appalachian State bolting for FBS and leaving the Southern Conference, and with the CAA on the verge of losing a few schools to FBS, the Missouri Valley is just hanging out without much hint of change.
It’s addition by subtraction, at least in the short term until other schools fill the power void left by the vacancies of GSU, Massachusetts, Old Dominion (although relatively new, still a good program) and whoever else leaves.
My story on the subject is here.
The CAA will find some replacements for UMass simply because there are a lot of good programs. But what if change sweeps the league and not only UMass and Old Dominion head to FBS but Villanova (which is a strong possibility to the Big East), James Madison and Delaware follow suit? Currently, that would leave the CAA with just five teams: Towson, Maine, William & Mary, Rhode Island and Richmond. Say goodbye to the SEC of the FCS motto. What a striking change that would be when the league just a few years ago had 12 teams and two divisions. But Northeastern (and Rocky Hager) and Hofstra dropping football started the descent.
Meanwhile, about the only slight piece of evidence of change within the Missouri Valley are rumors of Youngstown thinking of the CAA (maybe not now) and the Illinois State president saying he someday wants the school to go FBS.
Bison Video Blog: Spring cleaning edition
Mix things up with The Forum’s Jeff Kolpack and WDAY’s Dom Izzo as they discuss all the recent happenings in NDSU Bison spring football!
The O-line after spring ball
The Bison offensive line ended spring ball with a depth chart that is clear at left tackle, center and right guard and competitive at right tackle and left guard. In essence, it’s about the same situation as a year ago this time when Billy Turner, Paul Cornick and Austin Richard were the returning cornerstones.
In essence, there are three returning starters in Turner, Joe Lund and Tyler Gimmestad. There is a three-way battle at both left guard and right tackle with the reserves there also in the mix for depth behind Turner and Gimmestad.
Here is a story that ran in today’s Forum:
The North Dakota State defense was lauded as the victor last week in the annual Green vs. Gold spring football game. That doesn’t mean it’s time to pull the alarm for the offense.
The fact neither offense scored a touchdown is not cause to push the panic button, said offensive line coach Scott Fuchs. “By the 15th day of practice, both sides have a decent idea of what the other side is doing and what the snap count is,” he said. “It’s a little bit unrealistic.”
NDSU ended spring ball without many depth chart surprises in the offensive line. Junior left tackle Billy Turner, senior center Joe Lund and junior right guard Tyler Gimmestad will go into fall as undisputed starters.
It will be the third year as a starter for Turner, who turned heads when he earned a starting spot as a true freshman. He’s expected to be one of the top players at his position in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision next season.“He’s a lot more involved and a very athletic big man,” Fuchs said. “I will tell you this: He’s not sitting on that fact. He works hard in trying to improve on that.”
The Bison spent this spring trying to replace tackle Paul Cornick and left guard Austin Richard, both of whom were cornerstones the last two years. Richard was a four-year starter. Junior Anthony LaVoy, senior Ty Beckius and freshman Josh Colville will battle at left guard in fall camp, Fuchs said. Colville missed half of spring ball with a minor knee procedure.
Right tackle has a similar competitive look with junior Jesse Hinz, sophomore Jason Pomerenke and junior Jeff Jerve. Hinz moved from center this spring.
The 6-5 Pomerenke is up to 306 pounds and Jerve – who earned a starting spot a year ago in spring football – is still recovering from a knee injury.
Editor’s note
I’m aware of complaints of comments not being able to register on this blog. The proper people have been contacted, hopefully it will be resolved soon so everybody can continue to praise me and trash Dom.
UPDATE: I’m told it was fixed.
Busy Basketball Day
First have to start off with a hearty thank you to all of readers on the Bison Media Blog, we crossed over the 1 million page views mark earlier today, I know not everyone agrees with what Jeff and I post here, but we always appreciate the feedback, so thanks to everyone for reaching that milestone!
On to the news of the day, the Bison men’s basketball team will get another crack at a top level team. Two sources confirmed to me that NDSU will open next season in the Legends Classic taking on Georgetown either November 11th or 12th. The Legends Classic is a tournament put on by the Gazelle Group, same organization that also runs the CBI, the postseason tournament NDSU played in back in March. The field is pretty impressive, Georgetown, Georgia, UCLA and Sweet 16 team Indiana. Those four teams will advance (no matter what) to play in Brooklyn in the final four of the tournament November 19-20th. The remaining teams in the field; NDSU, Duquesne, James Madison, Liberty, UC Irvine (the Anteaters!) and Sam Houston State will play in a round-robin format on a neutral site. NDSU will play at Duquesne (which is in Pittsburgh), so they’ll play the Dukes and two other opponents in mid November. My choice would love to see the Bison play two of their football opponents from the title run, James Madison and Sam Houston State, JMU (12-20 last year) would be a good opponent out of a solid mid-major league in the Colonial. Duquesne (16-15, 7-9 in A-10) is a quality test for a team that will have some high expectations next season. The remainder of the field did not have good records last year:
- Liberty: 14-18 (9-9 Big South)
- UC Irvine: 12-20 (6-10 Big West; But they’re the Anteaters!)
- Sam Houston State: 13-19 (7-9 Southland)
CBS Sports has put together a site for all pre-season tournaments, SDSU, Oral Roberts and UMKC participating in some, take a look.
Couple of interesting women’s Summit League moves on Wednesday, first Oral Roberts head coach Jerry Finkbeiner is leaving ORU to take the head job at Utah State. Interesting move here, especially considering he has the best player in school history back for her senior season (Kevi Luper), I was about to write best player in the league, but I have to remember ORU will not be in the Summit next season. Also Candace Whitaker has left UMKC to take an assistant job at Oklahoma State. Whitaker really turned around the Kangaroos, they were a shot away from beating SDSU in the Women’s Championship Game this year, they hired Marsha Frese, former Ball State head coach and sister of current Maryland head coach Brenda Frese. Frese has served as recruiting coordinators at Minnesota and Northern Illinois, has plenty of midwest ties, the Roos had a terrific 2012, going 22-12 and making the women’s NIT. New video blog coming later this week, again, thanks for getting us to a million!!
FBS move: it’s a challenge, A.D. says
NDSU athetic director Gene Taylor expressed some surprise this morning over the news that Georgia Southern is moving its football program to the Football Bowl Subdivision level.
“It’s a program that’s had a lot of success over the years but it’s a challenge,” he said. “It’s definitely a challenge. Some schools have made the transition easier than others … more however have struggled with it. But if anybody has a good shot at it, they do.”
Taylor reiterated that moving up is not a subject of discussion at NDSU.
“We’re just too young in all of this stuff, really,” he said.
A couple of notes I took from the Statesboro Herald newspaper story. The athletic budget at GSU is about $12 million, which is around $3 million less than NDSU’s total budget ($14.9 million this year). GSU officials believe they need to raise another $4.4 million annually to make the FBS leap with the biggest chunk going from 63 to 85 scholarships. That’s a healthy jump.
I actually admire the guts it takes to do this. But the difference between intestinal fortitude and reality is in the money and if GSU doesn’t raise it every year, problems will arise. I also question playing in a lower tier FBS league and whether playing on a Tuesday or Wednesday night in a half empty stadium on an ESPN network like the MAC does is really that beneficial. Maybe it is.
Also interesting that the GSU president poo-booed Frisco, Texas. I think if you asked the thousands of NDSU fans who were in Frisco, many would tell you they had an absolute blast with the event and that they would take that over the Motor City Bowl, or whatever late December bowl games the non-BCS schools play. Win or lose, for those of you who were there, am I wrong?
