Colten Heagle tackles a GSU running back in last year’s playoffs
The plan was to get the Father of Football to write an essay on how best to defend the triple option “Wingbone” attack of Wofford, but like Steve Martin used to say, I forgot. But here will be the key, in much the same manner as NDSU’s matchup with Georgia Southern last year: Christian Dudzik.
Of course, the Bison secondary will no longer be in pass defense mode, which it has been in some way or another for all 12 games to date. Every team the Bison have faced have had a quarterback with some sort of passing threat, specifically Matt Brown from Illinois State, although nobody in the category of a Rhett Bomar from a few years ago. Still, Kurt Hess, Austin Sumner and Sawyer Kollmorgen were legitimate dual-threat quarterbacks who could throw.
Now comes Wofford and its 81 passing attempts all season. With three backs, it’s all about assignments and gap control for the Bison defense and perhaps nobody will have bigger role than safety Dudzik, who will play the spot Colten Heagle had against Georgia Southern last year. Dudzik and Heagle, in fact, talked about that very role last Saturday night after the Bison second round win. Dudzik said Heagle, out with a torn ACL, has been in all the meetings this week and doing his best to help out.
Physically, Dudzik has the tools for the job. He’s the fastest guy on the team, we’re told, and he’s one of the toughest competitors out there. Any other keys? Perhaps the Father of Football will find time to comment.
Great choice! Dudzik will shut down the outside.
Is Don Morton still in Fargo? If he is, I can’t imagine a better resource.
Perhaps Marcus Williams can play a floating corner and shut down any passing should they try and mix things up. Ohlman and Dudzik and Andre can man up with the backs and have Grant or Carlton solo on the big ground pounder. Is it not fun to pretend we know what we are talking about. I am sure the coaches have a great plan in place and like always the boys have to make the plays. Our O has to drop 3 scores on them and we should be good, I hope.
Go Bison
I thought Ollman (SS) was playing in place of Heagle (SS) and Dudzik is the FS. That is why I think the key is Ollman. But you watch much more practice then I do so I will trust your opinion!
Actually it will require all 11 on defense doing their job, all 11 on offense doing their job, all 11 on special teams doing their job and the coaches doing their job.
If that happens the Bison should win the game.
im interested in seeing how we first and foremost defend the dive. perry and drevlow did a great job against GSU last season. will be interesting to see how we perform with perry out. schatez/luecke/hardie and whomever filled in last week against sdsu did a great job, but theyll be getting run at a lot more this game. our defense will be rotating a lot because of it. i think dudzik is up to the task for filling in for heagle, i just hope it can do it as effectively. the corners need to be able to get off blocks and the keep the ball from going outside
They may have a stronger dive than GSU.
Wow, Bison. Football mastery at its best. Get all that and victory is a lock.
If you want a great explanation about how to stop the triple option, go to bisonville and check out a post by Charlie Stock from last year. It was a text book explanation and very predictive of what the Bison actually did against GSU. It’s assignment football, cover your assignment, make a tackle, three and out. Whoever is going to take over the whole of Heagle has to be fast to the ball and a good tackler. I do think that you will see more passing from the Terriers. I would not be surprised if they ran a play action fake and threw a bomb on their first play of the game.
This game isn’t even going to be close. Our biggest challenge in our side of the bracket was last week with SDSU. I’m looking forward to meeting up with Illinois St. in the final. Bison win this game by 30.
If our hopes rest on Dudzik doing his job, I will rest much easier tonight.
I agree with father, Wofford will pass more, and surprise the Bison coaches with 7 pass attempts in the first half. Anybody predicting a blow out needs to keep in mind that the Terriers run a 3-4 defense and they only occasionally do well against it and this defense is nationally ranked.
If I were the Terrier’s coach. I see everybody talking about stopping Wofford’s triple option offense so I would bring a team to Fargo with completely new option just to throw the Bison off gaurd. This is what Bison did against SDSU so why not Wofford do the same againts Bison. Just playing devils advocate.
how much can you change with a TO O though? Sure they could pass but doesn’t the QB complete something in the range of 45-ish % passes? I believe NDSU has a bit more flexibility as we aren’t rushing 60 times a game and passing 8 times a game. The biggest thing Wofford could do is disguise their “looks” as a dive is a dive no matter which way you slice it…
One of the keys last year with GSU was out line penetration into their backfield. We were hitting their attack before the plays could even develop. When they did get outside Hegal was all over them.
There is no way, no how, that Wofford is in this game half way through 2nd quarter. Seriously people.
SHSU has refined their offense away from their wishbone. The Terriers run an offense like NDSU did under Don Morton’s great leadership.