This is the start of an evaluation of the 2013 recruiting class, with Mr. Izzo’s comments to come later. He’ll have head coach Craig Bohl on live at WDAY-6 at 6:20 tonight.
JEFF’s TAKE: I’m not one to get too giddy over these things, but this class addressed linebacker in a big way. I think at least two of these guys will play right away with Matt Plank from Gardner, Pierre Gee-Tucker from Belleville, Ill., and Alex Hahn from Oak Creek, Wis., as prime candidates. For starters, linebackers make the best special teams players with the combination of size and speed.
Hahn is a power lifter who made the state Wisconsin finals in the long jump last year — a good indicator of athletic ability. I like the background of James Gates from Menomonie, Wis., although at 200 pounds might be a tad light to see the field right away. We’ll see — Travis Beck isn’t exactly a huge guy. Gates is considered an excellent edge rusher as is Gee-Tucker.
It will be interesting to see if Nick DeLuca from Omaha stays at linebacker. He’s big at 6-3 and 240 pounds. “A big, strong guy who runs well,” Bohl said. My thought: defensive end? And safety Chris Board from Orlando, Fla., has film that shows him hitting like a Mack truck. He’s around 210 pounds and could fill into the shoes of an outside linebacker with some additional strength training.
Because of the large senior class next year, I see at least four true freshmen playing right away. The offensive line appears solid with depth so it’s doubtful Austin Kuhnert from Sioux Falls, Jesse Kubik from Dickinson or Zack Ziemer from Lakeville, Minn., will see the field. With the early departure of Justin Juckem because of injury, a defensive tackle may have a chance. In this group, that would be Nick Jacobsen from Prescott, Wis., Nathan Tanguay from Mukwonago, Wis. or Grant Morgan from Oshkosh, Wis. Jacobsen appears to be the most physically ready.
So where does this class stack up with others? That’s a game I’m not going to get into. There’s a story out there that says of the 100 top prospects in the country from a few years ago, only 40 percent were considered to have made it.
DOM’S TAKE: First for those that live out of the viewing area; here’s what Bohl told me about this class on WDAY 6 News tonight. Initially looking at these guys on paper; the first thing that comes to my mind is these guys are huge; it seems like every player is 6’3 or bigger, 260 pounds or bigger and that will attract bigger schools to those players. For the FBS schools they can use how many stars that Rivals dishes out to say how good the class will be, for the FCS we can use how many players had FBS offers; to my knowledge; NDSU grabbed 4 guys that had FBS offers from what I was told (Ziemer; Jacobsen, DeLuca and Tucker) that’s impressive on it’s own merit. What’s also impressive is the closing kick that NDSU had in this class; the final 2 weeks brought in maybe the headliners of this class; starting with the 6’3 DeLuca; to Matt Plank at 6’2, 215, to Tre Dempsey and Chris Board from Florida and ending with Pierre-Gee Tucker out of Illinois; who by Craig Bohl’s count had 12 offers from different schools.
The story surrounding Tucker was unreal and Jeff did a great job of recapping yesterday of the struggles that Tucker went thru to make up his mind, evidently staying up till 2 am and then texting Bohl to say he was coming to NDSU; for the Bison this is a huge get in an area that has tremendous Missouri Valley traffic and it’s out of the usual axis for the Bison(Minneapolis-North Dakota-South Dakota). Just think in Illinois there are 3 Valley schools to begin with; Southern Illinois; Illinois State and Western Illinois; then there’s the MAC champs in Northern Illinois; and that’s not mentioning Northern Iowa; which also likes that area. This change of heart only will antagonize things further between NDSU and Northern Iowa fans and it’s already well established there’s no love lost between the 2 coaching staffs.
I was struck that Bohl said several of these guys will play right away next year; now do we need to define several? Jeff said 4, I’ll say 5 or 6 guys can see the field and obviously linebacker is the spot that the Bison need the biggest help in my opinion. If I’m just guessing I’d say Brad Ambrosius; Nick DeLuca; Pierre Gee-Tucker; Alex Hahn, Nick Jacobsen and Nate Tanguay are my six candidates to play next year with an asterisk next to Tyler Wrice; who could be another Ryan Smith in the wide receiver corps. There are couple of under the radar guys that I think could be really good in a year’s time in Austin Kuhnert; Tre Dempsey and Chase Morlock; I think all could be scary good after a year in the weight room and with NDSU coaches. I’ve seen it already from the 2012 class in Jack Plankers and MJ Stumpf; who are two guys that I think could have big springs for the Bison.
Jeff wasn’t ready to get into how this class stacks up with past classes; but I will(since we all know my predictions are always on); I think this is the best class NDSU has put together since 2010. The last two classes in my mind have been about building depth to augment a class that they believe could knock it out of the park and I believe this is the class that could do it. I’m not saying ’11 and ’12 are clunkers, but we have detailed the attrition rates from those two (four gone from 2012; six from 2011 – Frank Veldman, Joe Horvath, Ryan Stanford, Berkley Grimm, Josh Lisenby and DeShawn Dinwiddie) That’s why this class needed to have some “home-run hitters” and I believe they found them. For those that think the cupboard may be bare come 2014; here are some of the names that will be juniors or seniors that season: Gebhart; CJ Smith, Carson Wentz; LeCompte, Keller, Heagle(I believe he’ll get a medical redshirt for this past season; making 13 his redshirt junior; then ’14 a senior); Crockett; Champion, Dudzik, Littlejohn, Emanuel, Beck, Colville and Hardie. Impressive names that played a lot in 2012 and will be “the guys” when this class is ready to start making an impact in 2014.
I could see 5 defensive players in this class not redshirt. Minimum. I watch these highlights and to me it is the most athletic class we have ever got. Our competition for recruits is not even FCS schools anymore, we hand pick those guys. Its the FBS schools we compete with and beat out for recruits.
Thanks guys – it sounds like the Bison landed some excellent kids! I haven’t heard anything about Layne Johs from Bismarck recently…anyone know? Thanks.
He declined the scholarship to focus on his academics
This is an awesome class!! So excited to see some of these guys. I agree that there are 5 defenders that can step in a play right away. The staff has really gotten out there and made an impact in certain areas and is paying off for the Bison. They are doing great work, and easier to pitch a winning FCS school then it is a bottom big conference BCS school.
All NDSU recruit videos can be found at http://www.bisoNation.com
Great class, 4 absolute stars in jacobson Pierre deluca and wrice.
Can’t wait for august.
I agree with Dom, people who think the Bison will be down in 2014 are in for a rude awakening. This program is back to reloading not rebuilding. I never thought the Bison could ever have a run like in the D-II days back in the 80′s, but I think that they could be on an even more impressive run considering this is D-I. Great class! Go Bison!
Dom, Just a few more names to add to your list of players who will be around in a couple of years: Vraa, Schaetz, Haeg, Pomerenke, Lee, Jones, Colvin. Throw the new recruits in and a few from the current redshirts and tne Bison look pretty solid for more than a year or two.
I think my favorite in this class is Chris Board, the safety outta Fla. I watched his video and he really hits hard and with his size he could be a serious run-stopper if they move him to LB
Why does everyone try to move a 210 SS to LB? I’d love to see more size in the future at SS. If the guy has instinct and can run, why move him?
Any idea what is an acceptable % of players that stay with a program from signing day through final game as a senior? Would it be 50%? Any idea if NDSU meets or exceeds the national average? My point is that if we can keep more players for the full 5 years than our opponents, we have a better chance of continuing our dominence. Looks like we have another great recruiting class, hope they stay around. GO BISON!
Did Andrew Okland quit the team? hearing rumors that he did
Jeff and I have been working on story will have new information shortly.
Looks like a great class. Great job NDSU coaches! Interesting to see Wisconsin so much higher than Minn, but could just be the talent gap this year.
Nebraska and South Dakota, always like to see a few kids out of those states every year coming up to Fargo. Should be pretty easy to recruit Sioux Falls and Omaha, with the interstate right there.
None from Iowa again, par for the course. Only one kid from Illinois (but a really good one!). Would love to get more players from these states, especially from Ill. For what it’s worth, UND got NINE (9) players from Ill.
Couple players from the greater Kansas City area (one from KS, other from MO). I like that as probably the southern border of where we should recruit from.
Don’t care to see Florida players (I’ll make an exception for Wentz’s cousin and the Maris kid from last year). Nothing tying them to the region, they probably expect to play right away else they’ll leave, etc. Be interested to know who has the FL connections.
One surprise is not a single kid from Arizona this year. I wonder if that means Coach AJ Cooper is no longer on the team, he had the AZ connections as he was from that state.
Spoke with Coach Cooper last night he mentioned to me they did go to Arizona and were in the mix for some players but did not get any to verbal.
Cooper hit AZ hard but players went elsewhere. So he turned his attention to Florida and got Dempsey and Board! To check out which players were recruited by each coach check out bisonation.info
I don’t know if you can look at tape or measuarables or high school accolades as a gauge of the quality of this class. Take a look at some other FCS schools’ press releases and recruiting videos and guys are just a big with all sorts of high school awards and look great on tape. I think the better indicator is the fact that NDSU won far more battles than they lost with other FCS schools. They lost a couple kids to Montana and one to Youngstown St while picking up a bunch of kids that had other FCS offers. To me, that shows that a staff does an excellent job recruiting. At this level the best you can do is get the guys you target and NDSU’s staff scored very highly for that this year. I trust those guys know how to evaluate talent much better than any of us or any of the national recruiting agencies for players at this level and that is what makes me feel good about the quality this class.
I am surprised by many players who give up on football early on. It could be the youth movement culture and burnout and the extreme push on the dangers of the game. I also wondered about Johs as he had some big time Fbs schools on his list. I hop the Herd can keep getting nd sd and mn kids even though Okland and Jemison situations can even put a bit of gloom on local angle. Still looks like a nice recruitment effort once again.
Fact of the matter is I would like to see every single one of these recruits redshirt except for maybe a linebacker or 2 and a DLineman. I’d rather the rest all redshirt, get bigger, stronger, and better over a year then be a class that brings plenty of impact redshirt freshman onto the field after we lose all those seniors next year
I too, was pleasantly surprised with the quality and number of recruites. We kept hearing how small this class would be, how the playoff run might cause a negative impact (good recruits taken), ect. Then, BANG, we get one of the best classes in NDSU history. The coaches really deserve a “pat-on-the-back”, congratulations Coach Bohl and crew!!
With umkc gone, NDSU needs to full court press patty v and the Mvc for acceptance and the shac needs to be fast tracked.