Spring football after one week: mixed bag

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There are so many guys out of the lineup that I’m having a hard time keeping track of the roster this week, but after one week of spring football, there’s really not a whole lot to report. Freshman M.J. Stumpf has been getting work with the No. 1 linebacker trio with Travis Beck out. It’s been a learning experience for the freshman from Harvey, N.D. “Definitely a lot of stuff coming at me right now,” he said.

Other happenings:

  • Freshman defensive tackle Austin Farnlof appeared to suffer a knee injury that head coach Craig Bohl said could be an ACL tear. Bohl said other players who were sidelined for Saturday’s practice are just banged up and will return at some point.
  • Asked him impression after one week, Bohl said, “Mixed feelings. We’re so dog-gone thin that we’re probably not as refined as a football team as what we should be.”
  • Backup quarterback Carson Wentz continued to make some impressive reads continuing to find the open receiver against a pretty good secondary. Bohl said he’s been pleased with the development at depth at wide receiver. It appears that freshmen Carey Woods and Dee Gray are getting strong looks.
  • The poor weather this spring did not hamper the first four practices.
  • The sheer size of fullback Andrew Bonnet is noticeable, the sophomore is not 6-3 and 245 pounds and has a similar look to former fullback Tyler Jangula.
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Is Ball State on the Saul trail?

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I’m on alert.The reporter radar in me is suspicious of this Ball State men’s basketball opening and how it could connect with Saul Phillips. If you think about it, it could make some sense.

It’s obvious the Cardinals have already been looking this way as evidenced by SDSU’s Scott Nagy acknowledging that he interviewed, but declined to pursue it further. The Star Press newspaper in Muncie, Ind., reported BSU is down to a list of finalists, but the names and numbers are not known. The paper did confirm one candidate in Eastern Kentucky coach Jeff Neubauer. Also interviewing, according to the report, was Bellarmine head coach Scott Davenport. If the Cardinals are looking at SDSU, Bellarmine and Eastern Kentucky, it shows the school may be looking for an established head coach from a mid-major or below rather than an assistant from a major conference. Update: Arizona assistant James Whitford is said to be in the mix and a leading candidate.

Phillips is 108-77 in six years at NDSU and has that always-valuable resume tool of having been at a Big Ten Conference school. He won 24 games this year; he’s an attractive candidate. Why Saul? Why now? He’ll have a standout team returning but remember Tim Miles left for Colorado State with Ben Woodside, Brett Winkelman, Mike Nelson and Lucas Moormann coming back for their senior seasons. That was the team Phillips led to the NCAA tournament. CSU also paid $450,000 and the Mountain West is a better league than the Mid-American Conference.

Saul has turned in a nice track record of recruiting good players to a place that is hard to recruit good players; an aging arena in Fargo, N.D. Also consider the stability of the Summit League, which is looking a tad shaky at the moment with the departure of Oral Roberts and UMKC and the reported upcoming departure of Oakland University to the Horizon League. Phillips signed a five-year contract with a base of $121,900 in 2008 with annual raises of 4 percent. It’s probably a good bet Ball State and the MAC can offer much more than that. What if BSU, which paid its last coach somewhere north of $200,000, came up with 300K a year?

Repeat, other than rumor, there is no concrete evidence that Phillips is seriously considered a candidate, yet. I heard from a guy in the college basketball world that he did interview, or at least was contacted, but take that for what it’s worth: an unconfirmed sentence. But what makes me most suspicious is this: Phillips is The Great Communicator, one of the best in the business, who is usually accessible (we appreciate that) and always returns messages. He hasn’t returned a phone call left yesterday or text message. Or maybe he lost his phone.
But my experience is when these things are in the process of going down, coaches go into a bunker.

Help On The Horizon?

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Final Four weekend is notorious for coaches getting together to negotiate for new jobs, but it appears this year it’s about schools negotiating for new leagues. Rob Demovsky of the Green Bay Press Gazette reports that it’s a “done deal” that Oakland will be invited and accept an invitation into the Horizon League. For faithful readers of the blog this should not shock anyone, but its timing couldn’t be any worse, there’s no timetable on when this will happen, but this is just another blow for the Summit League. The story, which you can read here also says that the league may consider adding UMKC and/or Denver, and not likely to add the Indiana schools; IPFW or IUPUI (which I thought would be a slam dunk for the league). Now of note; a majority of the current Horizon which reads like this: UW-Milwaukee; UW-Green Bay, Valparaiso, Wright State, Cleveland State, Loyola(IL), Detroit and Youngstown State have been mentioned for other leagues, namely Detroit (A-10) and Loyola (MVC). If they lose any other schools, I have to figure they’ll look for the Dakotas; remember most of the schools that are in the Horizon, came from the Summit League. According to RPI Report.com, the Horizon had an RPI rating of 12 this past season, ahead of the WAC, Sun Belt, MAC and Ohio Valley, all leagues considered better than the Summit, along with a recognizable name; that’s thanks to Butler; since BU made the Final 4 twice as a member of the Horizon, they’re also enjoying the NCAA Tournament shares from that. Finally, the TV exposure is much greater in this league, there is nearly a game or 2 a week on the ESPN networks from this league, I believe they have a Friday night contract with the Mothership. This to me would be a no-brainer if they called NDSU or SDSU, but the real question, does the Horizon want to come this far west? The furthest they go right now is Green Bay, but NDSU has played a handful of Horizon teams, including, the Wisconsin schools, who have come to Fargo, along with Youngstown State. Something to definitely watch.

It appears as well that the Missouri Valley has found its replacement for Creighton, several sources are reporting that Illinois-Chicago will be invited to become the 10th school, the question there-in do they ask anybody else?

Coach, A.D. gotta go

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I’ve seen a lot of Bison basketball practices over the years, although nothing to the extent of what we’re seeing with the Rutgers head men’s coach. How Mike Rice did not get fired over that is somewhat amazing.Update: He did get canned, although a few months too late IMO.

The worst coach-to-player meltdown I saw still makes me laugh. It was in Greg McDermott’s first year and the coach was not pleased with Denver TenBroek’s defense. So for what seemed like a half hour, McDermott chased Denver all over the court yelling at him “you’re killing us” on defense. I was impressed that McDermott could move that well. Denver was a great scorer, but perhaps the other end of the court was a challenge at the time. I think he got the message.

If Saul Phillips gets after his guys, it’s not in public view at the BSA. There’s the occasional yelling shot, like all coaches, but for the most part as long as the effort seems there, the coach stays rather even keel. Interesting tweet yesterday from former NDSU player Andre Smith, now playing professionally in Russia, who said “Rutgers coach rice would have had that ass whooped the first time he ever put his hands on me in practice if he was my coach!”

There have been a few humorous tweets by others, such as Mike Rice’s summer camp will no longer include dodge ball. But this is no laughing matter. I’d be surprised if both the coach and athletic director are not gone after this with the president taking some heat, also. It’s never good when the governor chimes in with some constructive criticism on how it was handled.

Bison Video Blog: Easter Sunday Ramblings

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Hope everyone had a great holiday and spent time with family and friends, some really interesting news to share tonight on the ramblings led off by the fact that the Missouri Valley Conference has a planned visit for UMKC this week as a possible candidate to replace Creighton. No April Fools there either folks, it’s the real deal. It’s just weird to type that! But they are being considered according to the Kansas City Star; along with Valparaiso, Illinois-Chicago and Loyola(IL). More on that in the blog; along with James Madison’s chances of heading to FBS. Last and not least, the 5 players I’m watching to have a big spring as practice begins tomorrow, Jeff and I will be there to start our coverage with a new blog.

Slim Pickings

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Hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend, have a deluge of video and info coming over the next couple of days as we get set for the opening of Spring Football for NDSU. Wanted to give an update on the FCS teams left by my count that have open dates for September 7th, September 14th and November 2nd. By this time, most schools have filled up their schedules, leading me to think that besides game 11 for NDSU being a road game, there is a slight(and I say slight) chance that perhaps game 11 is another FBS game. Here’s my unofficial list (you’ve all seen the notebooks!)

September 7th: Texas Southern, San Diego and Wagner

September 14th: Duquesne, Robert Morris, Bucknell, Georgetown, Marist and San Diego

November 2nd: Bryant, Central Connecticut State, Duquesne, Robert Morris, Sacred Heart, St. Francis and Wagner

You’ll recognize most of these schools are familiar; the Northeast Conference hasn’t put out its schedule yet, but you have to believe some of these dates are going to disappear as well. NDSU is in a tough spot here, there’s few teams to talk to unless a team that already has a scheduled game for 9/7 or 9/14 wants to get out of it; say if they’re playing a D-2 to get another counter, but those may be far and few between.  NDSU will not play just 10 games, they will get another and it won’t be D2, it will be a counter, now its left to find out if its FCS or FBS. We’ll keep you posted.

 

Western Kentucky Football

There was some conference movement on this Saturday; Western Kentucky; the school that left the former Gateway now Missouri Valley to allow NDSU and SDSU in, will leave the Sun Belt after 5 short years and head to Conference USA. That opening was created when Tulsa left for what is the old Big East. Don’t think too hard or blood will spurt out of your ears.  Basically the old Big East is what Conference USA used to be and CUSA is what the Sun Belt looked like about 2 years ago. With the additons of Georgia Southern, App State, New Mexico State and Idaho, the Sun Belt stands at 11, you know they want an even number and you know they’ll be looking at the FCS for their next team. ESPN’s Brett McMurphy reports that James Madison and Liberty are strong candidates to fill that last spot. JMU makes all the sense in the world, great stadium, rock solid school and really good football team. The Dukes play in a stadium that seats 25K and have had great success at the FCS level, winning the 2004 title. I thought James Madison was the toughest team NDSU played on its way to the 2011 national championship, they were well coached and outside of their kicker kicking it out of bounds twice, that was a fairly close game. JMU just saw two of its FCS rivals leave in App State and Georgia Southern, not to mention CAA rival and in-state school Old Dominion move up in about 20 seconds. James Madison is another school that should cause NDSU to think harder about FBS, this is another recognizable school on the 1-AA level that would be gone.