MSU Football

The Minot State football team held its final scrimmage last night in preparation for next week'...  More »

The Minot State football team held its final scrimmage last night in preparation for next week's opener at Bemidji State. Tonight we take a look at the defensive side of the football. Mike Elm, reporting:Last season the MSU football team led the conference in rushing defense but 3 of the team's 4 starters up front graduated meaning the team will have some big holes to fill on the line. Paul Rudolph, MSU football coach:There's no doubt we lost three really good players and in there that's definitely fact and Gino Maxi who started on and off for us the last two years has been real good and we're hoping he keeps productive and Nick Trumble who's played on and off for the last couple of years. We've moved him to the nose guard and he's done a good job battling in there and Kyle Nichols who started some games for us at the nose spot has moved out to an end and we feel pretty good with those three and now we got to get some quality depth from our redshirt freshman. Gino Maxi, junior:I think everything's looking good. The freshman that came in our looking pretty good, working hard trying to get them used to the scheme we're running so I think other than that everything's pretty good. Elm:The linebacking corps remains solid with three of the team's four starters returning from last year led by first team All-DAC player Martel Pope. Rudolph:Well we got Martel back and obviously Brendan Weidler back. Both those guys played inside and then Tommy Weidler who's played outside the last two years will be one of the outside guys and then Brock Awalt who played extensively for us two years ago and then hurt his knee is now back and you know we add a couple more guys into that mix and I think we're gonna be pretty quality there. Brendan Weidler, junior:We're pretty happy with what we got right now. We'll put together the best team we can and see what we can do. Elm:The secondary is relatively young but does return plenty of experience. Rudolph:The secondary both Eric Henke and both Tyson Snelling and Adrian Smith have all started at corner so we got three corners who have played and then Jeremy Kessler started every game for us last year and he's back and the key is now is which one of the other two safeties between Chris Compton and John Denny they're both gonna play, which one will start has yet to be determined. Eric Henke, sophomore:We got a lot of experience coming back cause we only lost one or two players back there so we should be solid back there. Tomorrow night we'll take a look at the Beaver's special teams.  « Less