The UND Football team conducted its annual post-winter workout/pre-spring ball testing within the last couple of weeks. As seems to always be the case lately, multiple records were broken. Great job once again by the Sioux Strength Football Staff, led by Head Strength Coach Nate Baukol, as evidenced by the record-breaking results during testing:
- Safety Erik Mersereau broke two records for his position group: He power cleaned 349 lbs which broke the previous record of 344 lbs held by Adam Stratton from March of 2003. He also broke the vertical jump record for safeties with a 40″ leap. That previous record was held by former teammate Kris Ankenbauer, who jumped 39″ in March of 2009.
- Running back Mitch Sutton power cleaned 372 lbs to break the longtime previous running back record held by Chad Faul. Faul’s record of 365 lbs had been on the board since August of 1998.
- Cornerback Dominique Hawkins broke the vertical jump record for his position group with a 40.5″ leap, smashing his own record of 39″ from the year before.
- Linebackers Damon Andrews and Garrison Goodman each broke the vertical jump record as well, recording 39″ jumps. The previous record was held by, appropriately, two former Sioux linebackers who also shared the record. Tony Hermes jumped 38.5″ in August of 2004 and Ross Cochran did the same in March of 2007.
- Chris Anderson broke yet ANOTHER vertical jump record, the 4th vertical record of spring testing, this time at the wide receiver position with a leap of 40.5″. He obliterated Robbie Holmquist’s longstanding record of 38″ from March of 1999.
- Hawkins’ and Anderson’s records are most significant in that their marks are the all-time best verticals ever recorded at any position since the strength staff began keeping these records. Not only did that happen this year, it happened TWICE in the same year. Remarkable.
The bi-annual “Beefmaster” awards were also given to two members of the team again. This award goes to the “little guy” and “big guy” with the best power indexes after spring and fall testing. The power index is figured by adding the 3 one-rep max core lifts (power clean, squat and bench press) and then is divided by the players body weight.
Defensive back Karl Hager took home the “little guy” Beefmaster award with a power index of 5.45 while Broc Bellmore claimed yet another “big guy” Beefmaster plaque with a 5.16 power index.