With recruiting season in full swing we decided to lay out our thoughts on UND Recruiting 2016.  UND loses 13 seniors from the end of the year roster, in addition to at least 4 other defections that occurred throughout the year for a variety of reasons.  2016 verbals so far are:

Thunder Lake Lodge

Current 2016 Commitments (14)
Isaiah Secrest – RB (WI)
Jake Geier – OLB (MN)
Evan Holm – CB (MN)
Noah Mortel – OL (WI)
Cameron Hunt – ILB (IN)
Hunter Pinke – TE (ND)
Tim Ryan – S (IL)
Jordan Canady – S (WI)
Bennett Helgren – OL (MN)
Travis Toivonen – WR (MN)
Alex Cloyd – TE (NE)
Dijon Murray – ILB (Juco-NM)

Verbals by position, to date:
RB – 1
WR – 1
TE – 2
OL – 2
OLB – 1
CB – 1
Safety – 2
ILB – 2

Top Positions of Need:

  1. Quarterback – UND does not lose any QB’s but Ryan Bartels and Joe Mollberg will both be seniors next fall.  We’ve also recently heard a rumor about Mollberg being moved to TE.  There are 4 total QB’s on the roster with Keaton Studsrud (junior, starter) and freshman Brad Heidlebaugh (RS Freshman) being the others.  Even if Mollberg was staying at QB, we believe at LEAST one QB should be brought in, but we’d like to see two.  If the last two season’s QB injury woes aren’t enough indication for how important depth at the position is, then we’re not sure what to say.  We believe they will 100% for sure take a “walk-on” type QB, perhaps someone like Minot QB Ben Bolinske.  But they need a high-end scholarship QB as well in our opinion.
  2. Offensive Line – UND loses 3 senior starters (Boas, Meehan, Anderson), meaning guys like Mat Cox, Demon Taylor, Dan Bell, Brandon Miller, Patrick Rooney, and Adam Stiner will need to fill in.  Losing Justus Merz and Zack Williams from the 2015 signing day class means more freshmen need to be brought in to replace them.  UND already has commitments from Noah Mortel and Bennett Helgren.  We believe a total of five OL will ultimately be brought in again in this class, so we expect 2-3 more.
  3. Safety – UND currently has commitments from two safeties in Tim Ryan and Jordan Canady.  They lose William James and Dillon Olson to graduation.  Jawon Johnson was moved to OLB, leaving only five safeties on the roster.  They probably need one more safety in this class, whether it be HS or JUCO.  Our preference would be a HS player.
  4. Cornerback – UND does not lose any CB’s to graduation.  But, they are only 2-deep at each corner spot.  They need to upgrade the talent there, while developing the young guys.  UND has two one commit in Evan Holm and Jeremy Chinn, who is going to be good.
  5. Inside Linebacker – UND loses the heart of their defense in Will Ratelle.  He will be tough to replace.  There is minimal depth at ILB right now, especially with Taj Rich coming off a serious knee injury.  UND has addressed that already in this class with three ILB commitments (Hunt, Murray).  We believe they are done here now.
  6. Tight End – Zach Adler graduates and leaves a hole at the top.  Luke Mathewson and Tucker Nordby will both be seniors next fall so this is a position of need as well.  They have already addressed this area with the verbal commitments from Hunter Pinke and Alex Cloyd and believe they are done here.

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  • We have surmised that UND only has an normal amount of scholarship money available in for this class.  They spent a lot on last year’s class and rightfully so.  But, that will hamstring them a bit in this class financially and we all have to remember that.  Numbers-wise, a few positions that we feel will get minimal additional attention in this class are RB, DL, and WR.
  • Based on the above comment you could see UND signing around 20-22 players in this class.  Less than last year by a wide margin.  They are finally getting the roster filled out to the point that they no longer need to sign the maximum 30 players.
  • When looking at the makeup of the current commits, we see the following positions being sought after for the last 6-8 scholarship spots:
    • OLB (2) – They only have one OLB committed (Jake Geier).  We see them going after at least two more because you can never have too many of them, just like safety.
    • OL  (3) Could be 2, could be 3, but a total of 5 seems likely and neccesary.
    • QB (1) Discussed in length above.
    • Safety (1) We’d like to see another HS safety over a JUCO transfer.
  • We are working on confirming any additional defections from the roster come semester break.  We know TE Kyle Ruhe is no longer with the team, most likely due to injury.  We have also heard that OL Justus Merz has chosen to leave school and OL Kevin Camy has done the same.