Remember the days when true freshmen were standing on the sidelines in sweatsuits cheering on their teammates (like in the picture below)?  With the passage of the “freshmen four” rule those days are history.

The UND coaching staff will be dressing all true freshman for home games this fall beginning with the home opener vs. Mississippi Valley State.

The reason being is that freshman can now play in up to four games without losing their redshirt.

What this means is the staff will have certain players ready to go each home game week depending on depth concerns, injuries, etc. and if their number is called that true freshman is in the game.  For example, if UND is running thin at cornerback, which tends to happen lately, they can get C.J. Siegel and Jacob Odom ready during the week in case of injury.

However, most of the freshmen will not/cannot travel.  The travel roster is still set at 60 for road games.  So typically most of the true freshmen will only dress for home games and in a dire case, like the cornerback example above, would they travel.

That would mean leaving home a veteran player at a deep position.  But, that is the nice thing about this rule – if a cornerback is dinged up for 1-2 weeks, UND can now play a talented freshman in spot-duty to fill the gap without burning his shirt.

To sum it up: home teams have all freshmen at their disposal if there are in-game injuries.  Road teams have no such luck.

UND has five home games.  Meaning a small chunk of the true freshmen are going to see the field at home in most of the games.  If there are more injuries like last year then we will see even more of them.

Another interesting dynamic is how the freshmen will be used.  To only run them down on kickoff or kick return would be deflating, IMO.  Useful game reps would be wanted by the player but if the veterans are healthy that isn’t happening – except in the case of a blowout.

Now more than ever incoming freshmen need to come to Grand Forks in shape both mentally and physically due to these rule changes.

Photo courtesy of fightinghawks.com