The 2020 season is far from a certainty at this point but that doesn’t mean programs are not proceeding ahead as usual.
As they typically do, the UND Football program brought in the vast majority of the 2020 signing class last week (week after the 4th of July). This allows the true freshman to get used to campus and the program, while also working out for roughly three weeks to get ready for fall camp.
One particular freshman, Richard Agyekum, is having a tougher time than most making it to camp for one unfortunate reason. Agyekum is from the Netherlands and due to COVID-19 he is not allowed to enter the country at this time.
We reached out to Agyekum about his current situation and he informed us that he just got his appointment scheduled regarding his Visa. This will take place in early August and then hopefully he will be on a plane shortly after to join the team for fall camp.
Agyekum is a extremely dynamic corner/return man who definitely could be in the mix for playing time as a true freshman. The one-time Gopher commit would certainly add quality depth and play in his freshman-four games. But, the longer this goes on the less likely that may be.
Ethan Ball from Regina, SK is another international player that has not joined the team as of yet. He is expected to be able to make it Grand Forks fairly soon though and will be able to join the team for workouts prior to fall camp starting on August 5th.
The Alerus Center tweeted yesterday that they were getting close to finishing up the installation of the new turf for the 2020 UND Football season. The Herald posted a rendering in their article that shows exactly how it will look.
I have to give the UND Athletic Department and The Alerus Center a big A+ on this one. They did not go cookie-cutter and leave it green/white with lame logos. To make the end zones black, use the same font as the helmet decals, to put the new Hawk logo at midfield, put the MVFC logo on the each side of the field, and to also alternate shades of green to provide contrast – yah, they did a nice job. The fan experience both in person and on TV will be much better with this turf.
On top of all that they also ran the turf from wall to wall on all four sides, eliminating the bare concrete that had caused several players to slip over the years. That turf also runs down the hall to the locker room so the players are essentially always on turf.
Thanks for the update. Love ANY news these days.
Thoughts on St Thomas joining the conference? Some on Twitter feel it will hurt the Dakota schools recruiting in the cities. I know the team just south of GF has annually nabbed 5 of the top 20 MN recruits.
Will players be inclined to stay in the Cities to attend a private school?
I think its great for the Summit League to have a team in Minneapolis. The Tommies football team is actually joining the Pioneer League so it won’t be a direct battle all the time but yes, they will try to pull recruits away from UND, NDSU, SDSU, USD and UNI. I am sure there are multiple kids per year that want to stay in the cities and this will give them that option. I am not overly alarmed over the recruited aspect of it.