We are 6 days away from the season opener for the Sioux. They open the season next Thursday at home – 7pm vs. the Drake Bulldogs. We will have our usual writeup on the Sioux opponent for the week. Based on what we have seen and read about them they are a Shotgun/Pistol formation team – spread it out and throw it quick. Will be interesting to see how the Sioux handle it.
The Sioux are going to be very thin at OLB for the first two games. With Bennett suspended they were already down a starter. Now we have heard Johnnie Daniels has not practiced much lately due to an injury. The Sioux will have Damon Andrews starting at the strongside OLB position and we assume Cordero Finley will now be the weakside starter. Both are solid but behind them there isn’t much depth. With Derrick Dulaney enduring a season ending knee injury it leaves only freshman Myles Jablonsky as the backup, along with Daniels. The Sioux have to be rotating other players to that position for some depth.
Most of the other positions appear to be in good shape. Cornerback would be one that is also a bit thin with Mackey being out but 2-3 corners should be able to play the entire game, barring any injuries. The deepest positions on the team appears to be WR and OL. That is a far cry from last year when they were two of the thinnest positions. Plus, the Sioux have 4-5 freshman OL who have really impressed throughout camp with a couple of them possibly fighting for starting jobs next year. As members of the scout team they should give the starting defense a good look during game prep.
With all the rumors about the Sioux possibly pulling the red-shirt of Jer Garman and Jameer Jackson, lets hope that if it happens they actually play a decent amount. Fans are going to absolutely love Jer Garman. He will remind of everyone of Weston Dressler a little bit, based on his size and speed. Jackson can be that big, physical receiver that the Sioux have not had for many years.
As was announced today, Joey Bradley is going to be the starter for the opener vs. Drake. It was pretty obvious as camp went on that Bradley had gotten more comfortable with running the offense. He is type of the QB the Sioux need to run their offense. He reminds us of a young Danny Freund in that he has similar size (6′ to 6′-1″), arm is not overly strong but is pretty accurate, good mobility. Although he still has a long way to go to get to Freund’s accomplished career. He will be called on to make the short quick throws and then a few times a game will have to hit the deep ball, probably off play action. We would still like to see Brent Goska have a package set up for him, maybe in short yardage where he keeps it and trys to convert the first down using his running skills and size.
Been hearing the recruiting of Detroit Lakes QB Joe Mollberg is still going strong. He apparently was up at UND visiting the campus sometime in July. We have not heard of any new offers other than the ones we already knew of – UND, NDSU, and SDSU – with Iowa and Northern Illinois being the two FBS schools that are in steady contact.
We will be back early next week with a full writeup on the Drake Bulldogs.
