college football – Page 2

10-loss season means change

Dickinson State head coach Hank Biesiot stands on the sidelines during the season finale and the final Frontier Conference game at Carroll College on Saturday at the Biesiot Activities Center.

We’re a generation or more removed from the last time the Dickinson State football team had a season this bad.

Before Saturday, the Blue Hawks had never lost 10 games in a season.

It marked only the second time since World War II that a DSU football team has finished a season with one win. When the Blue Hawks were still the Savages in 1966 under head coach Orlo Sundree, they went 1-7. Sundree would only last one more season and DSU would go through two other coaches before promoting Hank Biesiot to the head position in 1976.

More than three decades of success followed. Few team records still stand that weren’t set in the Biesiot coaching era.

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Moody living in the moment: DHS graduate relishing title game experiences

Nate Moody believes that sometime in his future, he will look back and realize how special today actually is.

This morning, Moody will snap on his helmet for the biggest game of his career and try to help No. 1-ranked North Dakota State win its second consecutive Division I Football Championship Subdivision title when it meets No. 5 Sam Houston State at 11 a.m. today at FC Dallas Stadium in Frisco, Texas.

The 2011 Dickinson High School graduate said being back in Frisco and playing for another title is a surreal accomplishment he never expected when he joined NDSU as a preferred walk-on.

“I don’t really have words to put to it,” Moody said. “It was a great experience last year, it’s going to be another great experience. Hopefully I just realize, someday, what this actually is. Even last year isn’t all that realistic to me and even to a lot of other people. We’re still playing football.”
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The controversy heard ’round the nation

Jamie Kuntz says he just wants to be a college football player. However, a decision he made on Sept. 1 not only derailed those plans, it made the 2012 Dickinson High School graduate the center of national debate and scrutiny that has forever changed his life. Over a span of two weeks in September, Kuntz went from a no-name freshman linebacker at North Dakota State College of Science to the subject of a national news story after he was removed from the team for lying to his coaches about an incident at a game, which led to him coming out as a homosexual in the national media.

Kuntz’s saga is The Dickinson Press’ No. 2 sports story of the year.

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Records, futility a rare combo for Blue Hawks

This sure was an interesting season for the Dickinson State football team. The Blue Hawks won just two games by a total of two points in 2012, their inaugural Frontier Conference season. Yet, head coach Hank Biesiot still managed to set a NAIA record for wins. (Though it’s a record in the eyes of some and not others, including the NAIA).

DSU finishing 2-9 — its second consecutive losing season and first time Biesiot has experienced back-to-back below-.500 years — in a season not without some historic moments is The Dickinson Press’ No. 8 sports story of 2012.

One great moment came Sept. 15 when the Blue Hawks beat Montana State-Northern 21-20 to help put Biesiot in a three-way tie for the NAIA’s coaching wins record.

On Oct. 13, Biesiot became the first football coach to win 257 games while coaching an NAIA school when the Blue Hawks got gutsy and scored a touchdown and went for the twopoint conversion with 14.6 seconds remaining to beat rival Jamestown College 8-7 in their lone nonconference game of the year.

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Time-tested tackles: Hawks senior offensive linemen Dynneson, O’Connor wrapping up standout careers

If Dickinson State head football coach Hank Biesiot can think of one attribute that best characterizes his starting senior offensive tackles, Carl Dynneson and Ry O’Connor, it is their consistency.

“They’re there every day, every practice,” Biesiot said. “The number one thing a football coach looks for is that consistency, that everyday thing, and those guys have been there every day.”

Every day means five years in O’Connor’s case and four in Dynneson’s.

Both players were thrust into action as true freshmen.

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