Sports

Lumberjacks prepping for conference life

By Matthew Semisch

08/12/2014

Life isn’t easy for a college  football program without a conference to call home.

For one thing, independent teams find filling their schedule of games exponentially harder than their counterparts that belong to a league. Whereas teams in conferences have guaranteed games with league rivals, independents find the scheduling process much more of a scavenger hunt.

The Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB) football program spent the first six years of its existence as an independent stuck in the junior college football wilderness. Now, though, the Lumberjacks have the added security of a league in which to play.

DCB, which opened its 2014 fall camp on Monday morning, is now a football-only member of the Minnesota College Athletic Conference (MCAC). Most of the school’s sports teams are members of the Mon-Dak Athletic Conference, while the Lumberjacks’ hockey team remains independent.

Speaking on Sunday mere hours before DCB’s football team held its first team practice, Lumberjacks head coach Tim Pfeifer relayed his program’s excitement about joining a conference for the first time.

“We’re excited about the move, and that’s because it’s an added incentive for everyone involved in our program,” Pfeifer said. “If we do well, we can go through and qualify for the league playoffs, but consistency’s going to have to be a big thing for us.

“There’s a cliché about surviving and advancing but it’s completely true that you just take everything as it comes and survive and advance. We’d like to go as far as we can, and hopefully we can get things rolling in the conference right away so that the momentum gets built up early.”

Momentum can carry over from one season to another, and the Lumberjacks built up plenty of it in 2013. DCB finished last season with an 8-3 record, good for the best mark in the history of the school’s football program.

The Lumberjacks also made their first appearance in a bowl game last season. At the same Nov. 18 press conference where it was announced that DCB would be joining the MCAC, it also became known that the Lumberjacks had accepted a bid to take part in the Salt City Bowl in Hutchinson, Kan.

DCB fell 57-0 in that game to Hutchinson Community College, the host school of the annual junior college bowl. However, reaching a first bowl game in program history gave Pfeifer, his coaching staff and their players reason to be hopeful going into the 2014 campaign.

Players began filtering onto DCB’s campus Saturday and Sunday, with plenty of new Lumberjacks from outside of North Dakota arriving at Minot International Airport.

Exactly what the Lumberjacks will look like on the field come their first game of the season is yet to be seen. Before that Aug. 23 game at home against Minnesota West, though, there’s plenty of time for DCB’s coaches and players to form the 2014 team’s identity.

One key position battle to keep an eye out for is at quarterback. Gone is Shazzon Mumphrey, a sophomore starter from last season who has since transferred to Florida A&M.

Willie Fair, who as a freshman in 2013 served as Mumphrey’s understudy, is in line to take over the No. 1 role. Pfeifer said, however, that he won’t be sure on that until he sees what incoming freshmen at that position look like in the green and black of DCB.

“We think we have some good talent coming in, and it should be a good battle in fall camp here between our quarterbacks,” Pfeifer said. “If they’re as good as we think they are, then not knowing right now who will be that No. 1 is a nice problem to have.

“It’s tough to tell right now on film and just having seen them all play before which of them might have an upper hand over the others. What you see on film can be different to what you see in person when they’re there in front of you, so we’ll see how it shakes out once they’re all together here.”

One perceived strength of the team that Pfeifer is particular excited about is DCB’s defensive backfield. The Lumberjacks are loaded with talented returning defensive backs, including one that sat out last year by redshirting and earning an extra year of eligibility.

“I’m really excited to see what Terrick McKinney can do,” Pfeifer said. “He’s a very good defensive back that we redshirted last year who I think will really be a key player for us, and I think he and Devin Davis will make up a good partnership in our backfield.

“I think in general we’re going to have a really good secondary corps back there, and I think they’ll most likely be our leaders and will be probably our top players back in terms of experience.”

Pfeifer appeared upbeat about his program heading into this year’s fall camp, and he has every reason to. The Lumberjacks are coming off their best season to date and are entering league life on a high note.

“I don’t know if there will be any kind of adjustment period in terms of the new league, but even if there is it’s not so much my concern,” Pfeifer said. “I’ve been around too long to worry about other teams when I could just worry about us.

“If our kids can do what they’re expected to do and just focus on their own game, we’ll be hard for anyone to handle.”