Schlossman: Bubba Schweigert is leaving UND football for a very different place – Grand Forks Herald

GRAND FORKS – Think back to 2013.

The UND football program experienced difficulties in the transition to NCAA Division-I.

It had losing seasons in three out of four years.

The year 2013 in particular was tough. AND went 3-8. One of the wins came against Valparaiso, a non-scholarship team. UND lost four straight home games by more than 20 points. It wasn’t competitive.

UND practiced in an aging Memorial Stadium where it had to shovel snow to hold spring practices.

Bubba Schweigert found himself in this situation when he was hired on Christmas Eve 2013.

Eleven years later, Schweigert steps down and takes a leadership position in the sports department. UND finished the 2024 season 5-7 and suffered five straight losses.

It’s easy to remember the shortcomings of the Schweigert era as they became clearly visible last month.

The defense missed far too many points. 35-plus points were possible in seven of the last eight weeks of the season. Over the past three seasons, it has ranked seventh, seventh and ninth among Missouri Valley Football Conference teams in points allowed.

AND was terrible on the road too. Over the last six seasons, the Fighting Hawks are 7-for-25 from the Alerus Center. They are 1-11 in their last 12 away games.

UND was unable to make deep playoff runs for the FCS.

To achieve that, you usually need a good defense and enough road wins in the regular season to secure a spot so you can camp at home in the playoffs. Only one of the last 15 FCS champions won an away game en route to the title. That was James Madison in 2016.

With the last month fresh in your mind, it’s easy to lose track of where Schweigert has taken the program.

Go back to 2013.

Schweigert took over a UND team that had lost five of its last six home games. He leaves UND as a program that has lost five of six home games Years. He made the Alerus Center an intimidating place for opponents again. UND was 30-5 in Schweigert’s last 35 games in Grand Forks.

Schweigert took over a UND team that had lost six games by more than two touchdowns the previous year and wasn’t remotely close to an FCS playoff-caliber program. He leaves UND as a program that makes the playoffs at least once a year. Schweigert reached the playoffs four times in his last six years.

Schweigert won UND a Big Sky Conference football title.

A few years later, UND moved to the Missouri Valley Football Conference, where for years it was said that it would lose against better competition. With Schweigert’s departure, UND has a better record in the Missouri Valley than in the Big Sky – and a Missouri Valley regular-season title to boot.

Imagine telling a UND football fan in 2013 that UND would win a Big Sky title, a Missouri Valley title, a double-digit FBS win, and Montana, Northern Iowa and North Dakota State with them in the next decade would hit more than three touchdowns at home. They would have registered quickly.

No, UND never managed to become a true FCS national championship contender.

But Schweigert hands over the program in a completely different state than at the beginning.

Behind the scenes, Schweigert helped raise funds to build new facilities. A state-of-the-art indoor practice facility was created. A new theater and team meeting rooms were opened this year. A new locker room and weight room will open near old Memorial Stadium next year as part of the next phase.

The new coach’s job isn’t to save a faltering program. Schweigert did that.

He’s passing the baton to a perennial top-25 program with some of the best facilities in FCS. The distance UND has traveled over the last decade is greater than the distance between UND and the top of FCS.

Schweigert didn’t quite make it.

But don’t forget where AND was when it started and where it ended.

Schlossman has covered college hockey for the Grand Forks Herald since 2005. He has been recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors as the best beat writer for the Herald’s circulation department and once as the North Dakota Sportswriter of the Year. He lives in Grand Forks. Reach him at [email protected].