Redhirt Yanked off Justin Frick

[Bisonguy]

From The Forum:

Bison take redshirt off defensive tackle
By Jeff Kolpack
jkolpack@forumcomm.com
The Forum - 09/19/2003

The North Dakota State football coaching staff, after weeks of debate, finally came to a conclusion regarding defensive tackle Justin Frick this week. He’s playing.

The 6-foo-4, 275-pound true freshman from Yankton, S.D., appears set to play next weekend against South Dakota State. The reason: the Bison need some depth in the defensive line.

They mainly went with five players in four positions last week in a 23-14 loss to California Davis.

“I just think we need more than five guys,” said NDSU head coach Craig Bohl. “We need some depth and he deserves the chance and that’s going to be our plan right now.”

Bohl was considering playing Frick before the season-opener. Frick’s status has been “touch and go” since he arrived on campus in early August.

That, Frick said, has not been a distraction. The only difference this week is he’s no longer playing scout team defense.

“There’s a lot more learning,” he said.

Frick was a first-team all-state selection at Yankton High, which went unbeaten in winning a state championship. Frick had 98 tackles and 11 quarterback sacks on the year.

Defensive tackle Dwight Summerville sat out practice this week with a slight knee strain. Bohl said he should be fine next week.

Summerville, noseguard Isaac Snell and ends Jamel Thomas, Jordan Graff and Travis Ware have manned the defensive line to date. Frick is expected to help in the middle.

[bisononce]

Does anyone have some insight on why the redshirt is lifted after three games. Why wouldn' t they get Frick prepared earlier? The staff knew we were thin, with five guys covering four positions. Not being too critical, but kind of puzzled...

[wfduck]

It's common knowledge we were thin on the Dline, why then did we move Arndt to TE after he played as a true freshmen? We are so deep at TE Arndt doesn show up on the depth chart at TE.TEXT

[Bisonfan1234]

Does anyone have some insight on why the redshirt is lifted after three games. Why wouldn' t they get Frick prepared earlier? The staff knew we were thin, with five guys covering four positions. Not being too critical, but kind of puzzled...

We are 2-1 and should be 3-0 against some really good teams. It's not like the coaching staff have cost us the season by not playing frick right away...

[bisononce]

Right, we played UCD tough. And we had a chance and maybe could be 3-0, IF our D line weren't finally overtaken by their big O line in the fourth quarter.

[KTF]

Maybe they (coaches) were trying to save him but felt that with Summerville having an injury that it would be best to play him. Whatever the reason I wish that we has some soph. to play instead but that is the way the cards fell from the Babich era.

[tony]

The coaching staff did know the d-line is thin but probably wanted to redshirt Frick if at all possible. Originally the redshirt was going to come off James Bechdol (or so I heard) but he injured his knee at the MN All-Star game.

Hate to see a guy get his redshirt lifted four games into the season but UC Davis did expose a weakness that neither Montana or Tusculum did - Montana probably would have if our offense hadn't been pounding them so much in the second half.

Hopefully Frick ends up playing in eleven games this season :)



Comments they made led me to believe that they didn't think Arndt was suited for the defensive line and his best chance to contribute would be at the TE position - probably not until after Wieser graduates though.

[89rabbit]

Does anyone have some insight on why the redshirt is lifted after three games. Why wouldn' t they get Frick prepared earlier? The staff knew we were thin, with five guys covering four positions. Not being too critical, but kind of puzzled...

Its clear they are affraid of SDSU ;). Just kidding, looks to me like they hoped they could get by with five guys and save a year of eligibility. But with the NCC season about to start and with you guys having a great chance to win it all (and no one was sure of that at the beginning of the year) your coaches are going to play for this year (as they should). Good Luck Bison, I am looking forward to our trip to Fargo.

Go Jacks!

[Bisonfan1234]

Right, we played UCD tough. And we had a chance and maybe could be 3-0, IF our D line weren't finally overtaken by their big O line in the fourth quarter. *

A couple assumption made by you here i would just like to dismiss.

1) placing the blame squarely on the dline? Get real...there were 4 db's and 3 lb's out there too that let them score.

2)what makes you think that their o line dominated us in the first place?

3)why call their oline "big" and not our dline? It's true they do have a big oline...but we have just as big of guys on our dline.

4)this is one of the biggest misunderstandings by fans that watch football but have never played. Speed and quickness rule when it comes to dline. You actually want smaller but faster guys on the dline that can move laterally. They can easily get around the big, slow goons on the oline. Just because an oline is fat doesn't mean he will easily overpower a skinny dlineman.

[MN_BISONS]

I hate to start a rumor, but I was talking with a good friend of mine from Yankton today and he said the word in Yankton is that Frick isn't very happy in Fargo. He didn't know if it was the school, the progam or what. Normally I wouldn't even post this, but he's pretty connected down there. He said he heard Frick was seriously considering leaving school and transfering to Nebraska. I guess they showed a lot of interest in him coming out of high school, but like most SD kids they recruit, they wanted him to walk on and earn a scholarship.

I know there are a couple of Bison Sodaks on this board, have you guys heard anything??? If there is any truth to this, maybe pulling his redshirt and getting him on the field will change things. All I know is I'd hate to see him leave.

[KTF]

Did any see if Justin played at all tonight? I didn't get a prorgram so I wasn't sure what number he was. If he did paly how did he do?

[BisonMav]

Frick was in on the QB the couple plays that I was keying on him in the 3rd quarter. Took the QB down as he was releasing one pass. He was #82, if the program was correct. :)