The Sugar Bowl looks much more entertaining than the other half of the College Football Playoffs. 35 points between the two teams and we aren’t quite to halftime yet. In fact, there’s more than ten minutes to go to the break.
I saw multiple surveys on who the fans thought would win the Sugar Bowl. The results were 70-30 in favor of Clemson.
I do have to ask a question: why is Etienne returning kicks at this point in the year? He took a long time getting up after that last return and I’m not sure there should be another one.
I like what Ohio State is doing. It looks like they’re calling plays with the specific intent of getting Clemson defenders going the wrong way. The Tigers obliged on that third Buckeye TD by calling a line stunt that went in the wrong direction. Might want to play a little more straight up from now on.
Clemson might wanna pick up the pace. OSU came to play tonight.
Justin Fields is playing much better football than the conference title game.
The Buckeyes are bringing something against Clemson that the Irish couldn’t bring against Bama: speed, plain and simple speed.
Am I the only one who thinks Clemson looks disorganized? They’re having trouble even getting lined up defensively before OSU snaps the ball.
It’s no longer a shootout right now. The interesting thing is Fields is now hurt. He’s looking to avoid contact, which tells you he’s hurting worse than he’s letting on.
Are you hearing those pads popping through the microphones? These kids are hitting hard and the injuries are piling up a bit on both sides!
Please disregard said title of the post. OSU came in with a chip on their shoulders and they are clobbering Clemson at halftime.
400 yards of offense for the Buckeyes at halftime. That’s a great GAME on any other night. If they keep going at this rate, the final score might turn obscene.
College football recruiting is quite a process, both for players and coaching staffs. A Spring Grove, Minnesota, high school standout had played his first year of college ball for the University of Minnesota-Crookston and very unexpectedly found himself going through the process a second time. Here’s what it looked like when the news first broke late last year.
Spring Grove native Alex Folz enjoyed a successful first
season of college football at the University of Minnesota-Crookston in 2019.
After getting significant playing time as a freshman for the NCAA Division 2
level Golden Eagles, Folz was into offseason workouts and studies when he got the
news that no college athlete expects. He wouldn’t be playing football for
Crookston again.
The school had decided to ax its football program due to “budget concerns.” Folz was left without a team to play for, decided to open himself up to the college football recruiting process once again, and found a new team to play for. This time around, it’s going to be a much-bigger road trip from Spring Grove to his new home. The Spring Grove high school standout is now a member of the Eastern New Mexico State University Greyhounds football team. Why decide to join the team in Portales, New Mexico?
“The first few days of looking for colleges generated some interest from NAIA schools, NCAA Division 3 schools, but nothing that big,” Folz recalled. “I had a couple of offers from NCAA Division 2 schools in southern states like West Virginia. I sent some film out to Eastern New Mexico and by the fourth day of my college football recruiting process, the head coach (Kelley Lee) sent me an email saying he loved my film and thought I’d be a good fit there.
Spring Grove native Alex Folz, shown here as a freshman playing for the University of Minnesota-Crookston, found himself going through college football recruiting for a second time after Crookston decided to cut it’s football program after the 2019 season. (Contributed photo)
“Coach said they might even have opportunities for me to do
more things than just offense, which I loved doing at Spring Grove and did at
Crookston,” he added. “The recruiting coordinator called to talk to me, and
they eventually gave me a pretty nice scholarship.”
He began to look into the team and program, including their
facilities and liked what he saw. Folz said the multiple coaches he talked to
“seemed nice.” Appropriately enough for the social media age, Folz followed
several of the Greyhounds’ players on Twitter, who all seemed to enjoy what
they were doing down in New Mexico.
“I thought to myself ‘is this what I really want?’,” he
recalled with a laugh. “Minnesota is great, and I have family here, but it’s
got to be nice to live in warmer weather and get out to explore the U.S. a
little bit.”
Folz admits that the whole “re-recruiting” process ended a
little quicker than he thought it would.
The highly decorated high school player had a successful
first year with the Crookston program, more so on a personal level than in
terms of team success (0-11). He felt the team had something building as a member
of a large recruiting class for the Northern Sun Conference school. The team
was doing offseason conditioning work when they got notified of an “emergency
team meeting” out of the blue.
“I’d just finished class and was sitting with one of my
roommates when he got a phone call saying a friend had heard the football team
was getting cut,” Folz said. “The friend on the phone knew someone at St. Cloud
State that had a meeting at the same time and their program also got cut. We
initially thought it was just rumors and nothing like that would happen.”
However, after scrolling through social media reports and
other online articles, Folz and his teammates slowly started to think there
might well be bad news coming. A lot of his teammates had no idea what they
were going to do if it was true because this was the only place they could play
while going to school.
“Our coaches came into the meeting room and sat at the back,
which is not something they normally do,” he recalled. “The Chancellor (Mary
Holz-Clause) stepped up to the microphone and told us she was sorry we had to
find out the way we did because they wanted to news to come straight from the administration.
She also said, ‘as of today, we’re cutting the football program.’
“You could see it in the faces of every guy in the room,”
Folz added. “The look in their eyes said, ‘are you kidding me?’”
What Folz didn’t appreciate was the fact that Holz-Clause
told the team they’ve been trying to cut the football team for the previous 18
months. “That’s what got me,” he said emphatically. “Our coaches found out just
ten minutes before she told us (on Dec. 10). Why couldn’t they have told us as
soon as the season ended (Nov. 16)?”
That meant more than 60 players had to find new colleges by
spring. That’s when coaches typically want their new players enrolled so they
can get to know the team and practice in the spring. That left them less than a
month to find a new home.
And, the school wasn’t prepared to offer a lot of extra help to the students. Folz said athletes who had questions could ask and they’d try to assist them. However, the former Golden Eagle football players were on their own in the college football recruiting process.
From a personal perspective, Folz was disappointed because he had a successful freshman season.
Spring Grove, Minnesota, native Alex Folz is shown here carrying the ball for the University of Minnesota-Crookston football team. Crookston decided to cut its program after the 2019 season, forcing Folz to undergo college football recruiting a second time. (Contributed photo)
“I started the season playing on all four of the special
teams’ units,” he said. “I was also a running back. As the season went on, I
took over the punting job, returned kicks, and was on the punt return and
kickoff teams. Halfway through the season, I moved from running back to slot
receiver just because their numbers were low at the position.”
The former high school quarterback also took snaps as the
backup quarterback in practice, just in case of an emergency.
The biggest adjustment to college sports came in the
classroom. He said Friday and Saturday were his busiest days for football. “That
meant you couldn’t be as much of a typical college kid the rest of the week,”
he said. “You really have to take your time to study and get your homework
done. When all that’s done, you still have to pay attention to the game of
football. It’s a big time-balancing exercise.”
Folz is heading out for New Mexico on Jan. 8, will move into
his apartment, and then have a couple of days to adjust to the new
surroundings. School starts on Jan. 13. Folz is leaving familiar surroundings
and heading almost 1,150 miles from home. What’s the first thing that comes to
mind when he thinks about the distance?
“I’m really excited,” he said after some thought. “I’ve
always wanted to get out and see the country. The only thing I’m nervous about
is meeting new teammates. We had a close brotherhood at Crookston. I felt as
though I could have gone to any of the players or coaches with anything. I’m
hoping all those guys down there will be the same way and I’m sure they will.
“We all just want to play football,” he said with a laugh.
