UMD Football to Meet Bemidji State in NSIC Showdown Saturday

UMD has dropped the last two meetings against Bemidji State.

DULUTH, Minn.- For the 2nd straight week, the UMD football team handled business against a team from North Dakota, as they got the best of Minot State, 42 to 7 on Saturday.

It’s the 5th time this season that the Bulldogs have put up forty plus points.

The ground game was propelled by Jaylen McKnight and Kyle Walljasper as McKnight had three touchdowns and Walljasper had two.

Next up is a battle against another NSIC heavyweight in the 6-1 Bemidji State Beavers, a team UMD is looking to snap a two game losing skid to.

“Yeah, there’s no secret. Bemidji is a rival of ours and they’ve gotten us the last few times that we’ve played them, both home and away. We understand what’s on the line this weekend. Win this game and we have an opportunity to be in the national playoffs. If we don’t win this game, then we’re going to have our work cut out for us. We’re playing one of the best teams in the conference, one of the best teams in the country, against a good quarterback. We’re going to have a good gameplan dialed up,” said head coach Curt Wiese.

The Bulldogs were led defensively by graduate linebacker Brad Dati over the weekend, who had five tackles. He says Bemidji presents a much different challenge this weekend.

“They have great skill players, deep running back room and a really good quarterback as well as their offensive line blocks their gap schemes really well. It’ll be a tough test for us. We’ll have to defend all 53 yards wide of the field and they’re going to challenge us in a lot of ways, probably see some stuff we haven’t seen all year. It’ll be a good test for us,” added Dati.

Kickoff is set for noon on Saturday at Malosky Stadium.