North Dakota Fighting Hawks open training camp

FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) - It was a cool, breezy Wednesday Morning at Memorial Stadium, but it made perfect football weather to open training camp for UND.

The Fighting Hawks held their first practice of Fall Camp with the first game of the season just about a month away.

The energy was noticeable from the opening whistle with music blaring and the players competing from the very first snap.

Defensive Back C.J. Siegel summed up the team’s feelings as they got to work, saying: “It’s great to get back out here with the guys, I mean, we’ve been training the whole off-season for so long, and we’ve been having a lot of stuff we’ve been trying to work on and come together.”

The Second Team All-Missouri Valley DB also said that the Hawks are excited to open up their regular season, adding that they are “counting down the days until we go to Nebraska, we’re real excited.”

While there are some notable missing pieces from last year’s roster, the vast majority of the team is made up of returning players.

This list includes Receiver Bo Belquist and Linebacker Devon Krzanowski, who earned All-MVFC Preseason Honors just before the start of camp.

One of the players with the most experience coming into the season will be Wide Receiver Garret Maag, who will be in his fifth and final year of eligibility.

He believes that their experience level will be a major help, saying that this team has “it”.

“I think everyone on our team is gonna be great. I mean, this squad’s got it. We got it.” Maag Said, “Just a family. I think we have connected really close this year, I think everyone is just... we’re all family, we’re all brothers. We got each other’s back.”

Another factor that the Fighting Hawks are trying to work on early in this year’s Fall Camp is to take care of the little mistakes.

This includes false start and offsides penalties that Head Coach Bubba Schweigert said there were “too many” of on this opening day of camp.

This attention to detail is going to be a focal point for the Hawks, who saw five of their six losses decided by seven or fewer points last year.

“We felt that that was an issue in some of our close games last year. And two seasons ago we were able to eliminate those penalties.” Schweigert said after practice. “It’s really huge, five yard penalties are drive killers and drive extenders for your opponent. So you really have to take care of those things that you can control.”

The Fighting Hawks will suit up in full pads for their second day of practice and host their live scrimmage on August 16th.

They open their season against the Nebraska Cornhuskers on September 3rd down in Lincoln.

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