Minnesota Duluth: Pushing harder

DULUTH — A young offensive line was the biggest question entering the season for the Minnesota Duluth football team.

Could four inexperienced and undersized players help the veteran Bulldogs maintain their position as an elite NCAA Division II team?

The answer: UMD has gone undefeated behind a powerful running attack, advancing to the Division II championship game Saturday against Delta State. The offensive linemen silenced the doubts, and before last Saturday's national semifinal they asked a question.

How many defenders would Northwest Missouri State put near the line of scrimmage to try and stop the Bulldogs from running the ball at will?

"Eleven," the linemen joked.

With a brutal windchill in Duluth that further limited passing, Northwest Missouri State did stack the line with up to nine defenders, but the Bearcats succumbed to the holes created by UMD's seniorless line of Cory Flesch, Garth Heikkinen, Eli Kelley, Francis Herzog and Tom Olson.

The top-ranked Bulldogs (14-0) won 17-13, accumulating 226 yards on 56 rushes. In three home playoff victories, they have run the ball 160 times for 700 yards and passed it only 40 times for 221.

Bearcats linebacker Willie Horn called the Bulldogs "efficient."

At Minnesota Duluth, efficiency is a result of positive gains that string together first downs. Against the Bearcats, UMD had only three plays of no gain or negative yards.

"If we can move the ball and control the pace of the game with the run, we are OK with that kind of patient offensive attack," UMD coach Bob Nielson said.

Running the football is Minnesota Dululth's tradition. Former Gophers quarterback Jim Malosky learned the running game under coach Bernie Bierman in the late 1940s and brought a similar style to UMD as coach in 1958.

For the next 40 years at UMD, Malosky's teams ran the ball straight at opponents and compiled nine conference titles and a 255-125-13 record.

Lundstrom averaged six completions per game; the current UMD team is averaging seven in the playoffs and 10 in the regular season.

"Pass only if you needed to, but otherwise nothing good can happen from it," said Lundstrom, 70, of his coach's philosophy. "Our bread-and-butter play was ... running back off-tackle right and running back off-tackle left. ... We probably ran that play 50 percent of the time."

Nielson, who is 78-21 in eight seasons at UMD, uses a zone running attack out of many formations and motions, but he said the current reliance on the run isn't ideal and that completions downfield are necessary to balance the offense.

UMD's offensive strategy has been adapted in previous years to the skills of the players in the program. In 2008, the Bulldogs won the national title with a balance of quarterback Ted Schlafke (35 passing touchdowns) and All-America running back Isaac Odim (26 rushing TDs).

"You have to have a system that, to a certain extent, is adjustable to utilize the strengths of your players because you might not always have someone that exactly fits your scheme," Nielson said.

Heikkinen, a sophomore guard, is the only UMD lineman who started all games last season, and at 6-4, 290 pounds he is one of the few with premier size. But Nielson recruited the four Minnesota players and one from Wisconsin because of their athleticism and ability to play multiple sports in high school. Heikkinen played basketball at Duluth Central; Olson played baseball at Totino-Grace.

"It's important that we find guys that are big enough and physical enough but also athletic enough to execute our schemes," Nielson said.

Offensive line coach Peter Lue challenged his players to respond to the preseason questions, and now he sees them displaying hard work and some "swagger."

Malosky, who coached more than 2,000 players at UMD, said the key to a successful running game is basic.