The UND football team has four dates of spring ball remaining, so even though it doesn’t actually feel like spring outside yet, we’re nearing the end of spring practices. I’ll give you five themes I’ve taken away from the practices.
1. UND makes a move up front: During my offensive line position breakdown three months ago, I said right tackle was the biggest concern up front based on the graduation losses of tackles A.J. Stockwell and Mat Cox, as well as the weight concerns for Bryce Blair, who had the most experience of the next group up.
To those concerns - without any answers in the transfer game so far - UND has moved interior lineman Nathan Nguon from right guard to right tackle. Nguon has some experience playing inside and his move to the edge shows UND likes Grant Aplin to start at guard.
It looks like the move is an attempt to get the team’s best five hogs on the field at the same time. That makes sense to me.
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However, that creates two potential problems.
One, Nguon was a center-guard swing guy for a reason - he has the body for it. He’s 6-foot-3 and just under 300. 6-3 is a little short for tackle but then again Michael Coeplayed out there at 6-3 not that long ago and did very well for the Fighting Hawks, so we’ll have to wait and see.
The second issue is depth. If Blair would have been able to lock down the right side, Aplin or Nguon - whoever wasn’t starting at right guard - would have been a nice insurance policy when a lineman inevitably goes down.
To read more, visit the Herald's UND football blog at http://millersports.areavoices.com/2018/04/04/5-things-to-know-about-und... .
