As the week turns over, college football will return for the 2024 season. The MSU-Northern Lights football team will be playing on the road to begin their campaign.
Head coach Jerome Souers spoke at Frontier Conference Media Day about the evolution of the program since he took over prior to the 2022 season.
“(The) first team meeting had 21 guys. Our first season had 42 and then last year, we played with 58. This year, we’ll have 100,” Souers said. ” We’re building the football program in depth, starting to gain some experience.”
“We expect to see improvements in year three for us,” Souers continued.
A topic that came up during Frontier Conference Media Day was the depth in which the Northern Lights football team would have for 2024. While Coach Souers said he is excited to play around with the numbers, so is his boss, MSU-N chancellor Greg Kegel. He said how the numbers will keep the team in football games for this season.
“The numbers of the last couple years have been down as far as the number of participants (on the football team),” Kegel said. “(Now,) they’ve almost doubled. That’s exciting.”
“That’s going to make a big difference in our ability to stay in games,” Kegel continued. “A lot of the games that came down to the fourth quarter that we could have won but probably didn’t win because we didn’t have kids the entire time.”
A football team, especially at the NAIA level, is always going to be started from the ground up, which is the philosophy coach Souers has preached ever since he stepped on MSU-Northern’s campus. He detailed the number of freshmen that were brought in during the 2024 recruiting cycle and how they will make a major impact due to the other classes of bodies brought in to be Lights this season.
“We have 49 freshmen that we’ve added to our roster, so that part of us is still young,” Souers said. “I believe we’ve added in general better talent (and) better character.”
“I think they’re great additions to our program for the guys that are already here,” Souers continued. “To be honest, we’re very hopeful that we’re going to see some changes and it’s going to look different from the standpoint of the way that we perform.”
The Lights kick off the 2024 season by hitting the road and going to Mayville, ND to take on the Comets of Mayville State. The upcoming opponent proved to be the team’s only win of 2023, a (14-0) shutout in the season opener last year at Tilleman Field. You can listen to the Lights’ opener on KPQX-92.5FM and HiLineToday.com starting at 5pm on Thursday.
