Bemidji Football’s Offensive Line Leading The Way For Undefeated Jacks

With a slew of injuries so far to the Bemidji football team’s running backs such as Will Falldorf and Nick Snell, one constant has been the offensive line leading the way.

“We don’t change based on who’s back there, we have to make the same blocks every time so we just have to go out there and try even harder,” says senior center Tom Naig.

Naig said with a smile that they take a little pride in showing that running backs other than Falldorf can have great success.

The offense as a whole has had great success this year, averaging almost 40 points per game and putting the Jacks 2nd in the latest QRF state rankings. Three seniors and a junior join Naig in the trenches, and the experienced group has done a great job of helping the run game and junior quarterback Brett Tharaldson excel so far this year.

“They’ve done a really nice job of playing physical football,” says head coach Troy Hendricks. “It’s one thing to understand your assignments, that’s most important, but then to play aggressively and confidently and they’ve done that as a team of five or six kids that have been playing in that spot.”

“We started off really shaky, we had five or six turnovers against Andover, and now it just seems that everything is coming together and we’re playing really well as a team,” says Naig.

Head coach Troy Hendricks says that Will Falldorf could return for their regular season finale against Moorhead, and Nick Snell might return by the end of the state playoffs if they were to advance that far.