Sep. 23—GRAND FORKS — The UND run defense has gone from a weakness in 2024 to a strength so far in 2025.
As the Fighting Hawks sit on a bye week this weekend, the UND run defense ranks No. 9 in the FCS, giving up 85.3 yards per game — about 100 fewer yards per game than the Hawks surrendered in 2024.
Kansas State (143 rushing yards) is the only team UND has allowed to run for more than 82 yards against the Hawks.
The 2-2 Hawks, ranked No. 14 in the latest FCS Top 25 poll, haven’t given up a run of more than 25 yards this season.
The 25-yard run was given up to Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson. The longest run allowed by UND this year to a running back is a 20-yard run to Montana All-American Eli Gillman.
The Griz have played three games this year. They ran for 310 yards against Central Washington, 68 against UND and 303 against Indiana State.
“I think it takes all 11 to be able to stop the run,” UND first-year head coach Eric Schmidt said. “You know, I think offenses do a great job nowadays trying to make sure that your defensive backs become the tacklers one-on-one.
“You get coach-speak at times, like, our guys just have to play fast. When our guys keep it simple, our guys play fast. I don’t know. I’ve never really been that way. Yeah, I want our guys to play fast. I want them to know our stuff, but you’ve got to be able to teach them and have enough answers on gameday to be able to make adjustments and say, hey, they’re doing this so we’ve got these other calls in our package that we can go to. You’ve got to have enough intelligence out there to be able to do that. I think that’s the one thing I’ve really been proud of.”
UND gave up 187.8 yards rushing per game last season. The Hawks were strong defensively through the first four games last year, too, but UND struggled down the stretch and gave up at least 250 rushing yards four times. UND’s worst game last season was against Youngstown State, where the Hawks gave up 334 rushing yards and four touchdowns in a road overtime loss.
“Our guys on defense and our coaches have done a great job of really pushing the envelope,” Schmidt said. “We installed a lot of things. At spring ball, it wasn’t what it needed to look like back then, but you put those things in early and you’re really aggressive in your installations so that those guys can gain knowledge in the calls. They can go through the mistakes that they need to make and get the proper coaching so you can start to have some confidence in what we’re doing.”
Linebacker Malachi McNeal leads the defense with 28 tackles, followed by safety Jy Martin with 21. Edge Lance Rucker has 17 tackles and 4.5 tackles for loss.
The top defensive tackle in terms of tackles has been Logyn Eckheart, who has 12 tackles and 2.5 tackles for loss.
With UND switching from a 3-4 scheme to a 4-2-5, defensive tackle was a concern as UND lost a few of the team’s top nose guards from a year ago and now needed two bigger bodies on the field at a time.
“When you look at some of the numbers and things like that, you think those guys are doing a pretty good job in there,” Schmidt said. “I just think it’s by committee. A lot of our defense right now is by committee. We’re rolling a lot of guys, and we’re trying to continue to gain some depth.
“It’s going to be the quantity of our defensive guys that keep putting fresh guys out there. That can be our secret sauce … that we can put enough people on the field that can consistently play in order to be successful. I do think those guys in the middle have fought and done a great job canceling out the gaps so the guys behind them can play and play fast and trust what they’re doing.”
2025 (four games) — 85.3
2024 — 187.8
2023 — 155.3
2022 — 171.7
2021 — 139.4
1. Harvard — 56.0 ypg
2. Tennessee Tech — 58.9 ypg
3. UTRGV — 71.0 ypg
4. Brown 76.0 ypg
5. North Dakota State — 79.3 ypg
6. Presbyterian — 80.8 ypg
7. Lehigh — 81.2 ypg
8. Austin Peay — 83.2 ypg
9. UND — 85.3 ypg
10. Dartmouth — 88.0 ypg
