(Photo: Jason Dannelly)

As we head into the season, I figured I'd reflect a bit on the last 4 year scheduling window (all NSIC teams got a chance to play each both home and away) and some other thoughts about the league coming into the 2016 campaign.

North vs South
There's been much discussion about the South Division beating up on the North. Well, it's true. From 2012 to 2015 the South has won 85 of the 128 games, and or 2 out of every 3 games played between the two sides. Here is the is the year-to-year breakdown.

2012: South 21-11
2013: South 19-13
2014: South 21-11
2015: South 24-8

During this period MSU-Mankato has the best cross divisional record, winning all 16 of their games against their foes from the North. After that we have USF at 14-2, UMD at 13-3, and a surprising statistical revelation with Upper Iowa next best at 12-4 against the other division. Both of USF's losses came in their rebuilding 2013 campaign against UMD and UMary, while UMD lost twice last year to the South (MSU, USF) and dropped their 2013 contest with the Mavericks. Upper Iowa lost to UMD twice, SCSU, and BSU. Considering that UIU is under .500 during the last 4 years, it's pretty impressive to see how well they've done against their opponents from the North.

Looking at the 2015 standings, 4 teams finished with 1 win seasons, 3 being from the North. While Crookston and Minot have struggled to win more than twice a season, now Mary has fallen into the rebuilding category and is still a very young football team heading into 2016. This doesn't bode well for the North this Fall, and I'd expect to see the South win about 70% of these cross divisional contests.



(Photo: MW)

Offenses
The offensive attacks in the Northern Sun will see the return of many high profile signal- callers and wideouts as well. The quarterback position will see the return of such household names as Heid (AU), Papilion (USF), Morales (UIU), Bauer (UMD), Nelson (WSU), Gimbel (SMSU), Meyer (SCSU), and Hein (BSU). MSU will also return their 2-headed monster of Lloyd and Pieruccini. The receiver position will see the return of stars like Hayes (AU), Heller (AU), Rose (USF), Angulo (USF), Dennis (MSU), Bofferding (UMD), Amis (UIU), Parsons (SCSU), and Huot (SMSU). That all said, the league does not return a 1,000 rusher. So this year shapes up to potentially be a pass-happy Fall.

Defenses
Looking at the top squads in the conference it is apparent all of them are bringing back a lot of weaponry and star-power on the offensive side of the ball, but not nearly as much on defense. A great number of defensive stars in this league played their last game in 2015. Players such as Solomon St. Pierre (USF), John Tidwell (USF), Josh Gordon (MSU), Tyler Henderson (MSU), Brandon Mohr (AU), Collin Corcoran (WSU), Jonathan Harden (UMD) , Alex Wahl (UIU), Jevell Rollins (UIU), AJ Page (SMSU), leave the league in a position where the door is very much open for the next wave of stars. This has also created some rather large shoes to fill with some of the better squads. As a result, a good portion of the highly regarded teams have a lot of holes and probably will not be as solid defensively as they were at the start of the 2015 campaign. Interestingly enough, the 2nd tier teams like Bemidji State and Northern State both return pretty much their entire offense and most of their defensive starters.

Quick thought on the Polls
Last season teams like MSU, USF, and UMD, were all top 10 squads at the beginning of the year. This time around I don't see any of those squads as that caliber as the year begins, with all of them having a fair amount of question marks and spots to fill. These 3, along with Augustana, should be improving as the year continues and I'd expect all of them to be top 20 squads, while a few other teams in the conference will push for their place in that conversation. Certainly my preview will shed some light on my thoughts on this topic, and that'll be released this week.


*North vs South statistics provided by Tom Frederick