Apr. 18—BEMIDJI — Concrete decisions are rarely made as early as spring, and the Bemidji State football team has plenty of questions to settle before it starts the 2025 season with a road trip to Michigan Tech on Aug. 28.

What does the defensive line look like with so many new pieces? Who’s going to be the new signal caller? Is the offensive line still going to be a strength for the Beavers after losing a couple of key players?

BSU didn’t get those questions fully ironed out in its spring scrimmage with Concordia-St. Paul last weekend. But for the coaching staff and the players, it was an essential step in the offseason process as players continued to build their individual bodies of work and ready themselves for the coming year.

“I think you’ve got to look at it as a whole body of work, with it culminating (in) going against someone else,” BSU head coach Brent Bolte said. “You’ve got to put stock into what they did leading into it and the whole body of work, not just eight or 10 plays or 12 plays in a scrimmage.

However, some answers have begun to crystallize this spring in different parts of the roster.

Though extracting too much from spring practices and a scrimmage is ill-advised, Bemidji State’s “gang green” defense certainly lived up to its billing against the Golden Bears.

“I thought the defense just overall played really well,” Bolte said. “We had six drives, we gave up a handful of first downs, but no scores. They played well. … Our ones really played well defensively, really all groups played well.”

The young defensive line held up especially well, highlighted by a pair of transfers. Nah’Shawn Keith, a defensive tackle from Colorado State Pueblo, and Joel White-Watkins, a defensive lineman from Delta State, each impressed with strong individual plays against CSP.

“(Keith) did a really good job,” Bolte said. “He had two or three sacks in the game. He stepped up and did a really nice job. I thought (White-Watkins), another d-tackle transfer, did a really nice job, was in the scrimmage as well and played some meaningful downs.”

In addition to those new pieces, the Beavers rolled out familiar faces like Tyler Sapit and Eli Coenen on the defensive line, each of which played important reps as the 2024 season wound on.

“The d-line in general, I thought they had a good day,” Bolte said. “On a piece of paper, (it’s a) really young group and a lot of new faces, so they were pretty dominant throughout the course of the day.”

The linebackers and secondary impressed as well. Though top-end defensive backs like Jamel Stone and Savon Cameron have moved on, Bemidji State is still bringing plenty of experience into 2025.

First team all-conference cornerback Isaiah Johnson, second team all-conference linebacker Kamrom Gothard, Jacob Dreitz, who took just about every snap at mike linebacker, Tommy Luhan, Caden Bolte, Gabe Ward and a handful of other depth pieces are back.

That group, alongside some younger players like defensive backs L’Shawn Taylor and Reese Sheldon, a transfer from North Dakota State, played a major role in BSU’s stout defensive output in the scrimmage.

“I thought they covered really well, I thought those guys did a nice job and had a lot of confidence coming out of spring,” Bolte said. “Watching the film again, I’ve watched it three or four, maybe five times now. I felt like we could cover everybody downfield, we had really great coverage.”

On the other side of the ball, things were a bit choppier. Bright spots were aplenty, but self-inflicted wounds cast a pall over some of those individual performances.

“Offensively, there wasn’t a lot of flow,” Bolte said. “I think we were our own worst enemies when you really watch the film of what we got accomplished. We had a couple big plays called back, we missed a touchdown over the top where we had a wide-open guy we didn’t connect on.

“So just a little bit off and not clicking as much as probably they wanted, but when you watched it, there’s still a lot of good.”

One of the areas of success, however, was found in the ground game.

Pounding the rock with a second-team all-conference running back in Jayden Washington, as well as talented rotational backs like Justin Incaprepra and Antonio Brown, played into that success, as did the guys in the trenches.

Though the Beavers lost Will LeMire and Jake Gannon on the offensive line, it’s a unit that could very well be one of their strengths yet again.

Conor Kovas, Isaac Hagstrom and Zach Ott return as the “lynchpins” along the line, bringing loads of experience and starts to the unit.

Gannon, who was awarded the Rimington Trophy for the best center in Division II football, is not going to be easy to replace in the middle. However, Bolte believes the drop-off won’t be a sharp one.

Clayton Birsdall, who stepped in at fullback last season thanks to injuries, is expected to step in at center for BSU. Needless to say, the Alexandria native is going to have big shoes to fill, though Bolte thinks he’s up for the task.

“Clayton Birdsall is extremely gifted as a center for us,” Bolte said. “Yes, obviously, we’ll have some growing pains without having Gannon, all the experience. … But (Birdsall is) a heck of a good football player and (I) view him as a kid that, in my opinion, we’re not going to have a huge drop off. And that’s a pretty big statement, considering who he’s replacing at that spot.”

It’s still unclear who’s going to be tossing the ball behind that wall of men, though. Bemidji State gave reps to multiple quarterbacks against CSP, trying to give the young group a taste of more game-like reps.

Of the four quarterbacks, Connor Carver and Zach Romak are the only two who will enter the 2025 season with collegiate snaps under their belts. Carver saw some especially important in-game usage as the season progressed, carving out a role as the Beavers’ go-to signal caller in the wildcat package in the playoffs.

That invaluable experience might give the duo a “leg up” as the competition for starting QB heats up, much like it did for Sam McGath last offseason. But Bolte is going to let the battle play out into the offseason, content with letting the youthful position group continue their maturation process and development.

“We’ll still have a quarterback battle, I’m sure, progressing through the offseason here,” Bolte said. “But I think they all did, respectively, some good things throughout spring and also in the game.

“I thought Romack had a good end of spring. I thought Connor did some good stuff, too, and Bart McAninch did some really good stuff, just developmental, and Caleb (Thinesen) did some things, too. … I was really, honestly, happy with the progression of all the quarterbacks.”