I have received confirmation that safety Taison Manu is planning on signing to play football at Idaho State when national signing day arrives on Feb. 1. What I also found out is that defensive lineman Patrick Ryan will also sign on to suit up in black and orange.

Ryan, at 6-foot-4 and 245 pounds, will probably have to bulk up a little bit as his career as a Bengal progresses.

With Manu and Ryan on board, they join fellow Highland player and wide receiver Kai Campbell.

ISU is signing local kids, which I think is huge for building a program.

Darius Williams, a wide reciever and kick returner from Carver High School in Columbus, Ga., has verbal committed to play football at Idaho State.
Williams, at 5-foot-9, 175 lbs. earned Class AA first team all-state kick returner honors. His fourty-yard dash time is a blistering 4.32.
Williams was recruited by ISU linebackers coach Rudy Griffin.
“I like the coaching staff,” Williams said. “It would feel like I am at home a long way from home.”
Williams only played one year of football at Carver because his family moved from Tuscaloosa, Ala. He attended Paul W. Bryant High School.
He will join the Bengals in the summer when he graduates from high school.

When news broke late Tuesday night that four players had been dismissed from the Idaho State football team for “violation(s) of the Idaho State Athletic Department Code of Conduct Policy,” it sent an immediate shockwave through the ranks of Bengal fans across Pocatello and beyond.
In less than 24 hours there were multiple comments posted on my blog as well as on ISU message boards and websites with people sharing their opinions of what happened. There was speculation brought up, rumors offered and concern for the future of the team discussed. I saw as much condemnation for wrongdoing as I did support and hesitation to cast judgment until more information was revealed.
Well, more information was released Wednesday with the arrests of two defensive lineman, departing senior Jordan Monga and junior Austin Schnizler. Both were charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. There is still no word on why redshirt freshman defensive back Ryan Coleman or junior offensive lineman Elijah Ruhl were dismissed from the team and without that, any speculation is useless.
One of the comments that I saw on my blog asked why the information was even posted. It said that these players shouldn’t be humiliated and that they deserve and reserve their right to privacy.
Unfortunately, when something is public record and a press release is sent from Idaho State University to the media outlets statewide, it’s going to be posted and discussed. On the other hand, had I made assumptions, offered a negative, libelous opinion of these four young men and what allegedly happened, then it would be an invasion of privacy.
Simply stating that they were released from the team is just that, a statement of fact.
When you look past the possible legal ramifications of what Monga and Schnizler will have to go through, it’s necessary to ponder on what the repercussions will be in relation to the Idaho State University football team.
While building a program, as head coach Mike Kramer is currently doing, there are certainly growing pains and acts of attrition that will occur. Of course no one hopes or expects something like drug-related arrests to happen, but it should really come as no surprise anymore given the state of college football.
Monga has already used his eligibility and would not be playing next season regardless. The other three, however, were going to be part of the Bengals’ plans in the immediate future. I think the biggest hits the team takes are the losses of Coleman and Ruhl. ISU’s offensive line needs as many experienced bodies as it can get, and now it’s down by one. Coleman was on his way up in regards to potential and on the field contribution. He leaves a considerable void in the defensive secondary. Schnizler’s absence will undoubtedly affect the depth of the defensive line, but probably won’t cause as many ripples in the program as those of Coleman or Ruhl.
There are a few other aspects of the situation that are important to mention. One, if it wasn’t obvious before than it sure is now: Kramer will not tolerate any type of insubordination, poor behavior or anything that puts a black mark on him or the program. In other words, he’s not going to put up with any garbage from his players, no matter how big a role they play on the team.
Second, all four of those dismissed were recruited and brought to Pocatello by former head coach John Zamberlin. Take that for what it’s worth, but it is an important detail to consider. After one year on the job, not one of Kramer’s recruits has found himself in trouble with the team or the law.
Third, I would like to hear more from the athletic department at Idaho State. While a one sentence press release is an improvement from the past, “there will be no further comment” only leads to speculation and rumors. The fans, after all, are buying tickets to the games and consuming sodas and hot dogs while inside Holt Arena. Athletic director Jeff Tingey and Kramer should hold a press conference to discuss their thought processes behind the dismissals. Obviously we won’t get every detail, but it would provide an avenue for the media and community to relate to them, the program, the university and the team on a more personal and credible level.  
Not doing so is simply a missed opportunity for a program in desperate need of the community’s support and confidence.
I’m sure we will continue to hear more information and details of what happened as they are released. Meanwhile, the Bengals will move on and continue to prepare for next season and the all-important National Letter of Intent Day on Feb. 1 when new recruits will sign binding agreements to come and play at Idaho State.

Just for clarification, defensive lineman Jordan Monga is a senior and has used up his eligibility. He would not be returning to play next season regardless. I’ll have more information as well as my thoughts on the incident(s) tomorrow.

Idaho State football players Jordan Monga, Austin Schnizler, Ryan Coleman and Elijah Ruhl have been dismissed from the Idaho State football team for violation of the Idaho State Athletic Department Code of Conduct Policy.

Offensive lineman Colin Prestesater out of Crespi Carmelite High School in Encino, Calif. has verbally committed to Idaho State.
After being recruited by wide receivers coach Anthony Tucker, the 6-foot-6, 285 lbs senior was offered a scholarship and committed on Saturday, Jan. 7.
“I had a good feeling about it,” Prestesater said of why he chose the Bengals. “Talking to coach I felt they were going to turn the program around and I wanted to be a part of it.”
Prestesater said that he had no other offers at the time of giving his verbal.
He will join ISU in the summer after he graduates and will participate in camp.

I spoke with ISU strength and conditioning coach Mark Campbell Tuesday afternoon and he told me that his son Kai, an all-state wide receiver at Highland High School, has verbally committed to play for Mike Kramer and the Idaho State Bengals.

Mark is excited because ISU is where he played college football as well.

Kai will be signing his letter of intent Thursday, where a Journal photographer and I will be to put together a full feature story for Friday’s paper. I think Kai is a great fit for Kramer’s offense and has a chance to play immediately because of his talent.

I was also told that Highland safety Taison Manu will be committing to the Bengals sometime next week as well. Taison plays hard every down and delivers some pain when he hits. It will be fun to see these two childhood friends playing together at ISU.

The Idaho State Bengals finished the 2011 season with a 2-9 record and ended the year on an eight-game losing streak. Mike Kramer’s first campaign as head coach saw him double the win total from the past three individual years. Here are my grades for this season’s version of the ISU football team.

Offense:
Kevin Yost was a great addition to the team and the ISU offense had some success early, including a great third quarter burst at Washington State. Unfortunately, injuries and inconsistency in the offensive line and receivers left him running for his life with no one to throw to. The point totals dropped as the year went on. Still, the Bengals had Rodrick Rumble and his single-season Big Sky record of 112 receptions on the season. With the lack of running game and Josh Hill falling into a slump, Rumble was a huge bright spot for Idaho State. With an experienced running back and offensive line, who knows what kind of number Yost and co. could have produced. GRADE C-

Defense:
The Achilles heal for ISU all season was stopping the run. The Bengals gave up big plays on the ground consistently, none bigger than what Portland State was able to do. Even with linebacker A.J. Storms and his Idaho State record for tackles in a career (434), opponents always rushed effectively against ISU. Besides Storms, another bright spot was the play of cornerbacks Donovan Henley and Kelvin Miller. Henley finished with four interceptions. The two combined were able to limit the damage through the air. GRADE D

Special Teams:
Kramer still isn’t sure how opponents were able to block nine Bengal punts on the season. Perhaps a rash of injuries and a constant shuffling of players in and out of the punting team line up were to blame. Still, whenever David Harrington was able to get a kick off, it yielded great results for ISU. His average of 44.4 yards per punt ranked second in the nation in the entire FBC. On kick off return, Daniel McSurdy was able to get the Bengals decent field position out to the thirty yardline or so. The early injury and eventual dismissal of Tavoy Moore was huge for limiting what ISU was able to do in the return game. GRADE C

Coaching:
The hardest thing for a new coach to accomplish is getting the veteran players to buy into the new system. Kramer was able to do just that with some attrition, of course. He also changed the culture of what ISU football is. His players know what is expected of them and a mental toughness has been established. The team did not quit, even when it was down. It seemed that the run defense ironed out a few wrinkles later in the season and it actually played effectively against Sacramento State and Eastern Washington. Kramer is an emotional man and he coaches that way. It may have affected his play calling and decisions (Fourth-and-one against Portland State). Despite having a lot of things work against him (APR, attrition, etc), he got the most out of his players. GRADE B+

What are your thoughts on the grades and the season?

Coach Kramer
Opening Statement
It’s great to be done with the season. We have a number of guys who had exemplary seasons. The Big Sky announced their all-conference teams today and we had A.J. Storms a three-time all-Big Sky first team selection. That’s a big honor, not only for A.J. and for his family, but for the university. David Harrington’s a two-time all-Big Sky performer as a punter. And both those guys are marquee players for a football team that struggled quite a bit in the wins and losses column. It’s cool for us to have Rodrick Rumble be named first team all-conference and to be a returning starter for us next season. The other side of that coin is that we say goodbye to a lot of seniors who have been in this program at various levels. Some came as freshmen, some came as transfers and all those guys hopefully have helped us lay a foundation for the success that we hope to have down the road.

Q. It’s hard to define success, but would you consider this season a successful one?
A. I would consider this season successful in that some things in our culture have changed. We’re a little better in the classroom. We’re a little better, maybe, in the street in social settings. We’re a little more responsive to the interior needs of the team, I think. But there are so many other things that are only going to be healed in time. That really begins in our offensive front. Our offensive front is wholly physically inadequate to play the position the way we need to play. That’s a microcosm of our team at almost every position. But it really was the most exasperating for us in our offensive front.

Q. What would you say was the biggest step that you made in this program?
A. I think we improved a lot of numbers offensively. Instead of averaging 225 yards a game, we increased our desire to be a more explosive team offensively. Our willingness to throw the ball and to be not more dangerous, but to run a more open style of offense and push the ball. It’s unfortunate that we were missing about 1,000 yards of run after the catch. And that run after the catch would also translate into touchdowns scored. Our touchdowns scored versus the total number of touchdowns we should have scored is way different than it should be. We need to score more points to win more games. To do that we got to have more yards after a short pass.

Q. Does that involve tweaking the passing scheme?
A. Recruiting. It’s all recruiting. It’s all going to be raw, natural talent. There are some things you can do in the weight room to become stronger and faster, but we need to have more speed in our wide receiver corp. after the catch. We need to have more running ability in the guys that are catching the ball to score points.

Q. What’s the one thing, looking back, that you say ‘I wish I would have done that?’
A. I wish I would have gone for it on fourth down at Portland State and I wish I wouldn’t have been such a (jerk) about it in the postgame press conference. Seriously, that was bad and I was emotional at the end of the game like that. I should have gone for it on fourth down. That was a key turning point for us in our whole season because Portland State turned out to be a nice team and we had come all the way back to retake the lead a couple of times in a give-and-take game. Then to have the whole thing go clunk when we snapped the ball errantly on the punt, was just like almost we should roll up the season and go home because our head coach was just too chicken at the moment.

Q. Do you think that loss, not going for it and then losing, did that carry on to the rest of the season?
A. Yeah, I think it was a weak point for us. It pointed out our inadequacies. Our inability to get the first down by throwing the ball to our tight end, who should get the first down. My lack of confidence in our running game, to run the ball for a first down to maintain the lead. Our lack of depth at long snapper when we lost Clint Brock and had Erik Jacobson be the long snapper at that point. Then of course to have the ball snapped errantly at that point, it just pointed out all the weaknesses that seemed to befall us the whole rest of the season. So yeah, that’s a good question, a great way of saying it.

Q. I think you’ve answered this question before, but was this season tougher than you anticipated?
A. Well, I hoped it wouldn’t go this way. I had hoped that last year, because I’m about a year from my press conference when I was named head coach at Idaho State, but just by running a new style of offense, a faster-paced style of offense, that we would be able to disguise and mask inadequacies that I knew were in our program. But a lot of that came on the basis of our returning two offensive linemen that are of note; Brad Shedd and Braeden Clayson. Both guys suffered grievous injuries throughout. Brad was unavailable throughout the season and of course Braeden played with a metal screw in his left wrist. And it really impeded his ability to really be a dominant player. When we lost our top two offensive linemen, this thing really became a jaw clincher the rest of the season.

Q. Will that improve just by virtue of the offseason?
A. I think it has to be a focus for us in recruiting. One of the issues we face here in the turnover in the coaching staff was that not every single player bought into what this coaching staff was about. Those defections hurt us. We also were saddled with seven surgeries last December that made those guys unavailable for the spring and in four cases, unavailable even for the fall. We will have more players healthy this spring, more players healthy for next fall, we’ll have more players at certain positions, particularly in our offensive line where we went into this past game with only six scholarship offensive linemen on deck. We’ve got to find a way to get more depth on our offensive front and more performance.

Q. Those players that tend to not buy into the program, are they no longer on the team?
A. Yeah. They were guys that left our program throughout the season.

Q. When you were hired, did you expect that to happen?
A. Yes, and in previous opportunities that I’ve had as a head coach, you’re always able to sweep the deck a little bit from the guys that are discontent or are serious malcontents. Because of our APR issues, we had to make sure that everybody that was playing for us on scholarship at the time, we had to beg them to stay. We called, actually on the phone, people that were leaving the program begging them to stay because we knew it would continue to damage our APR. And it’s like making a deal with the devil. College football’s hard enough when you want to play it, it’s even harder when you don’t want to play for a particular coaching staff or that coaching staff hasn’t really bought into your act and how you do things. Every time there’s a coaching staff change over, there’s a certain amount of damage, collateral damage that occurs on both sides. And that collateral damage in our case could not be mitigated because those guys just we’re going to play the way we needed them to play. So unfortunately for them, and unfortunately for us, we ended up being really shallow in certain spots, particularly at running back and our offensive line. And that was a telling blow for us because if you look at our stats, yeah defensively we gave up a lot of yards and offensively we gained more yards than last year, but we need to score more touchdowns. That’s the only way we’re going to win more games.

Q. Let’s talk about some of the players you do have and had on the team this year. The three guys that made first team, did you anticipate having three guys on the first team?
A. Well certainly David Harrington is a player of particular note. He’s had a great leg and some of his best punts have come outdoors. So it isn’t like he’s a dome punter. It’s pretty cool that the Big Sky coaches would recognize that and we hope that he would garner All-American accolades as those get named. A.J. we knew would be a little bit of a project. A.J. had a rough end to the last season emotionally and it was hard for him to see a new coaching staff come into his senior season. Yet throughout the season we gained his confidence and he played the best football of his career in the last three games, along with his fellow running mate Bo Hudeen at inside linebacker. Those two seniors will be sorely missed. And with Rodrick, more of a product of what we were trying to do than him being debonair and a great player. He caught a lot of passes, he caught more passes that anyone in the history of the conference, yet he’s far from being the great player that he can become in a lot of assets. Because if you see the total number of catches he had versus the total number of touchdowns scores means that he’s not as explosive as he needs to be. He needs to work offseason extremely hard on his ability to run with the ball after the catch. And I don’t want to be critical of a guy who’s named first team all-conference because he’s mentally tough and he’s physically strong and he can catch the ball. But we as a program need him to score more touchdowns.
Q. As you guys get ready this offseason and prepare for next season, are there any areas of your team you’re going to address recruiting wise with junior college transfers?
A. Again, the junior college issue for us is that window is so small because of overall GPA requirements and core class requirements to get into ISU. We’re probably actually shying away from any junior college transfers. The four guys that we signed last year in our program are all doing very fine academically. But those guys are so rare and so hard to find. Most of the time guys who are physical enough to play the position are there for academic reasons and so that cuts out the talent pool down to about 10 percent of the available guys that are in any junior college in any state. We have to be very careful with those junior college guys. We still only have six slots to fill and four of them, Donovan, Justin Arias, we only have two slots left for midyear transfers. We’d like to attract some midyear transfers to us, particular in our offensive line. We currently only have eight guys on scholarship and Josh Cutler will not participate in spring drills because he had shoulder surgery yesterday. So we’re down to seven offensive linemen again as we head into the winter and the spring. So again, that’s probably the biggest area in terms of getting enough talent to be able to make sure we’re able to function.

Q. What areas will you address in recruiting?
A. Wide receiver. We’ll probably recruit six wide receivers just to have enough explosive and enough depth to be able to continue to play this offense, and offensive line. Those two areas in particular are in desperate need of, not only upgrade, but to be able to have enough soldiers in those groups to function.

Q. You talked about the secondary, specifically in the backfield, about giving up a lot of those big runs. What do you need to do this next season to make that improve?
A. We have to greatly enhance our performance at safety. If you look at the all-conference, the safeties all come from the best teams. The best teams on defense have safeties that don’t allow a little run to turn into a big run. And we didn’t do any of that this year. We must improve our play at safety. Tanner’s back at safety, Ed Pritchett is back at safety, Cody Sorensen of course will not be back for a year because he’s recovering from ACL surgery which was suffered up at Bozeman at the Montana State game. But we’ll need probably two recruited safeties that can go on the field and play next season.

Q. As a new coach, if changing the culture is step one in the process, would you say that’s been a success?
A. I would think that we’ve established now how we want to do things offensively, defensively, in the classroom and in a social setting. I feel pretty good that we’ve established our culture. Now the second step is recruiting. Last year’s recruiting was hindered because we had to retain so many of the players that were in our program for APR reasons. Some of those guys were good players and some of those guys were injured players that we couldn’t tell if they were going to be able to play or not until their surgeries were completed and they could go through the summer. In fact, four of those guys never did get on the field. This year I feel good about the team that’s coming back. We’re more healthy now than we have been, we have more of a reliance of who’s on the team right now and what steps we can take to fill our 22 spots in the offseason.

Q. So you’re feeling good about step two?
A. I feel good about step two. It’s just a matter of being able to have those guys come on campus. The problem is that 90 percent of those guys are going to be true freshmen and you cannot win in this program with true freshmen. So it’s going to take us years to get the point where we can adequately put an offensive line group on the field that’s as equivalent or average of Big Sky. It will take years.

Q. Mike as you finish up this year and get ready for next year, what are you excited about?
A. I’m excited that we’ve established a culture of offensive performance. If I was a fan, I would want to come and see a team that puts the ball in the air 500 times and has over 300 completions. I think that’s pretty cool and I think it fits real nice with our facilities and the type of style that we want to play offensively. Defensively I’m excited about our defensive front. Everybody returns except for Jordan Monga, including Kimo Mikaula who missed most of the season with surgery and Leki Fuapau who I think can be just a tremendous player as a defensive end who was injured during preseason practice.

Q. To me the best average was the number of fans for a five game home schedule. How have the fans been overall?
A. I think the fans outplayed the team. The fans just did an awesome job. The university did a nice job marketing and getting fans to come to the games. I think in those opening games we were exciting enough to get people to some follow up games. Then I think in that last game the fact that we were on such a long losing streak, the dedicated fans came out and made noise and had fun. I’m excited the fans care about us. The upgrade to the facility with the new turf is immensely important to our success. But I think overall everybody’s starting to get a grasp of how far we have to go. We’re in it for the long haul and this will be an exciting run.

Coach Kramer
Q. What is it like for you to have a leader like A.J. out there?
A. It’s not necessarily the vocal part, it’s the performance part. Dick Williams used to say leadership’s a three-run home run. When the Oakland A’s were playing well they had a bunch of characters, and we have a bunch of characters on our team. They’re a bunch of good guys who don’t necessarily fit into the normal mode of other teams in our conference, but they fit well together here. It’s been great to have A.J. and Bo (Hudeen) and J.T. (Albers) and Jack (Francis). Four senior linebackers. A.J.’s tackle numbers will stand by themselves for a long time, hopefully we’ll never break those numbers.

Q. I know you’ve talked about it before, but when he can get the ball off, how big of a weapon is David?
A. Well he changes the game. Probably about five or six games this year David has changed the game. He changed the game on Saturday. He had like a 62 or 63-yard punt and put it on the five yardline and we had won the game then. Because when we went out and held them to three-and-out and they punted to us and we fumbled the punt. He had changed the game. He had presented an opportunity for us. It’s unique in my career. I’ve never had a punter of this ability and he’s given us tremendous, tremendous opportunities to win ball games. Unfortunately we’ve been unable to protect him and unable to take advantage of his field position. i.e. go all the way back to the BYU game. Twice in the BYU game, before he got knocked out of the game by a cheap shot, he pinned them inside the five. Yet defensively we couldn’t hold them. It’s been a unique opportunity to watch a young man perform his craft. It’ll be something at ISU we’ll long remember because we will not repeat it because we will be a roll punt team until I’m out of here. That’s one of the things if I was a fan. I’d want to come on Saturday and watch David Harrington punt. Hopefully he doesn’t have to do it too many times, but it will be nice to send the ball high, high and deep. For David’s sake I hope he can hit the speakers a couple of times.

David Harrington
Q. David, senior year, going into your last game. What are your feelings and thoughts right now?
A. I’m kind of excited. I’m excited to get this season over with and look forward to the future. But I’m also a little sad. It’s my last game, could be ever. This is my last game as an ISU Bengal. So, you know, conflicting emotions.

Q. Knowing, as coach just mentioned, how you can change the game for this team, what do you think or want your legacy when people think back about you here? What does that mean for you? What do you want that to be?
A. I didn’t really come to ISU looking to build a legacy. I came here to win games. I tried to do whatever I could each game to make sure we had an opportunity to win. I didn’t come in here looking for legacies or records or anything like that. I just came here to win. This is just kind of a by-product of that.

Q. After being knocked out of the game against BYU, how hard was it for you to not be able to get out there and play for the rest of that game and the next one?
A. It was tough. I’ve never been knocked out of a game before. I’ve never not played. When I got knocked out at BYU, it was another opportunity for me to get some coaching in. I went in there, tried to help CJ (Reyes) as much as I could and he went out and did a great job. Then at Montana State I was on the sidelines trying to help him out as much as I could. I’m not an expert in the roll punt, so it was more of the mental game of ‘hey. Relax. Just go out and try to have some fun.’

Q. For you this year, as you have been able to pin teams deep, does it get frustrating watching them just be able to go down the field and erase that yardage that you picked up?
A. I don’t think it’s frustrating. Obviously I’d like to see some stops or big plays. But I get the feeling that I did my job. That’s all you can do or that any coach can ask you. You did your job and you just gotta trust we can make plays.

Q. You mentioned the future. Have you entertained the thought of playing beyond where you are now?
A. I don’t know. I’m going to go home after the season and think about what my options are. If that’s an opportunity, obviously I’ll take a shot at it. But it wasn’t my overall goal when I started playing. It was to get an education, play a little football and have some fun.

Q. What will you remember about this season?
A. Just going out there and having fun. I went out there last season, I was a little nervous because it was my first time playing in a year and a half or something like that. I went out this season to have some fun. My last year, maybe ever, so I said ‘have some fun. Garcia, Reyes and Erich Pew, let’s go out there and have some fun.’

Q. So it’s been fun for you then this year?
A. It’s been fun, yeah. I finally kind of sat back and started to soak it all in a little bit.

Q. Have you ever scraped the ceiling with a punt?
A. I have. I have during practice. In pre-game warm ups you go out there and say, ‘let’s see how high I can hit this thing.’

A.J. Storms
Q. As a senior, you being here for years especially, going into your last game, what are your thoughts and feelings?
A. There’s a whole lot of different things going through my head. The big thing, the main thing for what it is is to try and get a win, try to go out with a win. Whatever I got to do this week to help the team get the win. But at the same time in the back of my mind, I try not to think about it. It is that last game, the last game as a Bengal, that last game potentially ever. Especially like you said, being here so long and seeing so many different faces and so many people, it’s going to be nuts. I honestly have no idea what I’m going to be thinking postgame Saturday.

Q. How rewarding was it to get the individual award last week?
A. It was cool. I would definitely be lying if I told you it wasn’t cool. To think that if nothing else, to be remembered here forever or until someone else does it, it was cool. It was fun. I was glad to have it. But like I’ve always said, I’d rather have a couple of wins than have my name in a book. I was excited about it.

Q. You haven’t had one of those 20-tackle games this year. You had them a lot last year. What did you change in your game on Saturday, or did you?
A. It just kind of happened. The thing about the defense this year, and not that people weren’t doing this last year, but everyone is making plays on defense this year and everyone’s playing that much better that it’s not coming to me. That’s just how defense is, that’s how it works out when everyone does their job, everyone gets tackles. I think on Saturday that’s just kind of the way they were running their offense. It worked out and I found myself around the ball a lot. Really all that was, I give huge credit to the entire defensive line and the outside linebackers, and even Bo (Hudeen). When everyone fits things right, it makes everything so much easier and I can just fit where I’m supposed to and the ball was there to tackle.

Q. Did you get a chance to talk to Mike (Calley) after you broke his record?
A. I did. I actually talked to him at the airport. It’s cool. I really like Mike. Mike’s a great guy. I talked to him quite a bit over the years I’ve been here. The coolest thing about breaking the record is that we both went to the same high school. So I thought that’s really cool. We’ve kept in touch. He knows my high school head coach real well. I’ve talked to him over the years and I talked to him at the airport after the game and he was nothing but happy for me. He told me congratulations and just talked about all the tackles, I guess.

Q. Seeing as your from this state, from over in Meridian, what is Idaho State mean to you? Being able to come here, play four years and be as productive as you have been?
A. It’s a big thing. It’s important to me. I’ve actually said this before, but coming out of high school when no one else wanted to give me a shot. Being that Idaho State did give me a shot, the win column doesn’t look like what I imagined it coming out of high school. But the fact that this school was willing to give me an opportunity to go do things and play at a young age and have an opportunity to do well, this place will always be dear to me.

Q. Is that what you will remember? That this place gave you a shot when nobody else would?
A. I definitely think that will be one of the big things. Obviously there’s everything that I’ll remember. All the guys that I played with and my friends and everything that I got here and made on the team. And the teams that we’ve had. It’s been so crazy to me that all four years that I’ve been here, each team, as far as character, have been so different and so strange at times. I’ll remember all the guys and all the teams. Obviously I have memories of the old staff and definitely some good memories of this new staff that I’ll never forget. One of the big things for sure will be that it was Idaho State or be at home working at the tire shop. So, I came out here.

Q. As we asked David, what’s next for you? Have you thought about it?
A. I’ve definitely thought about it. I’m going to do everything I can. I kind of have a little bit of a shot so I’m going to do everything I can to see where it will go and see if I can make it. If I make it, great, and I’ll do everything I can to stay there as long as I can. If it doesn’t happen, if it doesn’t work out, I’ve already planned on finishing out my degree. I actually want to coach college football when I’m done playing football. Whenever it does finally end, I’ll be back and trying to get in the coaching circle.

Q. What’s the first step in that proccess of making it to the next level?
A. I got invited to the FCS Senior Bowl in Myrtle Beach, S.C. That’s on December 17. I’m going to go play in that game and hopefully, if I have a big game there and can impress somebody, that will be the next step. First thing’s first, take care of this week and try to get a win at Eastern Washington and then go from there.

Q. How much would it mean to you to end your career with a win?
A. A lot. It would definetely be the world to me. I’ve been here for so long and I feel like I’ve played so much football here and I’ve been through so much with all the different teams, to get a win, to go out with a win would be big.

Q. If you get a win, will you be able to look back on your career at ISU as a success?
A. In a lot of different ways, yeah. I’ve had personal success and I’ve been blessed to have that success. But also it gave me an opportunity to play football. It gave me an opportunity to show people what I can do and potentially give me an opportunity to go on. I definitely think my time spent here was a success.