Around the Valley: Murray State boasts Bison connections at quarterback (2024)

FARGO — It’s debatable on who is more obscure: Bigfoot or the Murray State football team. Both are in need of search parties.

Murray enters its second year in the Missouri Valley Football Conference with such a roster overhaul that even the Racers coaching staff has been spending the summer figuring out who is who.

But that’s what new head coach Jody Wright needed to do after a less-than-welcoming rookie year for Murray in the Valley.

“Every day in my office I’ve played a little game in my office trying to learn new faces and new people,” Wright said at Valley media day two weeks ago. “Like I told our players, there is no depth chart every day. You can go from first string to third or fourth.”

The Racers were active in the transfer portal in the offseason bringing in over 50 players. After last year’s 2-9 record (1-7 in the Valley) and the fact the program went through major changes, it’s no surprise they were picked to finish 11th in the Valley preseason poll.

“The only reason we got picked to finish 11th is because there weren't 12,” Wright said. “That is going to be our battle cry this year. I think it is motivation for our players coming off a season like last year.”

A major emphasis this month has been getting the players to know each other, Wright said. There’s a milestone to this season for the Racers, too: It’s their 100th year of football.

As for the team, it could start with a couple of North Dakota State connections. The quarterbacks coach is former Bison QB Zeb Noland and the starter most likely will be Jayden Johannsen, a transfer from Division II South Dakota Mines who started his career as a Bison walkon. Noland and Johannsen were at NDSU at the same time in 2019 sporting jerseys just one number apart.

“I love Jayden, he actually bought a T-shirt from the Murray State bookstore that says ‘Murray State Grandpa’ that he wears around,” Wright said.

Johannsen, from Sioux Falls, S.D., left NDSU after one season. He lit it up at Mines throwing for over 8,200 career yards and was a finalist for the Harlon Hill Award, the Division II equivalent to the Walter Payton Award.

“He’s got some natural leadership and charisma around the guys,” Wright said.

They open at the University of Missouri. Wright has an FBS pedigree having been an assistant at Alabama, Mississippi State and South Carolina among other stops, but his first game as a head coach promises to be memorable, good or bad.

“We probably won’t know until we line up who’s starting in the Missouri game,” Wright said. “We’ll see what we’re made of that first game.

Aug. 12: Illinois State

Aug. 13: Indiana State

Aug. 14: Missouri State

Today: Murray State

Aug. 16: North Dakota

Aug. 17: North Dakota State

Aug. 18: Northern Iowa

Aug. 19: South Dakota

Aug. 20: South Dakota State

Aug. 21: Southern Illinois

Aug. 22: Youngstown State

Jeff would like to dispel the notion he was around when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, but he is on his third decade of reporting with Forum Communications. The son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, Jeff has worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he's covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995.
Jeff has covered all nine of NDSU's Division I FCS national football titles and has written three books: "Horns Up," "North Dakota Tough" and "Covid Kids." He is the radio host of "The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack" April through August.