Fargo South, Sheyenne grads trying to work their way into Bison football rotation as redshirt freshmen

Times have changed, Sibomana switched to No. 37, and so have their prospects of playing on Saturdays next fall. Spring practice has been less about the digits and much more about finding a way on the field.

At least physically, Sibomana and Kpeenu have arrived.

“Oh yeah,” said Bison head coach Matt Entz. “This offseason has been the consistency that we’ve had before. We didn’t have kids missing a week there, four or five days here, 10 days there. We had everyone in all of our workouts.”

Missing workouts was a result of the pandemic. Now, for Sibomana and Kpeenu, it’s more about figuring out the mental side of college football. It’s why spring football exists.

Kpeenu spent last fall on the scout team, like most true freshmen. At 5-foot-10 and 205 pounds, he has a prototypical look of a back in the West Coast offense. It’s what he excelled at with Sheyenne when he ran for over 1,000 yards, averaged 7.6 yards per carry as a senior and played in the Blue-Grey All-American Bowl at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Sibomana has had to make more of an adjustment. He was a running back and safety at South and began his Bison career as a safety.

He is now a linebacker trying to get in the mix at an outside spot that was vacated when Jasir Cox went into the transfer portal. It’s not easy considering everything in the playbook is on the table in spring ball.

“He’s not drinking out of a firehose like he was in week one,” Entz said. “It’s more of a garden hose now. He still has a long way to go but I do see that the young man needs to help us on special teams. That’s one of the tough things for young kids. Everyday we have the ability to call anything in the spring. After fall camp, that narrows down; we don’t carry that much into a game so sometimes you see younger kids develop in the fall because there isn’t that much volume. They can hone in on the details where right now there’s a lot of stuff coming at these young kids.”

Sibomana isn’t the only player to make a position switch to outside linebacker. Senior Julian Wlodarczyk is making the transition to outside linebacker after three years as a strong safety. He played as a true freshman in 2019.

Wlodarczyk has long been considered a candidate to play linebacker with his 6-3, 207-pound frame.

“Julian has enough experience at safety in our program that he has a better grasp of what we’re doing defensively,” Entz said.

Sibomana and Kpeenu aren’t the only young potential special teams players next fall. Entz said redshirt freshman Owen Johnson from Mankato, Minn., has made a successful transition from receiver to running back.

He was a receiver last fall as more of a scout team necessity. Johnson, 5-10 and 207 pounds, ran for 1,120 yards as a senior for Mankato West and played in the Minnesota all-star game.

With Johnson, the Bison have eight running backs on the roster: Seniors TaMerik Williams and Kobe Johnson, juniors TK Marshall, Dominic Gonnella and Jalen Bussey, sophomore Nathan Goldade and Kpeenu and Johnson.

NDSU has cut the maximum 15 allowable spring practices to 12. The annual spring game, which is more of a controlled practice, is Saturday, April 23 at Gate City Bank Field at the Fargodome. It is open to the public.

“We’ve had good energy,” Entz said. “We go in the morning. It requires our kids to be locked in and our first meeting is at 5:40 a.m. Like we say, this program is not built for everybody but our kids have done a good job of being on time, being attentive and coming out here with some energy.”