Norse ranked No. 5 ahead of 2024 season

VIRGINIA—The Minnesota North—Mesabi Range football team has reason to be excited coming into this season.

The Norse enter the year ranked fifth in the nation in the NJCAA Division III football poll. While the number next to their name may help boost their confidence somewhat, veteran head coach Tom Inforzato says the ranking doesn’t have any importance to his team as they continue through fall camp and get ready for their season opener.

“That [ranking] wasn’t really a surprise to us because we did finish last season ranked No. 4,” Inforzato said. “But honestly it’s flattering to have our program recognized up here. There’s a couple other teams in our conference that are ranked as well and that’s really good for our league.

“For us, it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s nice at the time but we have to go in there and start the season off right and take things one game at a time. We have to make sure we earn that ranking and hopefully climb a little bit higher as well.”

With plenty of sophomores returning to this year’s squad, Inforzato says it’s been clear that his team is making fast improvements thanks to the veteran presence.

“We’ve got a lot of guys coming back that are set to contribute for us as sophomores, more than we’ve had in the last couple of years on all sides of the ball. If you look at offense and defense, we have returning starters and even more guys that saw a significant amount of time last year so that experience overall has really helped us through fall camp.

“We’re way ahead in terms of install and everything like that compared to a typical camp. The sophomore leadership has been huge so far to help the freshmen out.”

Leading that group of sophomores offensively is returning All-American quarterback Jonathan Mosley, as well as All-American offensive lineman Dennis Lutchoomun. On defense, key returners for the Norse include Cloquet’s Brysen McLeod (DL) and All-MCAC inside linebacker Antonio Hunt.

“It’s a good mix of guys,” Inforzato said of the sophomores. “We have some receivers coming back too then defensively there’s some guys in our secondary that started that we’re happy to have back. At all levels, we have guys ready to help us get going and get the young guys where they’re supposed to be.”

For the freshmen, learning the playbook and schemes is a must as always but a big key again for the Norse is staying healthy.

“The younger guys coming up show a lot of promise and they’re picking everything up fast. We feel like we’re very talented as far as that goes but in order to make it all work, we have to stay healthy in order to maintain the numbers that we have. These guys are doing great already filling in the holes that we need them to now we just need to make sure they’re ready on game day.”

In terms of an offensive identity, Inforzato says the return of Mosley for a second season should set the team up well in terms of scoring.

“It really opens up our entire playbook and allows us to just go fast. We want to be a very fast, physical, up front team and having an experienced quarterback like Mosley, we can throw the ball and run the ball very well. We expect to be very balanced but having a QB that can break out of the pocket and be that dual threat I think will put our opponents’ defenses on their heels quite a bit.

“He’s the entire package when it comes to a starting quarterback. He’s not just a runner and not just a passer, he can be dangerous both ways and it opens things up quite a bit.”

With the returning defensive pieces the Norse have, Inforzato expects the team’s front seven to be especially dangerous this year.

“Just having that experience up front with McLeod and Hunt really helps that group and I think they’re complimented by the speed and physicality of our secondary. It’s going to allow us to do a lot of different things with our front. We have a few key defenses we can play on different downs and we have guys that can move from a couple different positions. We’re very athletic on the defensive side of the ball and we expect to be very physical up front.”

In terms of the rest of the MCAC, Inforzato expects it to be a three-horse race out front between Rochester, North Dakota State College of Science and the Norse. But even then, there are plenty of questions coming from the rest of the teams in the conference.

“There is some unknown this year because we have three or four new head coaches in our league. I’m not the oldest coach in the conference but I’m the oldest tenured coach now which feels a bit weird to say. So with those new coaches you just don’t know what they’re going to have or what style of football they’re going to play.

“We hope to compete with the best of them by the end of it but we just want to take it one game at a time and hopefully we understand that one game doesn’t define our season. If we’re playing our best ball during the playoffs then we can make a push to get to the MCAC championship.

The Norse open the season on Saturday, Aug. 31 when they host NDSCS. Mesabi Range faced the Wildcats twice last season and lost both times on the road. Getting a chance to face what is possibly one of their toughest tests of the year week one on their home turf is a reason to be excited, according to Inforzato.

“That’ll be a really good matchup and a real good test for us. It’s a good measuring stick for week one. We had a couple tough games with them last year, losing by less than a touchdown both times. We were ahead in both those games and had to battle on a mud field. Now that we can get a chance to play them on the turf at MI-B, I think it’ll be a chance to show off our speed.”