Northern football coaching search progressing

Much of the state of Montana is now gripped in the suspense of who the next head coach of the Montana Grizzlies will be. But in Havre, the Montana State University-Northern Lights are still on the lookout for who their next head man is going to be.

Northern head coach Aaron Christensen stepped down with three games remaining in the 2017 season, with defensive coordinator Jake Eldridge taking over for the final three Frontier Conference bouts as interim head coach. The Lights finished the season 1-10 with their last game coming Nov. 11 at College of Idaho.

Now, with winter coming on strong, MSU-N Athletic Director Christian Oberquell is entering the search phase for Christensen's replacement.

"Things should start moving quickly now," Oberquell said Friday night. "With this weekend (Thanksgiving) being over with, and the high school football season being done, we should see some more names coming in, and the process should start to move along. We also will see what comes when more NAIA teams are done with their playoff run, too."

Christensen said that he's been pleased thus far with the response to the coaching vacancy at Northern. It's his second go-around in looking for a new head man. Christensen, who came to Northern from Missouri Valley College, was hired prior to the 2015 season.

"We've gotten a lot of interest, and we hope to see even more very soon," Oberquell said. "You have some applicants that just won't be legit or realistic, but of the legit guys, I've really liked what I've seen. We've gotten a lot of really good applicants and I think, when it's all said and done, we'll be able to find a very good head coach."

Oberquell also reiterated what he's looking for in Northern's next head coach, and Montana ties, especially in the area of recruiting, is a heavy priority.

"The big thing is, we really want someone who is tied to the state (Montana)," he said. "We want somebody who can come in and really recruit this state, and not just the AAs, or not just a certain area, but the whole state. I really feel you can win in this conference (Frontier) with Montana kids. That's not saying we don't want to recruit elsewhere, because obviously you do, but we want someone who can come in and have those relationships in the state built up and, someone who also understands and knows Havre and our university.

"We feel like we have a really good core of young, talented Montana kids on our roster right now," he continued. "And we want to continue to build that up."

Oberquell also said he wants a coach who can recruit players, wherever they come from, who will not only embrace Northern football, but also the academic side of being a student-athlete, along with the campus and the community.

"It's about football, but it's also about this university," Oberquell said. "We want to bring kids in here that want to stay, who want to be a part of this university in every aspect. Retention of our student-athletes is very important, especially with the football program because you're bringing in a large number of kids in every recruiting class. So you can't bring 35 kids in and only have five or six of them graduate. We need to make sure we're doing better than that."

And that's one of the many reasons Oberquell, and the Northern search committee will be thorough, will be diligent and won't rush into hiring a coach just to make sure they have one.

Of course, time is of the essence, however, as the recruiting season heats up and offseason conditioning is just over a month away. But in the end, Oberquell is adamant about finding the right fit for the Lights moving forward.

"The sooner the better obviously," Oberquell said. "For recruiting and all of those things, the sooner we get someone hired, the better off we'll be. But I'm also not wanting to rush it. We're going to make sure this process is done right. But ultimately, I would like to have someone hired before the start of the second semester. That's Jan. 10. We want to make sure we give him time to get settled, find a place to live, all of those things, before school starts up.

"But again, it's not something I want to rush either," he continued. "I'm pleased with how the process is going so far. Now, we just have to start really looking at these potential candidates, and hopefully, some more names come in very soon and we have to start narrowing down the direction we want to go in because, ultimately, we want to find the right guy, the guy who will lead this program to really good things. And I believe we'll find that."