36 young men are now Bulldogs. On Wednesday the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) football team announced the signing of their 2025 recruiting class, three of which are Northlanders. They are Tate Nelson of Two Harbors, Chris King from Mountain Iron-Buhl, and Cooper Lawton from Northwestern.

“It’s always fun to be able to recruit somebody’s kid that maybe played here, or a local high school coach’s kid to be able to come to UMD, and I know it’s special for them. It is for us too, to be able to carry on the lineage of UMD football. Our focus will always be to have the best and brightest local talent that we can,” head coach Curt Wiese said.

Another big grab for the Bulldogs is Isaiah Wright, a running back from Fertile-Beltrami who originally committed to UND. This past fall he rushed for 2,613 yards and 40 touchdowns, helping the Falcons to a perfect 13-0 season and a Class 9-man state championship.

At the end of the day, head coach Curt Wiese said UMD selects good people with a focus on high school talents, despite the ever-evolving world of the transfer portal.

“There’s a lot of programs that are signing half transfers and half freshmen in their class, which is going to open up less doors for high school seniors every year. I think a lot of that has to do with the programs across the Midwest, and across the country, are concentrating on saving some scholarship money for transfer kids,” Wiese said.

UMD lost one of their own quarterbacks AJ Boarman to the transfer portal. So they signed two more, Sam Shaughnessy of Blaine and Riley Grossman of Lakeville North, to round their QB room back up to five.