ISU fall practice — day 14

Tingey no longer a candidate for NDSU job

North Dakota State has trimmed its list of athletic director candidates down to four, and current Idaho State director of athletics Jeff Tingey is no longer being considered.

NDSU released a pool of seven candidates for its open athletic director position last week, indicating the search committee would whittle that number down further for on-campus interviews.

Tingey was one of seven candidates still vying for the job.

“It was good just to get experience going through the interview process,” Tingey told the Journal on Thursday. “I like it here in Pocatello. When I graduated from high school all I could think about was getting out of here, but when I came back I realized how much I liked this community.”

Idaho State fall camp practice story from Tuesday

Kramer says the Bengals are ready but key position battles still ongoing as date with Utah looms

Quotable quote: Idaho State held a closed scrimmage Tuesday. Here is what head coach Mike Kramer had to say about what he saw.

"Faultless is the work I’d use to describe it. The ones played pristine. They played effective, efficient, on task, on time. They weren’t overly emotional. There wasn’t a lot of smacking and hitting but it was pretty crisp on both sides of the ball. Both guys, both teams were effective, well coached, well led and calm. And I liked that. That was really good. ... We saw a little bit of our run game and we saw a little of our pass game and the defense played almost all their sets. We did a lot of things against Utah today. That’s why it was a closed scrimmage. The ones executed very well. We’ve already got our game plan rolling. Utah was our prime attention today.”

I asked coach Kramer if the Bengals were ready for the season.

“We’re never going to be ready to play Utah. And we’re never going to play Utah State. But we are ready to play somebody. We really are. When you return 17 starters, 17 guys who started the bulk of a season, guys are chomping at the bit to get going. But here comes the bigger rock — school. They’re going to go from being football only to being college boys and playing football on the side. So we will lag for a little bit.”

More from Kramer on Utah and Utah State ...

“Utah and Utah State, even if we were set, there are going to be times in the those games where it’s going to be like ripping thunder from the sky. I know, I know how it goes. Those are two very good footfall teams. Utah has got a chip on its shoulder with something to prove and Utah State is one of the top-25 teams in the nation.

“Their quarterback is big time. Their one linebacker, (Kyler) Fackrell, is wow. I’d just like to have his fingers. We’ve got some severe challenges ahead of us and we don’t want to read too much into those, but we want to come out of those two games ready to compete for the Big Sky title. And I think we’re capable of it physical. We’re not there yet coaching wise or mentally.”