New Northland Pines head football coach Justin Nimsgern is set to take the field in 2025 with his team in his first season as the leader of the Eagles’ program.
As he comes over from Lakeland Union as a former defensive coordinator, he is excited to take over the program and build it up from where it is. He hopes to take steps to improve on the 1-8 record the team had a season ago.
As practice started last Tuesday, Nimsgern has already seen some promising days from his team as they work towards opening week.
“I’ve already told these guys that they’ve exceeded my expectations,” he said before a practice last week. “We just take it week by week by week, game by game. And you know, their effort in practice right now is the biggest thing.”
The Eagles were a run-heavy team a year ago, with over 250 rush attempts on the season while accumulating 1,173 yards on the ground. When asked how the offense will flow this season, Nimsgern is keeping an open mind and seeing how things play out on the field.
“I think we have a lot of great athletes who can run the ball. They can also catch the ball. We saw that during seven-on-seven over the summer. I tell the guys I’m a whatever it takes guy,” explained Nimsgern. “And if we want to run the ball and we’re successful, we might run the ball 30-40 times. If we’re clicking passing the ball and looking good, then we might pass the ball 30-40 times.”
Nimsgern enters his first season with some help from seasoned players offensively. Two of those guys include the duo of senior quarterback Aiden Minx and senior wide-out Jacob Beer. Beer is the team’s leading returning pass catcher with 34 receptions, 598 yards and seven touchdowns a year ago.
The News-Review caught up with Minx before practice last week to get a feel for how preparations are going so far and what he expects of the team and himself.
“This year is definitely a bigger role. You always have a leadership role being quarterback. But this year, we lost like 11 seniors, and one of our other quarterbacks in the room was a huge leader. So this year, it’s more just setting the tone, having people buy in,” said Minx.
“Coach Nimsgern and I did a lot talking this off season too and that was our big thing, helping people buy in and get to work.”
He went on to say that one of his first goals is always to win games before looking at himself. He mentioned throwing accuracy and spreading the ball to his teammates as a few things he wants to work on this season. He said Beer is always there to make plays, but the whole wide receiver room has improved ahead of the season.
“Jacob’s back, so that connection is always strong. And then Brendan, our tight end, that chemistry has been good, and even even the younger guys, I mean, they put a lot of work in throughout the off season,” stated Minx. “We’d come and throw routes at the field at night, so that definitely helped. I can definitely see that the chemistry is growing.”
The defensive side of the ball will act like more of a conveyor belt of sorts, as players will be rotating in and out every possession to keep things fresh.
“It’s going to be by committee. You’re going to see a lot of guys rotating in,” explained Nimsgern. “There may be a couple guys that are starters that own that position, but I think most of the defense is going to be by committee this year. So staying fresh, rotating in and staying aggressive.”
There’s room for growth this season, and while there wasn’t a specific team goal stated, raising the points scored and lowering the points given up from last year will help simplify and help achieve the team goals.
“You need to have those two numbers get a little bit closer together and we’ll put some wins on the board,” stated Nimsgern.
Northland Pines will host a scrimmage with Ashland and Merrill this Friday, Aug. 15, at 2 p.m, before opening the season at home against Antigo in week one’s Hall of Fame game Friday, Aug. 22, at 7 p.m.
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