Oct. 16—BEMIDJI — After the Bemidji State football team opened its season with a close 31-29 loss to Michigan Tech, head coach Brent Bolte made a simple statement at the end of his post-game interview.
He was asked about last season and emphatically said, "We will be better."
Through the first seven weeks of the season, the eye test says yes. The defense looks improved, shaving eight points off its points per game total (33 PPG in 2025, 25 PPG in 2026). The offense, meanwhile, has utilized its most talented players, highlighted by Connor Carver's
record-breaking game against Minot State.
But it doesn't matter how much better the team looks. What matters is results, and unfortunately for the Beavers, they're right where they were a year ago.
They enter the bye week at 2-5 for the second straight year. While BSU went into bye on a two-game winning streak after starting 0-5 last season, this year's off week comes off of
its worst loss of the season against Wayne State.
To Bemidji State's credit, its schedule has been tougher. Four out of its first seven opponents have been either ranked or receiving votes in national NCAA Division II polls. It also has games against Minnesota Duluth (5-2) and MSU Moorhead (5-2) remaining, both of whom are top five in the NSIC.
But BSU doesn't view its strength of schedule as a consolation prize. It knows it's a better team than last season — it's just trying to get the results to prove it.
As the defense, offense and special teams had their fair share of struggles, coaches and players plan on doing some soul-searching to end the season on a high note.
"I felt like we had a better team coming out of spring, even coming in this year," Bolte said. "But we gotta execute better. If it's schematics, or if it's the personnel or what we're doing, that's what we gotta go back and look really, really closely here in the bye week. Because the definition of insanity is that you do the same thing expecting a different result. So we got to do something different."
Offensive coordinator Jordan Hein acknowledged that the BSU offense has shown flashes of brilliance through the first seven games. Finding consistency week to week has been the puzzle he and the rest of the coaching staff are trying to solve.
"It's something we gotta take a deep dive, look at as a staff and figure out what we need to do to get our guys to be in position to be successful each and every snap," he said. "Because, yeah, there are flashes, but we definitely are not a consistent unit."
That couldn't be more true than in Weeks 5 and 6. At homecoming
against Minot State,
Carver set a BSU single-game record in rushing yards in a 37-19 victory. But the very next week against
No. 25 Northern State,
the offense was shut out for the first 57 minutes, and the versatile Carver was held to just 34 rushing yards.
Unlike 2025, quarterback hasn't been the main issue with the offense. BSU cycled through quarterbacks last season until Bart McAninch came around, starting in three of the Beavers' four wins.
He's shown flashes of good QB play this season. He led a late drive to almost tie the season opener against
Michigan Tech,
and he led the team to a season-high 38 points against
Southwest Minnesota State.
Arguably, his best performance came in the 34-31 loss to
Concordia-St. Paul.
He threw for a season-high 235 yards and a touchdown, leading a scoring drive to take the lead with under two minutes remaining.
Compared to last year, however, McAninch's season numbers have taken a slight dip. His completion percentage has dropped from 67% to 51%, and he's only thrown four touchdowns to three interceptions.
His performance against Northern State — 9-for-19 with 83 yards and an interception — was a factor in having backup Mack Molander start against
the Wildcats.
"We tried (something different) at quarterback," Bolte said after the game against WSC. "I thought Mack did some good things at times. But again, putting it all together, being able to run the football, be complementary and play complementary offense and defense. We didn't do any of that (against Wayne State), which was the frustrating part."
The answer to Bemidji State's inconsistency isn't easy, as Hein acknowledged. What it has proved is it's not afraid to shake things up and do something different, especially at QB. Carver replaced McAninch against Minot State after it became a grudge match on the ground, and after Molander led the Beavers to their only 10 points against the Wolves, they turned to him against WSC.
"I think we gotta go back and look at it from a holistic view," Hein said, "and just look at what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, and we gotta cater to our strengths."
Bolte knew something had to change during halftime against Michigan Tech.
After the Huskies put up 23 points in the first half, Bolte attempted to simplify the defense so they could execute better. The Beavers responded by holding them to just eight points in the second half. One week later against SMSU, BSU pitched a shutout for the first time in two years.
It seemed like BSU figured something out defensively. But since then, the unit has been hot-and-cold. Some opposing offenses have seemed to score at will, while others looked like they were trying to solve a Rubik's Cube to get into the end zone.
"You're hoping the team would grow; we just haven't taken that step," Bolte said. "And that's what we've been just waiting for collectively as a staff. We have to take a step, we gotta mature, we gotta make plays when they arise."
The Beavers now sit in the middle of the pack as the seventh-ranked defense in the conference. So far, it's an improvement over their 2025 defense, which was ranked 11th in the conference, but it's far from the expectations Bolte has for his defensive group.
BSU has also suffered from its mistakes on special teams. A blocked punt led to six points against Northern State, and the very next week, WSC returned a punt for a touchdown and recovered a muffed punt, which led to 14 of its 45 points.
With problems to sort out on all three sides of the ball, BSU will take its bye week as a chance to regroup and catch its collective breath. It will also let players get healthy, including Caden Bolte, Bemidji State's leading tackler (45 total tackles), who went down with an injury against WSC.
All things considered, has the bye week come at the perfect time for the Beavers? It depends on who's asked.
"I'm competitive. I'd rather get back out and compete and get after it next week," Bolte said. "But yeah, we need to take a deep breath, look inside and out at what we're doing. And if it's schematics or personnel, those are all things that we gotta take a hard look at and get better.
"The odd thing is (we're) 1-1 in the North. Northern (State) got beat by (Minnesota) Duluth, (MSU) Morehead's undefeated. You have a lot of hodgepodge teams all in one similar area. Go get hot, go make some plays. We got to just play better and execute at a higher level, is what it comes down to."