Johnnie football uses DI and DII talent to boost team success

The Johnnie football team is no stranger to recruiting talent from the transfer portal. This season the Johnnies start at least four DI or DII transfers, depending on personnel packages. This follows the success found here by former D1 transfer quarterbacks, Jackson Erdmann and Aaron Syverson. Mark Rogalski, a redshirt sophomore safety from St. Thomas Academy High School, a transfer from Wake Forest University, said the draw to St. John’s was immediate.

“As soon as I entered the portal, they reached out to me. My mother went to St. Ben’s. I’ve been to Johnnie games before; there has always been that connection here. The staff was super good to me in the portal, made me feel at home and [said] that I can make an impact here,” Rogalski said.

Rogalski highlighted what he thinks the importance of having transfers is.

“I think it always forces players to level up their game and continue to play at a high level. Just knowing that guys can come in whenever forces everyone to keep working and not get complacent. At the end of the day, it challenges everybody,” Rogalski said.

Transferring from Wake Forest, a DI school, Rogalski noticed a clear difference.

“The student population is a lot different. Almost everyone is from Minnesota, versus Wake Forest, where it was a little bit more spread out across the country,” Rogalski said.

Trey Feeney, a redshirt junior quarterback from Moorhead High School, who transferred from University of North Dakota, highlighted how the team made it easy for him transferring in.

“The guys have been awesome. I came in the spring and the players that were here had a great routine of lifting and running. Being that we had all of those lifts and runs, I got to meet a ton of those guys in the spring. It has built relationships for me over the summer and continued into the season. I’ll have a ton of friends that will go beyond St. John’s,” Feeney said.

Feeney said he wasn’t just excited about the football when deciding to transfer to St. John’s, he was excited about everything around the scene of football.

“I was just excited to see St. John’s in the fall. I heard about all of the trails, the landscape and football games with tailgating, too. St. John’s has a beautiful campus. It will be fun going to sporting events now that I know more of the other athletes,” Feeney said.

Feeney talked about what he thinks the biggest adjustment was to his new team.

“The biggest adjustment would be the numbers. At the University of North Dakota, they limit your roster size. Here there can be as many guys on the team as they want. It has been really fun to see that and talk to guys from high school. The coaching staff is really personable and just like the players on this team, I am building relationships with these coaches which will last past my playing days here,” Feeney said.

Damien Dumonceaux, the recruiting coordinator, defensive line coach and special teams coordinator, who is in his 20th season on the staff, talked about the process of the transfer portal.

“When we as a staff are notified that a kid has hit the portal, most of the time we are reaching out to them. In some cases they are reaching back to us. They reach out due to a prior relationship from recruiting in high
school. Usually it is through some connection, family or friends. Then once we do, we get them on campus,” Dumonceaux said.

Dumonceaux emphasized that the process is really quick.

“Recruiting transfers is really direct; they know what they want. It is not as much of the sales piece of it; they’ve already been somewhere and they know what they don’t want so they are more inclined to know what they want. Just being honest with them about the playing time and opportunity, those are the key things. All of it can be wrapped up in roughly a week, two weeks at most,” Dumonceaux said.