File photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College quarterback Brady Turiff (18) prepares to throw a pass during a home college football game last season against Augsburg on Sept. 21, 2025 at the MLC Bowl.

By Travis Rosenau

trosenau@nujournal.com

NEW ULM — Martin Luther College Knights head football coach Paul Huebner has every right to be optimistic about the upcoming football season.

He returns a promising sophomore quarterback, a dominating senior defensive end that led Division III in sacks last year, and he has a host of other playmakers on both sides of the ball.

But he also has reason to be cautious.

The Knights may be the smallest college football team in the nation in terms of numbers with only 44 players rostered.

“For us [the key is] going to be health,” Huebner said. “Our roster is always going to be the smallest in the conference, smallest in America, I’m pretty sure. Maybe you can find another college with [fewer] players than we have, but that’s where if our guys stay healthy, especially our top-end guys, we will certainly be competitive with the teams at the top of the conference.

“Teams like that just have more depth and are able to recruit a wider array of student athletes. You’re going to have anywhere from 70 to 100 guys on the roster, where we’ve got 44 this year. We love the 44 that we have, but we just gotta keep all 44 of them healthy and ready to go on Saturdays.”

The Knights were picked third in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference Football Preseason Poll behind Northwestern and Greenville, who tied for first. Minnesota Morris was picked to finish fourth, while Crown was picked fifth and Westminster was picked sixth. Last season, the Knights went 6-4 overall and 4-3 in the UMAC.

Captaining the Knights’ 2025 offense is second-year quarterback Brady Turriff. The 6-foot-3, 210-pound slinger graduated from Monroe, North Carolina’s Sun Valley High School in 2024, and he quickly showed promise for MLC last fall. In 10 games, he completed 145 of 281 passes for 1,977 yards and 16 touchdowns with nine interceptions.

“He has done a tremendous job in the last year of just learning the game inside and out,” Huebner said. “This fall camp, he spent more time with us learning about pass protections, for instance. ‘How do I protect myself at the quarterback position? How do I understand where blitzes and pressures are coming from? How do I get the ball out of my hands quickly?’ He’s got tremendous arm talent. I mean, he can throw the ball a mile, great accuracy.

“So what we’ve been trying to work on in spring ball and now into fall camp is just speeding up the process, understanding how to get the ball out to our playmakers as quickly as he can to avoid any negative plays. He took a few too many sacks last year.”

Turriff had a pair of 300-yard passing games last season, one at Crown when he threw for 335 yards and one at Greenville when he threw for 337 yards.

Thankfully for Turriff, back this season is his top target from a season ago in senior Thomas Koelpin. Koelpin caught 45 passes for 751 yards and five touchdowns as a junior and will be back to add to his career total this season.

The Knights will also return junior Jude Pederson, who had 31 catches for 381 yards and four touchdowns last season. After being used as a tight end last season, Pederson will ne used more in a wide receiver, utility role in 2025. Huebner also complimented Pederson’s work ethic and urge to get into the weight room and get his teammates to join him.

The offensive line returns three starters in junior R.J. Perry (6-1 258 pounds), senior Tim Manning (6-3, 260 pounds) and sophomore Isaiah Durkee (6-8, 348 pounds). Huebner said he has a few others battling for the last two offensive line positions, one being the 6-foot-5, 287-pound Isaiah Hahm, a super senior who played as a senior in Huebner’s first year at MLC in 2022. Hahm had an emergency call to spend a year teaching in Milwaukee and then spent the last year serving with his National Guard unit overseas.

The MLC defense is led by senior Andrew Esmay, a 6-foot-6, 210-pound defensive end. If there was a DIII football award for the most improved player, Esmay likely would have won it last year after leading all of Division III in sacks with 16.5. He also forced eight fumbles, recovered five fumbles and had 37 total tackles. In 2023 as a sophomore, the Texas native played in just five games and had 1.5 sacks and 12 tackles.

He will be looking to only expand on his game this year.

“I’ll be interested to see how our opponents deal with him and his size and athleticism,” Huebner said of Esmay. “Last year being a little bit of an unknown, I don’t know that teams had specific game plans to double team him or run away from him. I think as everybody in the conference is now aware of Drew and his gifts and abilities, I would imagine that he’s going to see a few more double teams, maybe triple teams, maybe teams checking and running away from him.

“So how he deals with that I think is going to be interesting. He’s an unbelievable athlete and a phenomenal competitor, so it’s can he still produce at the same level if he’s dealing with special attention from the opponent’s offensive coordinators.”

If Esmay draws double or triple teams, that only opens the door for other teammates of his to make a play of their own. Some of those defensive players back like Ethan Melso, a 5-8, 204-pound junior inside linebacker out of Appleton, Wisconsin. Melso is someone Huebner described as savvy.

“The most savvy player I think we may have on our roster,” Huebner said. “Finds the gap, fills whatever holes are presented and then is great at ripping the ball out, too. He’s a takeaway machine.”

Last season, Melso had 58 total tackles, two sacks and three interceptions.

The Knights did graduate defensive leader Joey Ehlke, an outside linebacker and safety, and will look to do their best to fill his shoes with senior Micah Koschnitzke, who is also the team’s kicker.

New Ulm native Tom Balge is also back for his senior year at outside linebacker. The 6-2, 201-pound linebacker recorded 90 tackles last season and two interceptions. In 2023, he had 110 tackles.

The Knights will have the 6-foot-1, 186-pound Jeremiah Stanton back for his senior year at cornerback. The Milwaukee native recorded five interceptions for the Knights as a sophomore and two last season. He also had 39 total tackles in 2024 and a forced fumble.

The Knights will lean on their 4-2-5 defense full of strong athletic returners, but Huebner said it will also see a few new faces on the field.

The Knights open the season in nonconference action at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, this Saturday with a noon kickoff. Huebner said Lawrence has a new head coach this season, Adam Gonzaga, so he isn’t entirely sure what schemes to expect. However, it will be a nice early test to see how his players respond to some unknowns.

“We’ll go and compete,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun to go and compete in front of a lot of friends and family over there. A lot of our guys are from Wisconsin, decent number of kids from that Appleton, Green Bay area, so to be able to play in front of a lot of family and friends in the Banta Bowl in Appleton is really a special thing for our guys.”

Last season the Knights hosted Lawrence in the season opener and won 35-7.

The Knights’ first home game is another nonconference game at 1 p.m. on Sept. 13 when they host Luther College.