Wilson growing with Dordt football

SIOUX CENTER — Austin Wilson is settling in and working his way up the depth chart in his second season at Dordt College playing football.

Listed now at 5-foot-6, 186 pounds, the 2020 Nodaway Valley graduate played prominently on both sides of the ball in high school but almost exclusively has played running back for the Defenders, who are a part of the Great Plains Athletic Conference in the NAIA.

“I’m a little higher on the depth chart this year because last year I wasn’t really getting JV reps, and this year I got quite a few of those,” Wilson said. “In life, I’ve grown a lot in my faith. This program teaches you a lot of how to be a better person because it’s centered around God and honoring him in what you do.”

Wilson said one of his favorite things about playing running back for Dordt is the vast playbook the team uses on offense.

“The thing about Dordt is that with our offense, we don’t necessarily have a true running back who only runs the ball. We have guys who will line up in the slot, we have guys who be scat backs who will receive pitches or swing passes,” Wilson said. “I like the uniqueness, how it makes you work in multiple aspects of the game. The style of running backs we have here are physical runners. We’ll stay in bounds and try and go hit a guy on purpose just to get more yards, and it’s a blast.”

Wilson said that Dordt JV games are primarily on Mondays. They played five this season, winning them all, and Wilson saw considerable action in each of them, scoring a touchdown in one of them.

Dordt’s varsity team wraps up its regular season this Saturday at Jamestown in North Dakota. The team is 6-3 going into that game, and Wilson said the varsity squad will likely just miss out on postseason play due to the fact that they “literally lost one too many.”

Wilson had two choices to further his athletic and academic career, and he’s glad he chose Dordt College. Because of the pandemic, he will have one extra year of eligibility, if he chooses to use it. Wilson said his immediate goal is to make the travel roster for this week’s game. He does suit for all home varsity games.

“My running back coach and I agreed that if I can make it on the two- or three-deep on special teams, I could travel almost guaranteed,” Wilson said. “I’m trying to make it on special teams depth chart and let the rest of it come into play later.”