North Dakota State Ascends to FBS: Impact and Prospects
Bobby Carpenter, Steele Chambers, and Bill Bender discuss North Dakota State's move to FBS. Can they maintain dominance, and how will it impact the Bison?
Video Transcript
We, we have a feature on North Dakota State.
You know, one of the interesting things about them, I mentioned at the top that they won all these national championships, but sometimes when a program bumps up to the FBS, it, it doesn't always work out.
And I'm really interested to see how they work out because, you know, App State comes to the FBS on the heels of the huge upset against Michigan, had won, I think, either two or three in a row, and they've been okay.
They had an initial bump.
They were okay.
James Madison obviously made the playoff.
I go back to Marshall.
You know, I was in, in, at Ohio University when Marshall was just coming into the MAC, it's couple years in.
They dominated the MAC when they came in.
Granted, they had some receiver named Randy Moss and a couple decent quarterbacks named Pennington and, Leftwich, but they were, they were very dominant, but they've kinda, I don't wanna say fallen off the radar, but sometimes you have to double-check that they're in the Sun Belt now.
So, I wanna see if North Dakota State, A, you know, maintains some of that dominance in the Mountain West, and B, I do think what they are gonna do is open up more people's eyes to that corner of the country has some pretty good football and produces some pretty good NFL players like Gray Zabel a- and the, the pipeline that North Dakota State has.
So we tapped into that a little bit.
They play Jacksonville State on Saturday at the Fargodome.
Should be a fun game.
Now, do you think they have a shot to get in as a Group of 16?
Well, I, you know, the Group of 16, they could.
I mean, in that Mountain West, but the team that's favored to win that, I, I really am inter- I will stay up late and watch it Saturday night, UNLV Memphis.
Really interested to see what- That's good Dan Mullen does in year two at UNLV.
Has Jaxon Arnold, uh- Mm-hmm a two-time transfer, you remember the five-star from Oklahoma to Auburn now to UNLV.
Again, you always have to double-check your rosters when you start watching a game.
And, you do have a lot of moments of, "Hey, I remember that guy."
you know, and, and that happens a lot.
It's gonna happen a lot with UNLV, by the way.
Um- Yeah.
Alex O- Alex Orji's the backup.
Michigan.
Correct.
Yeah, you'll be like- Really?
"I remember him."
Yeah.
Yes.
He's still playing?
Yes.
He, he killed us my fourth year.
So he's gonna Yeah, he'll probably do a couple, quarterback power sweeps in that game.
Um- Maybe and they have a nice roster, so they're one.
Boise State's obviously in the picture.
And one of the things that Tim Polasek, the North Dakota State coach, told me, it's really a good thing for Fargo.
We forget that sometimes, that, you know, moving up to the FBS is a great thing for Fargo, North Dakota, like it was for Boise, like it was for, you know, Huntington, West Virginia when they moved up.
So I, I think that's one of the pieces you miss, that these communities really care about football.
I don't know how good they'll be in year one in terms of will they make the playoff.
I know they have a really strong tradition of offensive line running the football and I, I think they will be fun to watch.
It's good to have them in the FBS.
