FARGO —
in the Bison’s FBS debut Aug. 29 at the Fabulous Fargodome. NDSU opened as a 10-point favorite in June, but the advantage has slowly whittled away. We can debate the societal healthiness of point spreads being on the board for months, but one of the perks of FBS is the sharps are paying more attention.
When was the last time NDSU faced such an interesting home non-conference game?
UC Davis came to Fargo in 2019 as the fourth-ranked team in FCS to face a loaded and No. 1-ranked Bison squad that would eventually go 16-0 and win a national championship. The point spread for that game, if Google is to be believed, was 17.5 points. The final score was 27-16 for NDSU, the last competitive out-of-conference home game until the Bison announced they were moving to the Mountain West Conference beginning this fall.
(We refuse to acknowledge the one-off fall 2020 game against Central Arkansas, since the COVID mess that year and the laughable 2021 spring season that followed are best forgotten.)
The last time, likely, the Bison were single-digit favorites for a non-con home game was 2016 when a super-talented Eastern Washington team traveled to Fargo and NDSU escaped with a 50-44 overtime victory. Google couldn’t find me an actual point spread from that game.
The last two seasons in non-conference games at the Fargodome:
NDSU 41, Towson 24 (Bison 24.5-point favorites).NDSU 52, Tennessee State 3 (35.5).NDSU 41, Southeast Missouri 14 (32.5).NDSU 62, St. Thomas 7 (33.0).
If you needed any more evidence it was time for something new, there it is.
Whether the fan base has grasped that the Gamecocks from Alabama are going to be a handful remains to be seen. As of Sunday morning, according to the NDSU ticket website,
Folks, the Bison being only a 6.5-point favorite is enjoyable. It’s fun. The game is going to be … wait for it … entertaining.
NDSU’s 2026 football schedule with opponents, kickoff times and TV networks.
Troy Becker / The Forum
We say without sarcasm: The Bison are only 6.5-point favorites, thankfully.
The result will also go a long way toward determining if NDSU’s first year in FBS will be a “Katie bar the door look out” or “this is going to be harder than we imagined” affair. But that column can wait for another day.
Jax State has won nine games three straight years and last season was a play away from winning the Conference USA championship. Head coach Charles Kelly is a former Alabama assistant who knows what he’s doing and likes to run the ball — the Gamecocks were the fifth-best rushing team in FBS a year ago (246.7 yards per game) and had the country’s leading rusher in Cam Cook (1,659 yards). Cook is gone to the Power Four, but there’s enough returning in the backfield and offensive line to make things interesting.
Jax State’s starting quarterback Caden Creel, a runner more than a passer, returns, too. The Gamecocks have a 6-foot-8 receiver, Deondre Johnson, who looks pretty good on the YouTube machine.
I asked Bison head coach Tim Polasek at practice last week how hard it was to prepare for a first game in this “new” era of college football in which there are so many new bodies between graduation and the transfer portal.
“Jacksonville State returns 67% of their production in the pass game and its above 50% in the run game, production-wise,” Polasek said. “There might be some changes so don’t hold me to these numbers, but No. 59 (linebacker Mac Sanders) is a terrific player and so is No. 1 (safety Caleb Nix). And so what we’ve done is, ‘Who’s coming back?’ You can’t get caught up in the defensive end who’s at Florida now. We focus a lot on structure, if the coordinator stays the same, and you attack structure and then from there we go on to matchups.”
The Gamecocks are a confident bunch, if the reporting in the local newspaper, the Anniston Star, is accurate. They should be. Despite losing most of its front seven defensively, Jacksonville State believes it is bigger and deeper up front. Its offensive line returns. Its senior QB is back.
There’s a lot to like.
“If you’re excited about Jacksonville State’s football season, you have reason to be,”
wrote the Star’s sports editor emeritus Mark Edwards.
“The Gamecocks should be pretty good this year. If you visit AmFirst Stadium this season for one of Jax State’s half-dozen home games, there’s a much better chance you’ll leave happy than sad.
“The Conference USA champion likely will come from this list: Western Kentucky, Liberty, Kennesaw State and, of course, Jax State.
“The Gamecocks have a talented and deep roster, a strong coaching staff and plenty of guys who know what it’s like to play big games week after week in search of a ring.”
Was anybody writing such things about Southeast Missouri, Tennessee State, Towson, Maine or any other non-conference home foe recently? Nope.
Jacksonville State? Yup.
Thank goodness.
Mike McFeely is a columnist for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He began working for The Forum in the 1980s while he was a student studying journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He’s been with The Forum full time since 1990, minus a six-year hiatus when he hosted a local radio talk-show.