McFeely: No trophy and not much play as NDSU AND rolls the dice – InForum

FARGO – Leading up to the game and on the backlog before North Dakota State’s game against North Dakota on Saturday, there was talk of a traveling trophy to replace the defunct Nickel Trophy. Fighting Hawks fans were confident their team would break through the Fargodome Hex.

Hey, they had a right. They felt alive. UND defeated the Bison last season in Grand Forks by an unsightly score of 49-24, prompting a storm on the Alerus Center field and tears from the Hawks’ head coach.

Even last week, UND secured a 72nd-place finish over Murray State in the Alerus’ exhibition game, the most points the Fighting Hawks have scored since Grover Cleveland’s presidency. Or so.

What we learned, in case we needed reminding, is that Murray State is not NDSU.

And while the Fargodome isn’t the Alerus Center either, we’re not entirely sure how much the venue had to do with Saturday’s outcome. This was a physical beating. NDSU simply has more talent again. The difference between the quarterbacks and what each offense can accomplish with them at the helm was huge.

NDSU prevailed over UND, winning 41-17 in a game that wasn’t all that close. UND had a chance to make it a game early in the second half, but when Fighting Hawks quarterback Simon Romfo lost a fumble on the first play of the third quarter and the Bison scored a touchdown eight plays later to tie the score at 31 Bringing -10 was all she wrote.

The rest of the game was a time-waster until the final whistle as UND piled up empty yards in the fourth quarter. The stat sheet shows UND with 267 total yards, but that number was just 170 before these last two drives.

UND came into the game ranked No. 7 in the Football Championship Subdivision and, despite the lopsided loss, is unlikely to fall behind by much. The Bison are the No. 2 seed and will remain there before facing Southern Illinois next week. But as FCS veterans know, there is often a big gap between No. 2 and No. 7.

Thanks to a thrilling comeback win over Montana in the second game of the season, UND is likely headed to the playoffs. At 4-2, the path to eight wins is clear, even though No. 1 seed South Dakota State and No. 4 seed South Dakota are still on the schedule. The Hawks are good enough, and with the Valley overall as far behind as the FCS, there’s little reason to believe they’ll lose to Northern Iowa, Youngstown State, Indiana State or Illinois State.

Alyssa Goelzer/Forum Communications Co.

Have you seen the SDSU-UNI score? In Cedar Falls, the Jackrabbits were 41-3. What happened to UNI? What happened to our beloved valley?

As for NDSU, the Bison are halfway through their four-game midseason clash and have two dominant wins over ranked teams under their belt. They are 5-1. The defense has allowed a total of 109 net rushing yards over the past two weeks, prompting head coach Tim Polasek to take a small dig at the local media in his postgame press conference for making a big deal out of East Tennessee State Towson had NDSU rush for over 200 yards.

He can. Polasek and his staff make the Bison look like the Bison that won national championships, even if there aren’t NFL guys scattered all over the field. Polasek brings his strength and enthusiasm to the program and makes no apologies for it.

He didn’t treat UND like just another game like his two predecessors did.

“Today was a big deal,” Polasek said. “I think you always know when you play at a school that’s 70 miles apart that it has a storied history. People talk about whose shit it is. Today was our dirt. And it was a bison day.”

There were no travel trophies up for grabs like there used to be, and that probably won’t be the case for a while. NDSU’s athletic director doesn’t seem interested. That’s okay. The bigger rivalry game takes place in two weeks when the mighty Jackrabbits visit Fargo. There is a history and fights for championships there. UND is not yet at this level, as Saturday showed.

Alyssa Goelzer/Forum Communications Co.

Mike McFeely is a columnist for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He began working for The Forum in the 1980s while studying journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He has been at the Forum full-time since 1990, except for a six-year hiatus when he hosted a local radio talk show.