Building a Dynasty

[McNeese75]

Interesting perspective on the success of the NDSU program (which is spot on IMO).

https://zemsgems.wordpress.com/

The information is on the January 7, 2019 page.

Congrats to the Champs xthumbsupx

[centennial]

Did you write this? Excellent piece.

[UNAPride]

"North Dakota and North Dakota State are the only two D1 programs in North Dakota. Currently NDSU owns the airwaves for the entire state. NDSU receives more than $1.5 million dollars from TV revenue from carrying home games on state wide run TV stations. They also have every corner of the state covered in radio programming in which coaches shows and call-in shows are prevalent in every city in North Dakota that has a radio station. They are the “LSU” of North Dakota and can demand big dollars from state wide advertisement."


Wow. Must be nice.

[UNAPride]

"It goes beyond coaching. Craig Bohl won 85% of his games at NDSU and is 28-35 at Wyoming in five years. He also has a losing record in conference games. The new Kansas State coach will find out he does not have the same advantages at KSU that he does at North Dakota State."


I find this part of the blog post interesting. I read this article recently:

NDSU success hasn't translated to higher levels for former Bison coaches (https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/football/4547422-mcfeely-ndsu-success-hasnt-translated-higher-levels-former-bison-coaches) (Grand Forks Herald)

[dewey]

Very well written and hits on numerous reasons why NDSU has been very good.

My biggest issue was this...

The ex-principal was very frank with me. He said for years NDSU just tried to play with mostly all-white players who were produced in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. After declaring for D1, they had to find skill players who often are black players. Fargo maybe 2200 miles from Florida, but they send coaches to Florida to find WRs, DBs, and running backs. They have spread their wings to 15 states including California, Florida, and Michigan. However, they do not go south of Kansas other than the state of Florida.

I do not agree that NDSU preferred white players before the D1 transition began in 2003. I could name numerous African american players dating back to the 1960's that were key contributors to National Championship teams. Generally the D2 teams were more midwest players and the D1 teams are coming in from numerous other areas of the country.

I think the general point is that NDSU had to branch out across the country to get more skill position players.

Another thing that is key is the strength and conditioning program at NDSU. The Bison have done a great job at finding 6'-3" or so 230 or so pounds guys from small town ND and growing them into monsters.

NDSU and Nebraska are very similar in terms of the in state kids grow up wanting to play for the home state powerhouse and get a lot of walk on talent this way. Plus aboit 15-20 thousand fans for NDSU travel 1000 miles to support their team. Similar to Nebraska. Obviously the Huskers are on a different level but after hanging out with some Husker fans the similarities are very striking.

Very good article though!

Dewey

[Model Citizen]

"North Dakota and North Dakota State are the only two D1 programs in North Dakota. Currently NDSU owns the airwaves for the entire state. NDSU receives more than $1.5 million dollars from TV revenue from carrying home games on state wide run TV stations. They also have every corner of the state covered in radio programming in which coaches shows and call-in shows are prevalent in every city in North Dakota that has a radio station. They are the “LSU” of North Dakota and can demand big dollars from state wide advertisement."


Wow. Must be nice.





Some perspective: Louisiana has 4.7 million people. North Dakota has 755k.

[BadlandsGrizFan]

I think this piece is garbage. Theres huge assumptions that arent accurate in this article. NDSU currently shows 22 kids from North Dakota on their roster, out of those 22, theres about 4-5 that actually play significantly. In comparison, Montana has 50 kids from Montana on its roster, of which about 20 play significantly. Stating that NDSU has an advantage because they get North Dakota farm kids to play for them isn't accurate. Ya they get walk-ons to fill their roster for practice, but its not those kids out winning them championships.

Second the part about white kids and black kids is really weird and IDK where the article is trying to go there. Ya every school recruits kids from the bigger populated states, for North Dakota, they dont have a state in close proximity like Montana does with say a California, Oregon and Washington, so yes they go to Florida to find talent, I wouldnt say they go to Florida to find "black talent". That whole paragraph was just weird.

The reasons NDSU are dominant are simple, but hard to duplicate.

1. They redshirt a **** load of players, kids come in with the expecatation they will sit a year, get bigger and stronger, and then learn from the ones ahead of them on the depth charts. That creates great program depth.

2. They have had unreal program continuity with coaching staffs. Each of their last 3 coaches and now with the new guy, are all from within the program, they've all been teaching the same philosophies, recruiting the same regions and schools, and knowing that their time is coming in the future. It is unbelievably rare to have this many coaches come one after another from within the program. The fact that they haven't came across at least one of those guys that just cannot hack it or made a bad hire yet is astounding and great work on their Athletic Dept.

3.They are right in the backyard of the most under recruited region in the nation. Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota are all states with really decent population sizes. They have large schools that get overlooked by the rest of the nation besides the Big 10 or Big 12 every now and then. Therefor that region has an abundance of FBS or borderline FBS talent that gets no offers from big school. NDSU comes in and loads their roster with those kids. Its a misconseption that NDSU is dominating with a roster full of South and North Dakota kids.

4. And finally maybe the biggest reason they have had this run....QB talent. The last 3 QBs to come through this program have all been unreal FCS talent. Wentz obviously was the #2 pick in the NFL draft and Stick and Jensen are both borderline NFL, definite Canadian League talents, and they've had those 3 guys all come in a row! Does anyone realize how rare that is? For again a Montana example, our best QB and legend of Montana Dave Dickensen was a good Canadian Football League player....NDSU has had 3 of those dudes in a row. Thats unreal for a FBS program let alone FCS.

[UNAPride]

Some perspective: Louisiana has 4.7 million people. North Dakota has 755k.

I was mainly commenting on the $1.5M in TV revenue and being the dominant program in the state as an FCS team.

Alabama has so much competition (5 FBS teams and 5 FCS teams) for media coverage, fans, etc.

[Bison56]

Some perspective: Louisiana has 4.7 million people. North Dakota has 755k.

Most people like to ignore that.

[ST_Lawson]

I was mainly commenting on the $1.5M in TV revenue and being the dominant program in the state as an FCS team.

Alabama has so much competition (5 FBS teams and 5 FCS teams) for media coverage, fans, etc.

That was my takeaway too. I'd give just about anything to have our games on ANY local TV. We get nothing in terms of media revenue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[UNAPride]

I remember NDSU from back in the 80s as they were tearing up D2. Yet, dynasties can certainly have lulls and that got me to thinking.

As a writer for D2 football, I always felt like NDSU was at the top of D2 and then reclassified. But, looking back, that's not the case.

Can any long-time fans fill me in on the last years of D2 and what happened? In the Bison's last 8 years of D2/NCC play, they only went to the playoffs twice.

What was up from 1996-2003? Any insight?

http://college-football-results.com/f/ndakotst.htm

[Laker]

I remember NDSU from back in the 80s as they were tearing up D2. Yet, dynasties can certainly have lulls and that got me to thinking.

As a writer for D2 football, I always felt like NDSU was at the top of D2 and then reclassified. But, looking back, that's not the case.

Can any long-time fans fill me in on the last years of D2 and what happened? In the Bison's last 8 years of D2/NCC play, they only went to the playoffs twice.

What was up from 1996-2003? Any insight?

http://college-football-results.com/f/ndakotst.htm

Without looking, I could give you two sets of initials of teams that were pretty good in the NCC.

UNC and UND. I know that they had three national titles during that time.

[dewey]

I remember NDSU from back in the 80s as they were tearing up D2. Yet, dynasties can certainly have lulls and that got me to thinking.

As a writer for D2 football, I always felt like NDSU was at the top of D2 and then reclassified. But, looking back, that's not the case.

Can any long-time fans fill me in on the last years of D2 and what happened? In the Bison's last 8 years of D2/NCC play, they only went to the playoffs twice.

What was up from 1996-2003? Any insight?

http://college-football-results.com/f/ndakotst.htm

I can touch on a few reasons why but I certainly do not know all of the reasons.

1. The scholarship reduction in D2 affected NDSU's depth.
2. Rocky Hager had some players get into trouble and that lead to his dismissal as head coach as IIRC he didn't see eye to eye with the athletic director.
3. GFCC finally overtook the Bison as the team to beat in the NCC along with Northern Colorado and Nebraska Omaha. In those days if you lost 2 games there was virtually no chance of making the playoffs.
4. NDSU did make the National semifinals in 2000 and lost at Delta State on terrible field.

These are just a few reasons why they slipped but only 3 losing seasons in the last ~55 years of Bison football.

Craig Bohl took over for Bob Babich who in his last season went 2-9 (maybe 3-8) and woke up a sleeping giant.

Dewey

[Bisonator]

I think this piece is garbage. Theres huge assumptions that arent accurate in this article. NDSU currently shows 22 kids from North Dakota on their roster, out of those 22, theres about 4-5 that actually play significantly. In comparison, Montana has 50 kids from Montana on its roster, of which about 20 play significantly. Stating that NDSU has an advantage because they get North Dakota farm kids to play for them isn't accurate. Ya they get walk-ons to fill their roster for practice, but its not those kids out winning them championships. Apparently you did not watch the championship game then. Our starting center is from ND, in fact he was named the Rimington award winner as best center in FCS. Our starting LB Levi Jordhiem another ND kid had an interception in the game. Our starting DE Stanley Jones another ND kid had a strip sack fumble recovery. MT has more because they have a larger population then ND. I think if you add in our MN kids it's probably more accurate.

Second the part about white kids and black kids is really weird and IDK where the article is trying to go there. Ya every school recruits kids from the bigger populated states, for North Dakota, they dont have a state in close proximity like Montana does with say a California, Oregon and Washington, so yes they go to Florida to find talent, I wouldnt say they go to Florida to find "black talent". That whole paragraph was just weird. I agree with this that doesn't make sense. We get white and black kids from all over our recruiting area.

The reasons NDSU are dominant are simple, but hard to duplicate.

1. They redshirt a **** load of players, kids come in with the expecatation they will sit a year, get bigger and stronger, and then learn from the ones ahead of them on the depth charts. That creates great program depth. Not everyone redshirts. I think we played 6-7 true freshmen in every game this season, most on special teams. You're correct though that we bring in kids that buy in and are willing to stick around until their time comes which is very important.

2. They have had unreal program continuity with coaching staffs. Each of their last 3 coaches and now with the new guy, are all from within the program, they've all been teaching the same philosophies, recruiting the same regions and schools, and knowing that their time is coming in the future. It is unbelievably rare to have this many coaches come one after another from within the program. The fact that they haven't came across at least one of those guys that just cannot hack it or made a bad hire yet is astounding and great work on their Athletic Dept. Agree that the coaches have been amazing and when you are rolling it's easy to hire from within and keep rolling as opposed to reshuffling entire new staffs every 3-4 years.

3.They are right in the backyard of the most under recruited region in the nation. Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota are all states with really decent population sizes. They have large schools that get overlooked by the rest of the nation besides the Big 10 or Big 12 every now and then. Therefor that region has an abundance of FBS or borderline FBS talent that gets no offers from big school. NDSU comes in and loads their roster with those kids. Its a misconseption that NDSU is dominating with a roster full of South and North Dakota kids. Agree that the midwest is a hotbed of talent but it's not like we don't have competition for those kids. There are lots of FBS schools plus a bunch of other FCS schools recruiting the same areas. We've been able to get some high end kids with P5 offers but the vast majority of our recruits are not P5 or even G5 recruits out of HS. We bring in kids with the right frames and athleticism and mold them with out S&C program. Our roster is 75-80% ND, SD & MN kids.

4. And finally maybe the biggest reason they have had this run....QB talent. The last 3 QBs to come through this program have all been unreal FCS talent. Wentz obviously was the #2 pick in the NFL draft and Stick and Jensen are both borderline NFL, definite Canadian League talents, and they've had those 3 guys all come in a row! Does anyone realize how rare that is? For again a Montana example, our best QB and legend of Montana Dave Dickensen was a good Canadian Football League player....NDSU has had 3 of those dudes in a row. Thats unreal for a FBS program let alone FCS. Agreed that we have been blessed with some great QB talent but we have also developed those guys as well. NDSU has had some tremendous QB play through out it's history, that's not by luck or chance.

My comments in red.

[Bisonator]

I remember NDSU from back in the 80s as they were tearing up D2. Yet, dynasties can certainly have lulls and that got me to thinking.

As a writer for D2 football, I always felt like NDSU was at the top of D2 and then reclassified. But, looking back, that's not the case.

Can any long-time fans fill me in on the last years of D2 and what happened? In the Bison's last 8 years of D2/NCC play, they only went to the playoffs twice.

What was up from 1996-2003? Any insight?

http://college-football-results.com/f/ndakotst.htm
Dewey hit on some of the reasons.

I would add that our athletic director from 1988 to 2000 was a frucking moron and an asshole that tried his best to destroy the program! Never ever hire someone from your ****ing arch rivals institute! xmadx

[BadlandsGrizFan]

My comments in red.

I agree with most of what you added. And I didnt mean to make it sound like ND kids dont contribute what so ever, you obviously have some very good players from ND, liek I mentioned, its like 3 or 4 kids tho. The article made it sound like its just a team of NoDaks out there kicking ass. If I recall I thought a majority of your roster is from Minnesota.

[Bisonator]

I agree with most of what you added. And I didnt mean to make it sound like ND kids dont contribute what so ever, you obviously have some very good players from ND, liek I mentioned, its like 3 or 4 kids tho. The article made it sound like its just a team of NoDaks out there kicking ass. If I recall I thought a majority of your roster is from Minnesota.
Yes the majority of our roster is MN kids. There are many reasons for that, being right on the border and having reciprocity with MN, a huge population base with only 1 D1 school among them.

[Silenoz]

Football moneyball:

1 - Recognize there is a hugely undervalued gap in the current market (in this case a power running game, when everyone else is moving towards fancy finesse spread offenses)
2 - Have the culture, support, continuity, and brand to build #1 over many years
3 - Keep it going with success begetting success, and running the tightest ship possible
4 - Keep a gap between you and the competition because there are only a handful of programs that can build and maintain much of anything, and they either have trouble maintaining continuity, have endless setbacks thanks to scandals, or chase a bunch of evolutionary football dead ends.

[thebootfitter]

I think this piece is garbage. Theres huge assumptions that arent accurate in this article. NDSU currently shows 22 kids from North Dakota on their roster, out of those 22, theres about 4-5 that actually play significantly. In comparison, Montana has 50 kids from Montana on its roster, of which about 20 play significantly. Stating that NDSU has an advantage because they get North Dakota farm kids to play for them isn't accurate. Ya they get walk-ons to fill their roster for practice, but its not those kids out winning them championships.
As someone else pointed out, some of our key players are the ones from ND and SD, but also Minnesota locals. However, I believe you are undervaluing the scout teams. If they were not an integral part of the team, working their tails off everyday just as if they were a starter, I'm pretty sure NDSU wouldn't be winning as many championships. It is because they are part of a team that is bigger than any individual players that they commit to the cause and work their tails off. And this is a key ingredient to Bison culture and their winning ways.

[UNAPride]

Without looking, I could give you two sets of initials of teams that were pretty good in the NCC.

UNC and UND. I know that they had three national titles during that time.


I still get disappointed thinking about the NCC being no more. One of the best conferences ever (in any division), IMO.

It's never been the same for any of those schools since it broke up. Some have continued success but the odd conferences, making new conferences, etc.

[Bisonator]

Not to mention a lot of our walk ons eventually earn scholarships and some even go on to get drafted in the NFL. Joe Haeg is a prime example.

[Laker]

I still get disappointed thinking about the NCC being no more. One of the best conferences ever (in any division), IMO.

It's never been the same for any of those schools since it broke up. Some have continued success but the odd conferences, making new conferences, etc.

One thing that gets overlooked is how the NCC dominated women's basketball. For many years the regional was much tougher than the Elite 8 (sort of like it is for the NSIC most years in volleyball). Those were some tremendous battles between UND and NDSU- to say nothing of how SDSU and Augustana had some really good teams too.

[Bisonoline]

I remember NDSU from back in the 80s as they were tearing up D2. Yet, dynasties can certainly have lulls and that got me to thinking.

As a writer for D2 football, I always felt like NDSU was at the top of D2 and then reclassified. But, looking back, that's not the case.

Can any long-time fans fill me in on the last years of D2 and what happened? In the Bison's last 8 years of D2/NCC play, they only went to the playoffs twice.

What was up from 1996-2003? Any insight?

http://college-football-results.com/f/ndakotst.htm

I think that was when the NCC or D2 reduced the number of schollies to 36. Before that NDSU could afford more schollies than other schools so in effect they chopped NDSU off at the knees.

[IBleedYellow]

NDSU basically out-spent other programs in our early D2 days. Once that wasn't allowed we were brought back to the pack.

[UNAPride]

I think that was when the NCC or D2 reduced the number of schollies to 36. Before that NDSU could afford more schollies than other schools so in effect they chopped NDSU off at the knees.

Ahh, I gotcha. Looks like the reductions were voted in for the 1992 season. Am I reading this right that I-A and I-AA had the same scholarship limits (95) back then?

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/10/sports/ncaa-cuts-practice-scholarships-and-seasons.html

[Hammerhead]

Most football players from the upper Midwest are white. Scanning through my 1986 high school year book at Fargo South, I could only find a few black students out of about 1,100 and one of them went on to play at NDSU.



Very well written and hits on numerous reasons why NDSU has been very good.

My biggest issue was this...

The ex-principal was very frank with me. He said for years NDSU just tried to play with mostly all-white players who were produced in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. After declaring for D1, they had to find skill players who often are black players. Fargo maybe 2200 miles from Florida, but they send coaches to Florida to find WRs, DBs, and running backs. They have spread their wings to 15 states including California, Florida, and Michigan. However, they do not go south of Kansas other than the state of Florida.

I do not agree that NDSU preferred white players before the D1 transition began in 2003. I could name numerous African american players dating back to the 1960's that were key contributors to National Championship teams. Generally the D2 teams were more midwest players and the D1 teams are coming in from numerous other areas of the country.

I think the general point is that NDSU had to branch out across the country to get more skill position players.

Another thing that is key is the strength and conditioning program at NDSU. The Bison have done a great job at finding 6'-3" or so 230 or so pounds guys from small town ND and growing them into monsters.

NDSU and Nebraska are very similar in terms of the in state kids grow up wanting to play for the home state powerhouse and get a lot of walk on talent this way. Plus aboit 15-20 thousand fans for NDSU travel 1000 miles to support their team. Similar to Nebraska. Obviously the Huskers are on a different level but after hanging out with some Husker fans the similarities are very striking.

Very good article though!

Dewey

[McNeese75]

Did you write this? Excellent piece.

No, I did not write the article xlolx. The link takes you to the blog that is a really good daily read. Zem includes a lot of interesting material in his blog but he is a McNeese grad.

[Bisonoline]

Ahh, I gotcha. Looks like the reductions were voted in for the 1992 season. Am I reading this right that I-A and I-AA had the same scholarship limits (95) back then?

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/10/sports/ncaa-cuts-practice-scholarships-and-seasons.html

In those years NDSU was D2 and I dont know what the schollie levels were at that time.

[Hammerhead]

I think D-II scholarships dropped from 45 to 36 in the 90s. Maybe it was only 42???


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[Bisonoline]

Ahh, I gotcha. Looks like the reductions were voted in for the 1992 season. Am I reading this right that I-A and I-AA had the same scholarship limits (95) back then?

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/10/sports/ncaa-cuts-practice-scholarships-and-seasons.html

In those years NDSU was D2 and I dont know what the schollie levels were at that time. But here is what I found.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was established in 1906 as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States. The name was changed to its current name in 1910. There was no control over scholarships for any sport, but there was a requirement that a school's athletes had to be enrolled in the school they played for. Football schools could offer as many scholarships as they could afford and many had 150 players or more.
1973 brought about the first limitations on football scholarships in order to free up money for women's sports after Title IX was passed by Congress in 1972 as part of the Equal Opportunity in Education Act. This caused the NCAA schools' presidents and athletic directors to push through a limit of 105 football scholarships. Additional reductions were made in 1978 (95) and again in 1992 which brought the limit to its present number of 85 and 63 for Division I-AA.

[Bisonoline]

I think D-II scholarships dropped from 45 to 36 in the 90s. Maybe it was only 42???


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Which mean you had 36 full rides could be divided up between 63 players.

[SUPharmacist]

I think D-II scholarships dropped from 45 to 36 in the 90s. Maybe it was only 42???


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The 45 to 36 sounds about right. I know I watched some NDSU documentary at some point where Rocky bitched non-stop about that being the reason NDSU fell back to the pack in D2 (likely a big factor) and that all the kids they could no longer offer went to UND (less likely). It seemed like a lot of sour grapes, and I would have thought UND could have been offering at the same higher levels NDSU had been all along.

[nodak651]

This might be the documentary that you mentioned. Never the less, it covers the time period mentioned here, and it's very good for those who havent seen it. https://youtu.be/Im2UUz_tEIw

[Derby City Duke]

Does NDSU split scholarships now? If tuition/room&board rates are low enough that kids could afford to go on a partial, that's one avenue to building the depth you guys have.

[Bisonoline]

Does NDSU split scholarships now? If tuition/room&board rates are low enough that kids could afford to go on a partial, that's one avenue to building the depth you guys have.

Of course they give partials now. 63 full rides which can be doled out to 85 players. Some get full and some get partial.

[Derby City Duke]

Of course they give partials now. 63 full rides which can be doled out to 85 players. Some get full and some get partial.

Asked because I don't really follow the scholarship rules at all (says Captain Obvious...:D).

[Bisonoline]

Asked because I don't really follow the scholarship rules at all (says Captain Obvious...:D).

IMO its pretty stupid to not allow schools to give the full amount if you can afford it.

[abc123]

IMO its pretty stupid to not allow schools to give the full amount if you can afford it.

63 scholarships is the full amount of allowable scholarships for FCS football. However they allow the scholarships to be spread out like some other sports (basically everything with the exclusions of FBS football, MBB, WBB, women's gymnastics, women's tennis and WVB).

[nodak651]

So how does split splitting scholarships work with FCOA? Could a school give everyone of 3/4th scholarship, and FCOA money could be used to fill the funding gap for the student? So the school could then, in affect, have more than the fcs max of full scholarship players?

[IBleedYellow]

So how does split splitting scholarships work with FCOA? Could a school give everyone of 3/4th scholarship, and FCOA money could be used to fill the funding gap for the student? So the school could then, in affect, have more than the fcs max of full scholarship players?


From my understanding is the FCOA is directly correlated to the scholarship. Full scholarship has to get full COA. Half, half COA, etc.

[TheKingpin28]

So how does split splitting scholarships work with FCOA? Could a school give everyone of 3/4th scholarship, and FCOA money could be used to fill the funding gap for the student? So the school could then, in affect, have more than the fcs max of full scholarship players?If I had to guess, I would believe 3/4 a scholarship = 3/4 FCOA.

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[Redbird 4th & short]

Does NDSU split scholarships now? If tuition/room&board rates are low enough that kids could afford to go on a partial, that's one avenue to building the depth you guys have.
not that you asked about ISUr .. but Spack has gradually gone more and more to 3/4 scholllies for most players, then works with families to make up difference with needs based schollies and grades based money. I don't know the numbers, but I believe most of our kids are 3/4 schollies. I am guessing the top end players probably get full schollies if the money can't be made up elsewhere. Otherwise, he tries to get families to buy into his model to build the roster. He seems to think it works in most situations .. certainly, not all.

[McNeese72]

Most people like to ignore that.

And how many Div 1 programs in North Dakota compared to Louisiana?? Got to add that to the perspective.

Doc

[uofmman1122]

Football moneyball:

1 - Recognize there is a hugely undervalued gap in the current market (in this case a power running game, when everyone else is moving towards fancy finesse spread offenses)
2 - Have the culture, support, continuity, and brand to build #1 over many years
3 - Keep it going with success begetting success, and running the tightest ship possible
4 - Keep a gap between you and the competition because there are only a handful of programs that can build and maintain much of anything, and they either have trouble maintaining continuity, have endless setbacks thanks to scandals, or chase a bunch of evolutionary football dead ends.
This is essentially it.

[Bisonoline]

63 scholarships is the full amount of allowable scholarships for FCS football. However they allow the scholarships to be spread out like some other sports (basically everything with the exclusions of FBS football, MBB, WBB, women's gymnastics, women's tennis and WVB).

I fully realize that.My point is if you can afford 85 full rides why not allow it? Its stupid to split schollies up if you dont have to.

[AmsterBison]

NDSU's football camps are a big factor.

[geaux_sioux]

I remember NDSU from back in the 80s as they were tearing up D2. Yet, dynasties can certainly have lulls and that got me to thinking.

As a writer for D2 football, I always felt like NDSU was at the top of D2 and then reclassified. But, looking back, that's not the case.

Can any long-time fans fill me in on the last years of D2 and what happened? In the Bison's last 8 years of D2/NCC play, they only went to the playoffs twice.

What was up from 1996-2003? Any insight?

http://college-football-results.com/f/ndakotst.htm

UND happened. They were our bitch.