The title and the trophy
Record number of fans watch Bison cap a record-breaking season
Never has a season-ending knee injury been so rejoiced.
Travis White missed the entire 2005 season after blowing out his knee during fall camp. Despite his devastation at the time, it may have been a blessing in disguise.
On Saturday at the Fargodome, White returned a punt for an 84-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter as No.4-ranked NDSU defeated No. 18-ranked SDSU 41-28 to capture its first ever Great West Football Conference Championship.
“ I wasn’t even supposed to have this season,” said White, who took a medical redshirt last year. “We came together as one and played our best and coming out with this conference championship and Dakota Marker is an exclamation mark on the whole season.”
With the victory, the Bison were able to keep the Dakota Marker, a trophy given annually to the winner of the game between the two rival schools.
NDSU defeated the Jackrabbits last season after SDSU won the inaugural Dakota Marker game in 2004.
For a while, the Bison weren’t sure if the 200-pound trophy was going to stay in Fargo.
The Jackrabbits executed several big plays in the first half and jumped out to 14-10 at halftime.
Just two plays into the second quarter and his team down 10-0, SDSU senior quarterback Andy Kardoes tossed a 51-yard pass to tight end Chris Wagner.
Three plays later, running back Anthony Watson scored on a 1-yard run to cut the SDSU deficit to three.
Later in the quarter, Kardoes hooked up with wide receiver Micah Johnson, who was being covered by two Bison defenders, for a 43-yard touchdown reception.
“We had been so good defending the run that when some of those runs started popping to the outside,” Bohl said, “Some of our secondary guys reacted to it and as a result, those big plays were when guys got behind us.”
The Bison held the Jackrabbits to just 105 yards rushing while giving up 337 yards through the air in front of a school-record crowd of 19,053 fans.
Whatever pep-talk Bohl made during the intermission seemed to spark NDSU.
On the first play from scrimmage, junior wide receiver John Majeski took a handoff 65 yards to instantly put the Bison in scoring position, resulting in a 1-yard Tyler Roehl touchdown run.
The Bison ran the same play to Majeski later in the half for a 45-yard touchdown.
“ Ryan Parsons actually ran it the last couple of weeks until he went down with the hamstring injury,” Majeski said of backup quarterback/wide receiver Parsons running the play in previous games. “They plugged me in there and gave me a chance to make some plays and I had great blocking up front. Those holes were huge and I had a lot of fun out there.”
White’s play however, was truly the game-changer.
After Kardoes connected with Johnson early in the fourth quarter for a 59-yard touchdown pass, the Jackrabbits trailed NDSU by only three.
NDSU punted on its ensuing possession, giving SDSU an optimal chance to capitalize.
The Jackrabbits were unable to generate any offense, forcing them to kick the ball away.
White received the punt inside NDSU’s 16-yard line and evaded an SDSU defender before finding a wide-open field to run.
White stiff-armed two other SDSU players before running into the endzone for a touchdown with 6:13 remaining in the game.
“ I saw it coming out of the air and saw the defender,” White, who also finished with eight receptions for 91 yards, said of the play. “I wasn’t sure if he was going to get to me or not so I side-stepped him right away, I looked up and saw it was wide open.”
The conference title was the first for NDSU since 1994, when it competed in Division II and played in the North Central Conference.