Football program looks to do something it hasn’t since ‘94
Following the last-second loss at Minnesota last Saturday, there was a buzz around the NDSU locker room.
The buzz wasn’t coming from the agony of not being able to pull off an upset over the Gophers; the buzz was from the players’ anticipation of starting their conference season.
Tomorrow NDSU will play at Southern Utah to start its Great West Football Conference schedule.
This is the third season of the GWFC and the league is as strong as ever, with three of its five teams ranked in the NCAA Division I-AA Top 25 poll this week.
“ Top to bottom, it’s a rock ‘em, sock ‘em league,” head coach Craig Bohl said.
Despite having only five teams, the GWFC is being regarded as one of the best conferences in I-AA football.
The Gridiron Power Index – a system that ranks teams in order of their likeliness to earn an at-large playoff bid – ranks the GWFC the top conference among I-AA conferences.
Besides NDSU, all of the GWFC teams have played conference games, and the early results show that any team can win the conference.
Last week, SDSU played at defending GWFC champion California Poly, who was ranked fourth in I-AA at the time, and won 29-28.
Cal Poly was the preseason favorite to win the GWFC with SDSU was picked to finish fourth.
“ Within the Great West you see everybody kind of knocking off everybody else,” Bohl said.
All four of NDSU’s remaining games are against GWFC teams.
After Southern Utah, the team will play at California Davis and then finish up the year with Cal Poly and SDSU at home.
Clearly, NDSU wants to win the conference.
“ Our real season is starting right now; we want to win that championship,” wide receiver Kole Heckendorf said.
NDSU has not had a conference ring or banner to show since 1994 when the Bison won the North Central Conference, while still competing in Division II.
While competing in the NCC, NDSU won 26 football titles, including six straight from 1981-86.
“ We haven’t won a conference championship in a long time,” coach Bohl said.
With NDSU still in the transition period to Division I, the Bison are not eligible for the postseason until 2008.
“ Our players feel like it’s a four game playoff run, quite frankly, it is our playoffs,” Bohl said.
The Bison have not had the success they would have liked in the first two seasons of the GWFC.
NDSU finished 2-3, in 2004 and 3-2, in 2005.
“ The past couple of years we haven’t been able to go out with winning the conference,” linebacker Joe Mays said. “We just have a lot of momentum going into conferencce season. We are just excited to try to get a ring on our fingers.”
Mays was referring to the rings the team will receive if they win the conference championship.
Currently, the conference is a logjam. SDSU, who had a slow start to the season, leads the conference with 1-0 league record. SDSU is ranked just outside of the Top 25.
Cal Poly and Cal Davis each have one loss while Southern Utah is 0-2.
The two GWFC games at the Fargodome in November will likely have conference championship implications.
The Bison have lost the last two meetings to Cal Poly and split with SDSU.
“ We need to start off at Southern Utah with a win in the conference and get a ring,” quarterback Steve Walker said.