C’mon Man!

One of the things I’d love to see come Monday Night Football would be one of the commentators use the C’mon Man! segment about FBS teams scheduling NDSU. They will come into your house, push you around, beat you up, take your pride, take your money and walk out with a win.

Whenever an FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) team puts an FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) team on the schedule the expectation is an easy tuneup game to get some players some experience and confidence brewing. You can’t do that with NDSU! It’s been pointed out before by different sites and once again today that FBS teams need to quit scheduling NDSU. I think the Big 10 gets it, as they’ve sent out a directive that their teams aren’t to schedule any new FCS games. And no FBS team has come calling play the Bison until 2020 (Oregon).

The thing about NDSU is they aren’t your typical FCS team. They aren’t even your typical elite FCS team. You should basically just consider them a Power 5 program that’s been limited to 63 scholarships. They have won 5 straight FCS National Championships (and appear to be on their way to #6 if they keep playing like this) and their last six FBS contests. There are a couple of cupcakes in there (Minnesota wasn’t that good, Kansas was pretty terrible, and Iowa State made Wentz, Crockett and Emanuel look pretty good), but they also beat a Kansas State team that was the defending Big 12 Champion and went on to win the 2013 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. Now they beat an Iowa team that is the defending Big 10 West Champion and ranked in the top 15 (#11 Coaches poll and #13 in the AP Poll). Those are a couple of good teams.

It’s a Tribal thing

I see Manchester United’s bus was attacked by West Ham fans as it tried to get into the stadium. Rioting sports fans is nothing new. In fact England is somewhat notorious for its ‘(soccer)football hooligans’.

It happens here in the States and Canada as well. Last year at a Monday Night Football a Vikings fan was beaten by some 49ers fans.

In the late ’80’s and early ’90’s there were high school teams that refused to use the locker rooms at a couple of the schools located on tribal lands (cough, New Town, cough, cough) due to safety concerns. The teams would arrive on the bus in their gear, play the game, and then go from the field/court to the waiting bus outside and drive off. While I didn’t see it personally, I heard that at least once someone was shooting at one of the buses as it rolled out of town (I think that was in Parshall).

The thing is, this bad behavior isn’t necessarily a racial or ethnic thing, despite protestations otherwise. It’s a Tribal thing. But not as in ‘their just a bunch of uncivilized indians’, but rather who or what you identify with. It’s people who identify with Team X and attacking the symbolism of the ‘Other’. It’s also usually conducted by younger people, in their teens and twenties. Usually this is limited to vocal taunting and gestures, but occasionally we’ll see it make news headlines when it becomes physical.

Fandom isn’t necessarily geographic in nature either. Though local areas generally are more supportive of a team, you will frequently find fans of that team in far flung places as well.

A couple of years ago I attended a MN Vikings game at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis with my Father-in-Law and Brother-in-Law. None of us is a Vikings fan. But after attending a couple of Chiefs games in KC because my Brother-in-Law is a Chiefs fan, my Father-in-Law wanted us to see a NY Jets game as well. The couple sitting next to us were Viking fans, as could be expected. But they weren’t from Minnesota. No, they flew in from New York City to watch the Vikings play. They didn’t even have any ties to the MN area.

In today’s world, at least in the US, we often choose our tribe rather than being born into it. Sometimes that tribe is the local one, sometimes not. Sometimes it’s loyalty to the team, sometimes it’s loyalty to a particular player. But once we’ve made that choice we can sometimes become overly passionate about it and lose focus on being good people. Attacking someone or something because they are perceived as ‘Other’ isn’t limited to sports either. Anything with fans falls into this same trap, though it might not always be physical in nature. Though sometimes it goes beyond mere heckling to harassment and even libel/defamation (See Sad Puppies 3 where several ‘news’ organizations had to retract ‘articles’ regarding Larry Correia).

That was quite a team

Back when I was just entering college at North Dakota State University they were a Division II powerhouse. The football team was the Team of the Decade in D-II, with 7 appearances in the Championship game, winning 5, from 1981 to 1990. There were some really good players to come out of those teams. Jeff Bentrim broke Walter Payton’s TD record and played a little in the CFL. Chad Stark and Doug Lloyd got invited to camp with some NFL teams. Stacey Robinson was on two Superbowl winning teams with the NY Giants. Phil Hansen played in three straight Superbowls with the Buffalo Bills. Casey “Gus” Bradley is the current headcoach of the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars.

 

NDSU finally moved up from D-II, but because of the way the NCAA splits up football the Bison play in the lower tier D-I FCS (Football Championship Subdivision). During their transition years they were arguably one of the best FCS teams out there, but were ineligible for the post season. When they finally became eligible they had an off year (3-8) before starting one of the most amazing runs in post season history of any college football team at any level. In 2010 they lost a heartbreaking overtime game at Eastern Washington, the eventual National Champion. Since then they haven’t lost a post season game, winning the last 5 FCS National Championships.

Many people around here consider the 2013 team to be the greatest FCS Football team ever constructed. They not only went undefeated throughout the season to win their 3rd consecutive championship, they did it by shocking D-I FBS Kansas State, the reigning Big 12 Champion and eventual winner of the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl over Michigan.

That 2013 Bison team was loaded with talent.

Silly Season Is Upon Us

It’s the Silly Season. No, I’m not talking about politics, I’m talking NFL draft. There’s always lots of speculation about what teams are going to do. While a lot of pundits talk about what teams need and who they should go after the teams themselves don’t always have the same outlook. But an FCS Quarterback as the overall #1 pick in the draft? Come on.

History made

 

NDSU just made a little bit of history on January 9, 2016. They became the only team to win 5 consecutive NCAA Football National Championships. It’s something that’s never been done before, at any level. Sometimes the term ‘Dynasty’ gets thrown around a little too freely in athletics. In this case it may be a little understated.

I don’t think you can really call this ‘surprising’. I wrote before about the tradition that NDSU has winning. They have done it for a long time, with lots of different coaches and lots of different players at two different levels.

I think the most impressive thing about this year’s team was how they limited every one of the teams they played in the post season this year to a season low in yardage. Every single one.

Tradition of Excellence

Yesterday as I was looking around the internet at speculation about what today’s FCS Football rankings might look like after 6 of the top 10 ranked teams lost I came across this article about programs suffering through disappointing seasons that mentioned Wyoming’s Craig Bohl. And it got me thinking about some of the past NDSU Bison coaches and the success (or lack thereof) they had at other programs, and how much of NDSU’s success is simply the culture here, the tradition of winning if you will.

Since 1965 NDSU has won 12 National titles at Division II and Division I (FCS) levels and 28 conference titles. Since its inception in 1894, NDSU football has 671 wins, good for 37th all time and a winning percentage of .642.  Since the rise of NDSU Dominance in 1963 under Darrell Mudra the team has gone 476-134-4 for a winning percentage of .775.

Brady suspended

According to this, Tom Brady is being suspended for four games in reference to ‘deflate gate’. I find this surprising because the NFL never really showed Brady was actually involved. They said he ‘was more likely than not’ to be knowledgeable of it happening, which is a pretty low standard of evidence for a four game suspension. Personally, I think the team perpetrated this, not just a couple of low level functionaries. Their fumble stats over the last few years have been extraordinary, well below everyone else in the league. I don’t think that happens without a concerted effort by team leaders.

UND nickname lists come out

Finally, the lists of potential and discounted nicknames to replace Fighting Sioux at the University of North Dakota are out.

From the potential list these are my favorites:

• 7th Calvarly
• Abominable Snowmen
• Amber Wave
• Aurora
• Barnstormers
• Berserkers
• Fighting Teutons
• Fighting Swedes
• Flickertails
• Frackers
• Frost Giants
• Grey Wolves
• Homesteaders
• Meadowlarks
• Nordic Warriors
• Norse
• Old Norse
• Pronghorns
• Roughnecks
• Saga
• Sodbusters
• Frozen Tundra
• Threshing Crew
• Trappers
• Voyageurs
• Yeti

Bison blowout

Bison roll up 623 yards in beating Coastal Carolina 48-14 in FCS quarterfinals.  This team is darn good.  With the way they are playing the only FCS team I see having a chance of beating them right now might be Eastern Washington who upset then #25 Oregon State the same weekend NDSU beat Kansas State.  We’ll have to see how things play out.  But, if they win their third straight title, I’d have to consider this the All-time best NDSU Bison team in the history of the school.

NDSU opened the season on the road with an upset win over defending Big 12 champion Kansas State.  That final drive is really indicative of what this team is like.  At the beginning of that 18 play (nearly 9 minute) drive it doesn’t look so good.  But, Brock Jensen gets the team into position to succeed.  By the end of the drive, it’s the Bison offensive line that is looking good, and the K-State defense is standing around with their hands on their hips trying to figure out what’s going on.  The fans in the stands just look shell shocked.  But, that is what the Bison do to you.  They wear you down.  Against Coastal Carolina they did it early, and just continued throughout the game.  And, the NDSU defense is stifling.  They held the #3 ranked offense to 29 yards in the first quarter, and under 300 for the game.  They’ve been doing this to teams all season.  Outside of Kansas State, the only team close to them was Northern Iowa who they beat 24-23.  No one else has been closer than 15 points all season.