Frisco, Texas
The wrecking ball, so to speak, was scheduled to arrive at Toyota Stadium on Tuesday, marking the beginning of a two-year renovation of the facility. This includes the removal of the signature stage at the north end of the field.
North Dakota State players are no strangers to that concrete part. On Monday night, they celebrated for the 10th time. It was the 10th time green and gold confetti was flying everywhere after a 35-32 win over Montana State. It will be the 10th time that Queen’s “We Are the Champions” will be blaring from the sound system after the trophy presentation.
Yes, the Bison won the FCS National Championship on a cold Monday night. But this title was really won on those cold nights last December and January.
That’s when new head coach Tim Polasek and his staff made some of their best recruiting efforts and kept players from leaving. In this day and age of transfer portals, that can be difficult to do.
Nowadays, it seems that the way coaching is done is changing.
“It all started with a group of seniors who decided to stay,” Polasek said after the game. “We have a great effort to try to get kids as much as we can, but they made a collective effort that we need to stay here.”
Seniors like quarterback Cam Miller led the way. He was undoubtedly the most valuable player in the game, completing 19 of 22 passes for 199 yards and rushing for 121 yards.
David Samson/The Forum
“There’s no reason not to put it in his hands,” Polasek said.
Why the Bison won the game A-1 was Miller. But give it up for the head coach too. Although a career assistant, this was his first head coaching position. There is something unknown there.
It’s one thing to call plays and coach offensive linemen, as he did at Wyoming and Iowa, respectively, but it’s another thing when all that work puts money on your desk. .
He becomes the ninth coach to win an FCS title in his first year with the club, which also includes former NDSU coaches Chris Klieman in 2014 and Matt Entz in 2019. The addition of these three to Georgia Southern’s Tim Stowers (1990) is not the most unusual addition ever. ), Bob Pruett of Marshall (1996), Mark Whipple of Massachusetts (1998), Mike London of Richmond (2008), Mike Houston of James Madison (2016), Jimmie Rodgers of South Dakota ( 2023).
These coaches inherited successful programs, so they had an easier time than trying to develop bottom feeders into candidates. But you still need to give your team the thumbs up right away.
“The standard is the standard and the expectation is the expectation,” Polasek said. “We just did a great job of getting through it. And with Cam’s continued improvement, I thought we had a chance, and we did. He was playing at a really high clip. . We knew we were going to win in the shootout, we knew we were going to win in the ugly games. Those are important and we learned that along the way.”
The Bison’s victory came at the cost of another heartbreak for former Bison player and assistant Brent Vigen. The general notion among NDSU fans is that if the Bison are going to lose to anyone, it’s going to be to a team coached by Viggen. What’s that cliché? Is imitation sincere flattery?
The Bobcats were built at NDSU West the same way Craig Boal built the Bison dynasty. As Vigen would know, he was with Ball throughout his 11 years in Fargo, and they also spent seven years together at the University of Wyoming.
While MSU couldn’t match the Bison in the trenches in the 2021 title game (and I’m sure many FBS programs couldn’t either), the Vigen lost in the second round to the Bison in overtime last year, losing by a wide margin to the Bison in the trenches. Shrunk it a little. . Speed is all fine and dandy in FCS football, but if you don’t have power up front, good luck.
For now, Vigen is at Montana State University and Polasek is at NDSU.
“Our expectations for our program are to win this game, but it’s hard to make that happen,” Vigen said. “It’s really difficult to do.”
It’s as hard as taking over a college football program these days and keeping the team together.
Jeff is in his 30th year as a reporter at Forum Communications, even though he wants to shake off the image he had when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. The son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the younger brother of a reporter, Jeff has worked for the Jamestown Sun, the Bismarck Tribune, the Forum since 1990, and North Dakota State athletics since 1995. I’m doing an interview.
Jeff has covered all nine of NDSU’s Division I FCS national football titles and has written three books: “Horns Up,” “North Dakota Tough,” and “Covid Kids.” He is the radio host for “The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack” from April through August.
