With three straight losses to South Dakota State, 'underdog' Bison have extra incentive for national championship

Matt Entz carries a 49-6 record as North Dakota State’s head coach into Sunday’s FCS national championship. Half of those losses are to their opponent, rival South Dakota State.

Entz is 48-3 against the rest of the nation, 27-1 against the rest of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, 1-3 against the Jackrabbits.

Yes, the 9-time national champs are the gold and green standard in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision, but if there’s one team that knows how to beat them, it’s No. 1 South Dakota State.

SDSU (13-1) takes on NDSU (12-2) on Sunday at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Tex., at 1 p.m. on ABC.

The Jackrabbits have won five of the last seven regular season meetings, and each of the last three – though that doesn’t include the two NDSU playoff wins in 2016 and 2018. The last time the Bison beat the Jacks was in 2019, the day ESPN’s College Gameday came to Brookings. NDSU held off SDSU 23-16 behind future 1^st round draft pick Trey Lance, and the Bison are 0-3 since.

While the Dakota Marker rivalry trophy has spent most of its time in Brookings the last few years, Bison fans would happily tell you they’d trade the Marker for the national championship trophy every single year, and the Jacks know it.

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That said, there’s little doubt that SDSU’s recent dominance in the rivalry is a sticking point for NDSU. And there’s no better time or place for them to snap their losing streak to the Jackrabbits than on the national stage with everything on the line.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say we needed it, but we’ve got a lot of motivation in that locker room,” said Bison quarterback Cam Miller. “For myself, being 0-3 against them obviously lights a fire underneath me. Obviously being on the biggest stage – I couldn’t have planned it any better.”

More:9-0: A look at North Dakota State football's history in the FCS championship

Indeed, perhaps nobody is more motivated than Miller. After Lance moved onto the NFL, the Bison turned first to Iowa State transfer Zeb Noland in the 2020/21 spring season, then Virginia Tech transfer Quincy Patterson last year. Both failed to impress. Miller was thrown into action as a freshman in the spring season playoffs, then took over for Patterson halfway through last season. He led the Bison to their ninth title, adding his name to the list of championship quarterbacks next to Brock Jensen, Carson Wentz, Easton Stick and Trey Lance.

As such, Miller’s resume leaves nothing to prove to anyone, but a win against the Jacks would complete it.

Which is a bit ironic, as Miller has played pretty well in his three appearances against SDSU. He carved them up for 181 yards and two touchdowns in the first half of this year’s 23-21 loss, and in last year’s meeting in Brookings Miller threw for 218 yards and two scores and ran for another 59 yards.

“I honestly think I’ve played some of my best football against the Jackrabbits,” Miller said. “That gives me confidence going into this game. I’ve prepared really well against these guys. We have a good idea of what they’re gonna do because we’ve played them so many times. That builds us up and gives us a lot of confidence.”

The Jacks were 5-point favorites in the most updated odds for the game. That isn’t surprising – SDSU is 13-1, the Bison are 12-2, the Jacks won the last meeting and are healthy while the Bison are banged up.

NDSU may be 9-0 in Frisco and due to snap their losing streak against SDSU, but they might as well embrace it – they’re underdogs.

“It kind of looks that way,” said defensive end Spencer Waege, a former Watertown standout. “We weren’t one of the top seeds this year, and losing to SDSU earlier in the season, I guess that makes us the underdog. It’s motivation, like always. Whether we both could’ve been the 1-2 seed or whatever – guys would’ve been motivated to play this game no matter what.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that the Bison are going to do things any different on their 10^th trip to Texas. They know who they’re playing, but they know what’s at stake is about more than a rivalry, and far more than avenging prior losses.

“I think we’re attempting to go about it the same way the previous number of years we’ve been down there,” Entz said. “We’re focusing on ourselves right now to make sure we can be the best version of the Bison when we arrive in Frisco.”

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: North Dakota State football motivated by 3-game losing streak to SDSU