There goes the last great American dynasty

North Dakota State, the only juggernaut I stan, is back on top with their tenth national championship in 14 years.

North Dakota State won this year’s FCS national championship, a sentence applicable to most years since the invention of the iPhone. This year’s championship was particularly great, a 35-32 win over Montana State.

It was a duel between MSU’s Tommy Mellott and NDSU’s Cam Miller, the quarterbacks who finished first and second in voting for the the Walter Payton Award. But the 21-3 lead the Bison built in the first half was too big for the Bobcats to overcome, bringing the title back to Fargo. Again.

Montana State has to be absolutely sick of the Bison—they lost the title game to NDSU in 2021, and lost to NDSU in the quarterfinals last year on a blocked extra point. But also… everybody on this entire level of the sport is absolutely sick of the Bison¹.

This was North Dakota State’s tenth FCS national championship. That’s one for every 80,000 North Dakota residents². Everybody in the state can hold one of the trophies for about five minutes per year, if they want to. But “ten championships” is underselling it: NDSU has won all ten of those titles in the last 14 seasons. The Bison just experienced their longest title drought in decades: Two years. Before Monday, the Bison hadn’t won since the Joe Biden administration! What a throwback!

One reason to love NDSU is they play real ball. Perennial great offensive line play. Perfectly executed run schemes. They had a fullback win Most Outstanding Player in the national championship two years ago. Like I said. Real. Damn. Ball. The Bison are an eternal horde of massive men named Cade and Caden and Kaden and Kaiden³ running power over everybody’s face forever, and I love them.

But you’re not supposed to celebrate the team that wins every year. Romance in sports is when the underdog pulls the upset. They don’t make movies about dynasties. (OK, they made one, but it was actually about adorable old ladies going on a road trip to watch the sports dynasty, not the sports dynasty itself.)

NDSU is my exception, the one powerhouse I stan. They’re an impossible fusion of the little guy and the unkillable juggernaut. All hail the Bison, college football’s lovable little woodchipper that won’t stop grinding people to death.

A rundown of NDSU dominance.

Quick break to explain some technicalities. FCS is the second tier of college football. It’s a part of Division I, but separate from the FBS, which competes in the College Football Playoff. FCS teams are allowed fewer scholarships and receive far less money from TV stations for the rights to air their games⁴.

But for quite some time, NDSU has had a team which could clearly compete on the top level. They’d won six games in a row against the big boys before this year’s 31-26 loss to Colorado… a team which went on to win nine games and will probably have the top two picks in the NFL Draft. Pretty solid showing!

NDSU has won 10 of the 21 of FCS national championships since moving up from Division II in 2004. That’s 47 percent. They adjusted quickly, winning their first national championship in 2011… and the next four championships in a row. That five-peat was the longest run of consecutive national championships at any level of college football⁵. Along the way, they’ve had the longest win streak in FCS history (39 games, from 2017 to 2021) and the second-longest win streak in FCS history (33 games, from 2012 to 2014).

They’ve excelled even in their off years. Their worst team in this run was probably last year’s, which went 11-4 and made the semifinals. Their worst team in 15 years made the FCS Final Four. That’s Bisonball.

Just like on TV, Fargo is an anthology series.

Most dynasties are tied to a certain coach or player. But NDSU is now on the fourth head coach of its championship run.

And yet, there’s continuity. The coach during their transition up from Division II was Craig Bohl. After winning three national championships in a row, he left to become Wyoming’s head coach, and NDSU promoted Chris Klieman, who had been Bohl’s defensive coordinator. After Klieman won four championships of his own, he was hired as Kansas State’s head coach, and NDSU promoted Matt Entz, who had been Klieman’s defensive coordinator.

When Entz left last season after winning a mere two national championships in four seasons, NDSU turned to Tim Polasek, who was most recently Bohl’s offensive coordinator at Wyoming, and had originally been hired by Bohl at NDSU all the way back in 2006. (When Polasek got the call from Bohl, he had just finished a shift at his job as a literal lumberjack.) Polasek is now 1-for-1 with national titles.

They’ve also replaced QBs. Carson Wentz was the highest-drafted player in FCS history. Their next QB, Easton Stick, also got drafted. And the guy after him, Trey Lance, won the Walter Payton Award for the best FCS player and got drafted third overall. This year’s team was led by Cam Miller, who finished second in Payton voting.

And their strength, as always, is the offensive line. The Bison have five active NFL o-linemen, and they’re going to have another with this year’s left tackle, All-American Gray Zabel.

NDSU will lose a lot of players this year. Miller is gone. So is Zabel. So are other offensive linemen. I think Bryce Lance—Trey’s little brother and a highlight machine—should declare for the draft ASAP. Someday, Polacek will leave, too. (I’m throwing in a longshot bet for “Kirk Ferentz’s successor at Iowa in 2028.”)

The championships will never stop, though. The Bison will never stop roaming.

This may have been the most satisfying NDSU title of the ten.

This wasn’t the best North Dakota State team ever. They’ve had three undefeated teams, but this team lost twice by a combined six points. Pathetic!

But contextually, it’s hard to imagine a better year. NDSU had missed out on the last two championships. Their archnemesis, South Dakota State⁶, had won both. It felt like the balance of power might have shifted across the somewhat arbitrarily drawn border between the Dakotas.

And in two thrilling wins this year, NDSU grabbed it back. The first was a 13-9 slobberknocker in the regular season. NDSU won the game by going 92 yards on their final drive to score a game-winning touchdown.

That earned NDSU home-field advantage through the playoffs, which meant SDSU had to go to Fargo in the semifinal. Again, NDSU won on the last drive, this time with a sensational Bryce Lance one-handed touchdown catch:

It feels like a potential inflection point in the sport. If SDSU three-peats—and they were absolutely good enough to pull it off—they’d be in charge, and NDSU’s run would feel like a thing of the past. The next level of natty-seeking recruits would become Jackrabbits, not Bison.

Winning that semifinal would’ve been a dynasty double-tap, a headshot guaranteeing the NDSU supervillain was dead. Instead, ominous music just started playing as a big Bison’s eye reopened. They’re baaaaaaaaaack.

It’s always gonna be the Bison.

There have been FCS dynasties before. Georgia Southern won six titles. Appalachian State won three in a row and got a W against Michigan along the way. Marshall went back-to-back with Chad Pennington and Randy Moss. But time after time, schools which win on this level are drawn to the siren call of the big leagues.

So why aren’t those teams still winning? Because they left. Of the 23 teams that have won FCS championships, 10 have left for the top tier.

The programs which went to the big leagues surely generate more revenue now. But do they play in front of a packed house every game, like the Bison do? Are they the pride of their state, like the Bison are? Do they end the season with a trophy in their hands and joy in their hearts?

NDSU knows they can achieve everything that’s important exactly where they are, and I think that pays off in the long run. The people cheering wildly in the Fargodome and traveling to Frisco to watch the championships are going to buy season tickets and donate money to the school and raise their kids to grow up Bison fans. Does that happen when you go 4-8 at the next level?

NDSU isn’t going anywhere. Neither are their players, something other FCS schools struggle with. Their coaches can tell players they’ll win championships at North Dakota State, and then they can make the NFL. And then it happens. No need to transfer to a bigger school.

Surely, all the other FCS programs would like to see North Dakota State move on up. Some fans want that for North Dakota State, as well. (They won’t stop emailing Matt Brown about it.) But I look forward to seeing Cade and Kade and Kaden and Kaiden win the 2026, 2027, and 2028 national championships in Nashville.

1. Mandatory pronunciation guide, because it’s non-standard: Byyyy-zin, with a z sound. Imagine somebody throwing a tobacco pouch in the garbage.

2. Alabama only has one national championship per 300,000 residents. Humiliating!

3. OK, I’m lying. NDSU doesn’t have a “Caden” this year. But here’s Cade, Kaden, Kaden and Kaiden. Close enough.

4. NDSU’s games are broadcast on the local ABC affiliate and streamed on ESPN Plus. I recommend watching it for the local ads.

5. Oh, I’m sure, like, Princeton will say oooh we won like eleven in a row from 1877 to 1887 but look: shut up. I’ll pay an NDSU offensive lineman $500 in NIL money to throw you into a trash can. It’s legal to do that now, probably.

6. Dude, I feel so bad for the University of North Dakota. NDSU just blew entirely past them and now the Bison’s main beef with a team in another state. It hurts my heart to say this, but they’re getting Wazzu’ed.They did get a nice win in 2023, though.