Coming off of the emotional high of routing #7 UND, the Bison were back on the road heading to “Little Egypt,” otherwise known as Carbondale, Illinois, to take on the Salukis of Southern Illinois. The Bison came into this game limping as Cam Miller was dealing with a right ankle injury that kept him out of a practice during the week and was maybe 75% going into the game. If NDSU wasn’t close to 100%, then Southern Illinois was maybe at 40% themselves as the Salukis were down to their 4th string quarterback, Jake Curry. The true freshman from Edwardsville, Illinois, played spot duty in their 45-10 loss against Illinois State the previous week and now would start his first collegiate game against the #2 ranked Bison.
SIU took the opening possession to the NDSU 40-yard line before an Allen Middleton fumble forced by Sam Jung stalled the Salukis’ first possession. The Bison offense has started fast all year, and Saturday was no different as a seven-play, 76-yard drive ended with a Barika Kpeenu six-yard touchdown to give the Bison an early 7-0 lead.
In the second quarter, Southern Illinois would put together its most productive drive of the day as a nine-play 42-yard drive ended with a 50-yard Paul Geelen field goal to cut into the NDSU lead 7-3.
The Bison offense would respond with a patented NDSU drive, 14 plays, 75 yards, 4:46 off the clock, and seven points as a limping Cam Miller would find Chris Harris for an 11-yard touchdown pass to put NDSU up 11 at the half.
SIU and NDSU traded punts to begin the half, but then the Herd extended the lead to two possessions as Griffin Crosa tacked on a 34-yard field goal to make it 17-3 NDSU. Three punts later, the Bison put the game away with a soul-crushing 87-yard drive that took 11 plays and over seven minutes off the clock as CharMar Brown would finish off the Salukis with a nine-yard touchdown run to put the Herd up 24-3.
On SIU’s last drive, Darius Givance would put the game on ice with an interception and run back to the Saluki 25, where NDSU would run out the rest of the clock. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t perfect, but North Dakota State heads into the “Dakota Marker” game 6-1 overall, 3-0 in conference play, and 5-0 against FCS competition.
Even in a choppy game for the offense where points were hard to come by, the Bison still racked up 367 yards. The NDSU ground game ran up 163 yards, 95 of which came from Marty Brown as he also accounted for six points as his score in the 4th put the game away. Cam Miller, even on a bad ankle, was 18 of 24 passing for 193 yards and one touchdown. “Code Green” showed out again as they allowed only 187 yards, forced two turnovers, and only gave up three points on the afternoon. NDSU does have some injury concerns that will linger into next week as Nick Kubitz, Dylan Hendricks, Bryce Lance, and Cam Miller all had some sort of ailment during the game, but none of them should miss any time as NDSU will need all hands on deck as the arch-rival comes calling next week, #1 South Dakota State.
The Bison have not beaten SDSU in five years; their last win came in 2019 when Trey Lance led NDSU to a 23-16 win thanks to a 71-yard touchdown from Adam Cofield. That game was preceded by ESPN’s “College Gameday” program. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network’s cameras will return to Fargo as the 21st annual “Dakota Marker” game will be broadcast on ESPN2. This is also NDSU’s first regular season night game in eight years as kickoff between the Bison and the Jacks is set for 7 p.m. from the Fargodome. The Jacks have won 19 consecutive conference games and the last two national championships.
We should anticipate an unbelievable environment between two FCS titans, and this game may be a national championship preview, but for now, control of the MVFC and the path to a top-two seed will run through the winner of this matchup.