The herd now set to take on Central Arkansas in early October

NDSU football is back…sorta. After originally canceling the fall season on Aug. 7, the school announced on Tuesday that they will indeed play a game on Oct. 3 against Central Arkansas at the Fargodome.

With new information coming in every day, NDSU Athletic Director Matt Larsen knew this was an opportunity the school could jump on.

“I think the biggest thing is you know we’ve continued to get different information, revolving information from the NCAA,” Larsen said. “You know one of the things that came out from them is that as they looked at what the fall was going to look like for competing institutions and what was the fall going to look like for non-competing institutions and there wasn’t a huge difference.”

“We talked with Coach Entz and his staff if we’re gonna go move forward with practicing over the course of the next month then probably at some level culminating with a Green and Gold game, let’s play the real thing.”

Larsen also made it clear that for now, Central Arkansas will be the only game the Bison will play this fall.

“We’re not actively looking for a game, we’re not calling people up looking for a game right now.”

As for the Bison faithfully filling the stadium, students will have to wait and see.

“I would imagine sometime end of this week or probably early next week in terms of what are the capacity numbers gonna be and what different components or what different groups of fans will be able to be in attendance.”

Bison head coach Matt Entz mentioned the importance of playing a game this fall, even if it’s just for one game, due to the fog surrounded a spring football season.

“The NCAA has not given us any indication of when or what a spring ball period will look like. And so we sat back last week on probably Tuesday or so visiting with Matt Larsen, this was the best bet for us to ensure or guarantee that we got a spring ball practice in.”

For his players, it’s just business as usual.

“I think a lot of them were like that’s what we do at NDSU, we play football, and so let’s get back to work and let’s get going.”

With big question marks surrounding schools at the FBS football level, there is a real possibility this will be one of the only college football games played this season.

If this proves to be true, the game creates a showcase for the NFL talent on the Bison roster, specifically at the quarterback position. This means a big game from Trey Lance could cement his place as a top quarterback prospect in the draft next April.