By: Andrew Zimmel
When I arrived at the Fargodome, the maze of tailgaters was thick. The atmosphere for Game One of 2021 (or is it game eleven?) was electric. Fans with RVs stacked in one parking lot. People in cars arguing with parking attendants about where they can park backed up traffic. Students running in front of my car with no care in the world. I hadn’t seen this much yellow and green in one parking lot since I visited the John Deer headquarters last spring.
When I finally found a place to park and made my way through the crowds of fans racing to get in I found myself talking to two older North Dakota State fans. They were wearing Trey Lance San Francisco 49er red jerseys. After talking to them for some time, I felt like I had a good idea of where most fans were on this team. The disappointment of the COVID disrupted season (and the lack of consistent quarterback play) wasn’t going to affect the mood going into this one.
North Dakota State’s sign sponsor is Signarama and they have arguably the best in stadium commercial I’ve heard in a long time. “When ESPN comes to town, they go to Signarama for their signs” which might actually be the biggest flex of any in stadium sponsor ever considering the Bison put all their titles on a single banner.
An underrated feature of the Fargodome is the sound system. For a venue that can hold around 18 thousand fans- the audio isn’t blasting like a lot of other college stadiums. And the smells were in midseason form. Hints of something sweet, but also beer. If it were a candle, the scent name would be “High End midwestern hotel.” Football is back.
The Bison were set to kick off their season against the Albany Great Danes, a team that before today was relatively unknown to fans in this part of the world. The Danes quarterback, Jeff Undercuffler, was the only thing that many of the fans who I spoke to knew about Albany before the game.
“He’s big”
Yes, at 6’5 231Ibs the red shirt sophomore from New Jersey caught some attention. Undercuffler, after throwing for 1,600 yards his senior season of high school, has been the starting quarterback for the Great Danes for two seasons now. After an injury last year- all reports from New York point towards him trying to make up for some lost time.
Even for a non sold out crowd, the fans made the building shake early on. It helped that the Bison defense picked up exactly where they left off last season. With a defensive line that, while a tad on the short side, still is disruptive as ever.
The thing most fans, myself included, were waiting for was to see how the new Bison starting Quarterback would look under center. Quincy Patterson got eased into it with short passes early, but you could see early that Patterson is a quarterback that can add pages to your playbook instead of limiting your team.
https://twitter.com/NDSUfootball/status/1429926421460365320
The Danes played aggressively on their second drive, converting a four down and getting into Bison territory- before Karl Mofor fumbled on the NDSU 20.
Momentum in football is a funny thing. In normal life, if you do something good for yourself, buy new clothes; work out, you feel like more good things begin to happen. Call it positive inertia. But in football, when the defense does something good- the offense almost always seems to come out with more positive energy than they did in the series before. It’s the strangest thing and there is no way to measure it, but it always seems to happen.
And the opposite thing is true for the team who has lost momentum, after the Bison took over in their own territory- they were able to march down the field and score on a Dominic Gonella three yard run in a big part because of penalties. One targeting call and a facemask. Undisciplined football caused by trying to reverse something that neither teams (nor scientists) fully understand.
The Bison defense is a two headed monster that always comes back to the trenches. It was in full force in the second quarter with the Bison pinning the Great Danes on their own nine yard line. In situations like that, you need your front four to get a push, and trust your linebackers and secondary to keep up with any receivers.
Which is exactly what happened in the second quarter when Free Safety Dawson Webber intercepted Undercuffler on an overthrow. Weber, who played in all 16 games in 2019, was playing deep on the overthrow. It was the first artent pass by Undercuffler- forced by the front four getting pressure and man to man defense by the cornerbacks for the Bison.
Soon after, a Patterson-Josh Babicz 18 yard strike made it 14-0 with 20 seconds left in the first half.
Now back to momentum. With 15 seconds left on the clock, Undercuffler was able to get a pass off to redshirt Freshmen Mike Gray for the 67 yard score. If only it were that simple. At the last second *insert Bison defender* appeared to punch the ball out right before Gray got into the endzone. End Zone ref signaling touchdown, Fargodome faithful called touchback and the two worst words in sports were uttered. Replay review. After the jumbotron showed the play five or six times, when the head referee said the call on the field stands- the groan was deafening.
Momentum. The Albany Great Danes had it going into halftime trailing 14-6. Or they did until the first play of the second half.
Dominic Gonella took the handoff and was off the races on a 75 yard run to give him his second score of the game and put the Bison up 21-7. The body control Gonella had as he scampered down the sideline was what caught me off guard more than him getting down the field in 23 seconds. Anytime a player of his size has the speed to outrun defenders in addition to the body control to walk the tightrope down the sideline, it makes for a dangerous runner.
The first takeaway from this game- North Dakota State has a running back that they can count on going forward. One question mark around a team trying to get back to the FCS Championship.
The first missed opportunity of the day for the Bison came with 11:37 left in the third quarter when a *checks notes* a 40 yard wide open pass got dropped by Christian Watson, the pre-season award darling. If that’s the worst thing to happen to the Bison today- then it was a great way to start the season.
Patterson and his receiving core didn’t get a ton of in game reps. Which on one hand surprises me and on the other doesn’t. I think that the coaching staff/Patterson would have liked to get some more passes and connections, but on the other hand if the running game is working and chewing up the clock, why change it?
Kobe Johnson, the junior running back out of Lawrenceville, Georgia finally saw playing time later in the third quarter giving Gonella a break. Johnson adds a little more speed than Patterson and works really well in the second half when Great Dane defense is worn down. I don’t know how great he would be as an every down back- or if he was forced to be the starter.
With the Bison knocking on the door of their fourth touchdown of the day, Patterson got sacked and fumbled, giving the ball back to Albany with 10:59 left in the game on their own 10. The fumble, while not completely excusable, came from the blind side. Patterson showed his speed all day and took big hits, so I’m not overly concerned about him putting the ball on the ground, even if another score would have all but put the game out of reach.
So with the ball on their own ten and trailing by 15, the Great Danes tried to put a drive together. After a Breyden Thomas sack, Undercuff tried to make something out of nothing… throwing into double coverage on his first read. It was easy for Destin Talbert to come up with it and put the Bison back into striking distance on the Albany side of the field.
For any team going forward, the tape is going to show that if you don’t take advantage of Bison mistakes you won’t have a lot of opportunities to win. With 7:10 left, NDSU was using Hunter Luepke to punch in a seven yard run to make it 28-6.
With 6:21 left in the game, the in stadium announcer was already giving out the sponsored player of the game (Gonella, duh) and it makes me wonder how early you could give the player of the game to someone? If you threw three TDs in the first quarter, would that be enough? For the 15,156 Bison fans in attendance, it doesn’t really matter.
By the two minute mark, back up Cam Miller was in at Quarterback and fans were starting to trickle out. I overheard one fan mention tailgating next week’s match up against Valparaiso. For the sake of the Beacons, I hope they bring a stronger defensive line that can stop the run.
The Bison won 28-6 to open up at home. Same time, same place next week for the Valparaiso Beacons.