Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck and company will need to start rowing the boat harder.
That’s because the Gophers now have another direct competitor for FBS talent right up the road on I-94 with the addition of North Dakota State to the Mountain West Conference. NDSU beat the Gophers twice as an FCS program in 2007 and 2011, and the Bison dominated the FCS overall with 10 national championships in 15 years.
Tony Liebert of Minnesota Gophers on SI sees the Bison as an immediate threat to the Gophers’ future success. NDSU becomes the second-closest FBS program geographically to the Gophers after Iowa State, which will impact recruiting.
“Minnesota always competes against its Big Ten peers, such as Wisconsin and Iowa, for local recruits,” Liebert wrote. “Iowa State’s emergence under Matt Campbell caused the Cyclones to recruit the state of Minnesota quite well, landing notable players such as two-time Minnesota Gatorade Player of the Year Carson Hansen, and Coon Rapids standout Khijohnn Cummings-Coleman, among others.”
“Campbell is now at Penn State, so there is a crop of local Minnesota recruits for new head coach Jimmy Rogers, P.J. Fleck, or now North Dakota State to pursue,” Liebert added. “As much as the transfer portal and NIL have changed the sport, local recruiting is still a huge factor in college football roster construction.”
North Dakota State Mines Minnesota Talent Annually
Much of North Dakota State’s talent has come from Minnesota for years, and that will likely increase with the FBS brand in place.
“The Bison have developed Minnesota stars like Trey Lance and Dillon Radunz into NFL Draft picks at the FCS level, so they will certainly have a strong recruiting pitch at the FBS level,” Liebert wrote.
NDSU upgraded its training facilities in recent years, and the Bison’s long term dominance in the FCS has attracted talent along the way. The current recruiting class consists of 11 players from Minnesota.
Minnesota Faces Conundrum With Bison
The Gophers haven’t scheduled the Bison since 2011, and the Big Ten in general has stayed away from scheduling FCS teams.
With NDSU in the Mountain West, that could change, but for the Gophers, it creates a challenge. NDSU won the past two meetings and fell a point shy, 10-9, in their first meeting in 2006, as Liebert mentioned.
Those first two meetings were before the Bison really dominated the FCS and made deep playoff runs every winter. It’s a game that could hurt recruiting for the Gophers if the Bison play them and win again, but there are upsides to scheduling the Bison, too, as Liebert pointed out.
“There’s not an opponent Minnesota could schedule out of conference that would generate more buzz locally than NDSU,” Liebert wrote. “It’s almost guaranteed to be a sellout, and it would result in a lot more interest than playing an FCS team like Eastern Illinois or a MAC team like Akron, which are two games currently on Minnesota’s 2026 schedule.”
NDSU has a strong fan base within the Gophers’ footprint, and Minneapolis has been a destination for the fan base. The Bison hosted Butler at Target Field in 2019 and Eastern Washington at US Bank Stadium in 2023.
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