Eastern, North Dakota State renew rivalry

There’s plenty of mystique surrounding Saturday’s nonconference football game between Eastern Washington and North Dakota State in Fargo at the raucous Fargodome.

But revenge for the Bison is not one of the elements in the second-ever meeting between the two schools for a couple of reasons, following their 38-31 overtime loss to Eastern in a blinding snowstorm.

First, as EWU head coach Beau Baldwin pointed out this past Monday at the weekly coach’s show, the players who will face each other were 14, 15 or 16 years-old and all either in high school or middle school when the teams met in a second-round playoff game Dec. 11, 2010.

Eastern went on to defeat Villanova, 41-31 the following week, earning their first trip to the Football Championship Subdivision title game in Frisco, Texas. Eastern rallied from a 19-0 deficit to top Delaware 20-19 for the school’s first championship on Jan. 7, 2011.

Trips to Frisco have been exclusive property of NDSU ever since as the Bison have racked up an unheard of five consecutive FCS championships.

It was both a magical and controversial contest the last time the teams met.

Suffice to say Eastern scored, perhaps, one of its most unlikely victories ever considering the day quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell had up to that point, completing 7 of 19 passes for a miserable 38 yards and two interceptions.

But Mitchell, faced with 90 yards of snowy, slippery turf in front of him, and only 2 1/2 minutes on the clock, found his lost swagger and helped rescue his team.

In that drive, Mitchell connected on six completions — two fourth-down conversions — that led to a 4-yard scoring play to Nicholas Edwards with 23 seconds to play that tied it at 31-31.

Moments later, Mitchell’s 25-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Hart on the first play of OT gave the Eagles the 38-31 lead following Mike Jarrett’s point-after.

Then came the play that conjures up the revenge notion. On a second-and-goal play by NDSU quarterback Brock Jensen from the 4, the ball was stripped by J.C. Sherritt and fumbled into the end zone where it was recovered by Eastern’s Zach Johnson.

The automatic replay by NCAA officials found no reason to overturn the call, even though many thought Jensen stuck the ball across the goal line before the fumble.

While Eastern would win their ninth consecutive game, they lost the services of Taiwan Jones who rushed for 230 yards — including a 63-yard touchdown — before exiting the game with what would turn out to be a broken foot.

That was the Bison’s last playoff loss and they’ve won 20 consecutive games in the postseason, including 37-10 over Jacksonville State, Jan. 9, 2016.

The Bison are 49-4 at home in the 18,700 seat Fargodome since 2010 and have won 52 of 53 non-conference games at home with a current streak of 43 in a row since a 2003 loss to UC Davis and are 72-5 overall since 2011.

“We respect the heck out of their program, but we aren’t concerned about that or what anybody is going to say is supposed to happen,” Baldwin said. “All our team cares about is the great challenge we have ahead of us.”

Remember, eighth-ranked Eastern was a 23-point or so underdog at Washington State, who they beat 45-42 to head to Saturday 1-0, like NDSU. The FCS No. 1-ranked Bison have been idle since a 24-17 win over seventh-ranked Charleston Southern on Aug. 27 in the FCS Kickoff.

As for the noise that will be present Saturday, Baldwin reminded everyone that his team is used to that, having played both in noisy domes such as in Flagstaff, Ariz. And of course, Eastern plays in Missoula where the fans are just feet away from the benches.

The teams meet again at Roos Field on Sept. 16, 2017.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaneyatcheneyfreepress.com.