When Fresno State head coach Matt Entz coached at North Dakota State in 2020, he struggled to fill open spots for games amid COVID and sought to play a full conference schedule in one FBS conference.
“We have to go FBS,” Entz recently told the Forum’s Mike McFeely recently regarding his thought process in 2020.
Entz and McFeely revisited a phone conversation they had in 2020 regarding the potential FBS move. The Bison, which recently moved to the FBS after dominating the FCS, had just gone 16-0 in 2019, and the options for games fell apart with the conference postponements around the country in the fall of 2020 due to COVID.
“I think that phone call came after we had been told ‘no’ by everyone in the country about playing us. We were kind of the last holdout. We wanted to play that fall for a variety of reasons, and we couldn’t find anybody other than Central Arkansas to play,” Entz said.
An NFL prospect-heavy NDSU team only played Central Arkansas in 2020 before the whole FCS resumed play for a 2021 spring season to make up for the fall. NDSU had contacted Nebraska about a game in 2020, but the Cornhuskers declined.
NDSU Talked With an FBS Conference About Joining in 2020
In Entz’s search for games, an opportunity arose for a full state with an FBS conference and then slammed shut.
“I remember vividly, we talked to a conference that had a school back out of the 2020 season. We called them and said, ‘We’ll take their place on the schedule. We just want to play the conference schedule. We’ll have their home games at our place and we’ll travel for their road games. We just want to play.’ We were told no, that the commissioner would get fired if he let us play in place of a conference member,” Entz added.
McFeeley wrote that “it was an FBS conference, but Entz wouldn’t say which one.” While McFeeley didn’t confirm which one Entz was talking about but noted “it’s not difficult to figure out.”
Two FBS teams cancelled for the 2020 season because of COVID — UConn and Old Dominion. UConn just became independent, and Old Dominion played in Conference USA.
“That was when I said we need to do something different,” Entz said.
Matt Entz Wanted a Different Conference Than the Mountain West
While the Bison joined the Mountain West this year, Entz previously told The Athletic that he thought the American Athletic Conference made the most sense, McFeely noted. That said, Entz emphasized with McFeely that the move just needed to happen.
“There were a couple of years there where we lost some kids to the transfer portal because they saw there were really two levels above us, the Power Four and the Group of Five,” Entz said. “Some of the guys went to the highest level, but there were some others who went places that you asked, ‘Is that really better than here?’”
“It didn’t really seem to matter whether they played better football, it was still a bigger brand,” Entz added. “So we tried to eliminate one of the levels the best we could by operating as close to an FBS program as we could, and I think we did that. But at some point, we just needed to be at the next level. That way if a kid is going to leave, at least he’s leaving for something big.”
Entz left NDSU in 2024 for a linebackers coaching job at USC and then joined Fresno State as the head coach in 2025. Fresno State notably left the Mountain West this year for the Pac-12 and likely won’t play the Bison in 2026.
Former North Dakota State Coach Breaks Silence on Previous FBS Plan