North Dakota State joining the Mountain West Conference came as no surprise to former Bison athletic director Gene Taylor.
He served as NDSU’s AD from 2001 to 2014, as the Bison FCS dynasty took off. Taylor, now with Kansas State, knows well how long the Mountain West kept an eye on the Bison.
“The Mountain West has been interested in them for a while,” Taylor told the Fargo Forum’s Jeff Kolpack in June.
While Taylor didn’t specify how long other than a call from the conference in 2024 regarding his former school, it’s worth mentioning that Forum had been speculating about the Mountain West possibility for years. The Bison didn’t look like a lock to make the move because of the budgetary needs to be an FBS program, and NDSU’s remote location made it a challenge to join any FBS conference.
The Geography Hurdle For NDSU
NDSU’s closest FBS neighbor is Minnesota in the Big Ten, and the Bison weren’t going to join a Power Four conference right off the bat. That said, NDSU had already upset both the Golden Gophers and Iowa during the FCS dynasty, so a Big Ten invite would have provided some intrigue.
NDSU had no Group of Six neighbor closer than Northern Illinois and Wyoming, ironically two teams that the Bison will play in the Mountain West. With the departure of powerhouses from the FCS and the Mountain West’s shakeup in the past year, the circumstances aligned for the Bison to make the jump.
That’s even after a disappointing end to the 2025 season, where Illinois State rallied to upset the Bison in the playoffs amid a half-empty Fargodome. NDSU’s stunning exit from the FCS scene won’t characterize the Bison’s 22 years of dominance in the FCS.
NDSU Burst on the FCS Scene in 2003
The Bison announced their FCS arrival a year early in 2003 with an upset for then-No. 2 Montana in Missoula. NDSU never slowed down after that, even in the four years of no playoffs due to the NCAA transition rules.
Current athletic director Matt Larsen didn’t let another playoff hiatus occur this time around as NDSU successfully convinced the NCAA to life the previous two-year ban. NDSU looks to make a grander entrance into the FBS than the Herd did going from Division II to the FCS.
The Bison kept winning big and often in the early FCS years with a Great West Conference championship and top-10 records in 2006 and 2007 in particular. NDSU then made a deep playoff run in 2010, which set up the five-peat of national championships from 2011 to 2015.
The Bison beat FBS teams left and right along the way from Ball State to Kansas State, which had just won the Big 12 before that year 2013 upset. NDSU kept up the winning with five more national titles from 2017 to 2024, and the Bison produced another four NFL quarterbacks, after Carson Wentz, who became the first in 2016 when the Philadelphia Eagles took him No. 2 in the draft.
Only two other teams in the country, Alabama and Ohio State, cane claim five NFL quarterbacks in the past decade. Powerhouses such as the Crimson Tide and Buckeyes haven’t ever schedule the Bison, and understandibly so. The whole FBS more or less stopped scheduling the Bison after 2016, when the team stunned then-No. 13 Iowa on the road.
NDSU had Arizona and Colorado on the schedule after that in 2022 and 2024 respectively, and the Bison nearly beat both. The Herd also had Oregon on the schedule for 2020, but that got pushed out to 2028 because of COVID.
Bison Eying College Football Playoff
NDSU could face Oregon sooner if the Bison make the College Football Playoff this season or next. The Bison could follow in the footsteps of fellow former FCS power James Madison, which grabbed the second Group of Six spot and faced the Ducks on the road.
NDSU does have a tall order to make the CFP in Year One. The Bison have no Power Four teams on the schedule, and one FCS game and a recent FBS newcomer in Sacramento State aren’t any help to strength of schedule hopes.
That said, NDSU has built up a reputation of competing big with anyone, and if the Bison run the table convincingly this year, the Herd could be in the mix for a CFP spot. If it doesn’t come this year, possible expansion to the CFP could make it more attainable for the Bison.
Former NDSU Exec Makes Telling Comment on Mountain West Interest