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How to Watch NDSU vs Western Illinois Football Online

north dakota state

Getty North Dakota State will host Youngstown State Sunday. (Photo by Matthew Holst/Getty Images)

The North Dakota State Bison (9-0) will host the Western Illinois Leathernecks Saturday in the annual Harvest Bowl at the Fargodome.

The game (3 p.m. ET start time) will be on NBC North Dakota locally, but anyone in the US can also watch it live right here on ESPN+, the streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage of dozens of college football games and other live sports every week, all the 30-for-30 documentaries and additional original content (both video and written) all for $4.99 per month.

You can sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch NDSU vs Western Illinois live on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.

Watch NDSU vs Western IL on ESPN+


Western Illinois vs North Dakota State Preview

The undefeated Bison have been rolling this season, and there’s a chance they could use this game against the Leathernecks to get some of their younger players some invaluable experience. Coach Matt Entz said recently that the game could help the team get a glimpse at the future of their program even if his more inexperienced players don’t play:

“Play or not, at least they have the opportunity to go through pregame, trough the Friday night logistics of meetings and team meal, the captains meeting. All those little things that we do,” he said. “Maybe they don’t until a year from now, they red shirt this whole year but then at least next year game one they have a little familiarity of how this operates and we can takeaway some of the normal distractions for a red shirt freshman.”

Entz and his team are fresh off a rout at Youngstown State last week. Quarterback Trey Lance has been on fire this season, with 19 passing touchdowns, no interceptions and eight rushing scores. If Lance and Company get things going early, it would be no surprise to see Entz pull his starters in this one.

The Leathernecks are coming off their only win of the season against South Dakota. Junior quarterback Connor Sampson had a career-best 368 yards passing to go with three touchdowns in the game. He’ll face a daunting task this weekend against an NDSU defense that is giving up just over 11 points a game.

On defense, Western Illinois has been led by senior linebacker Zach Glisan, who led the team with 16 total tackles last week (eight solo, eight assisted). He and the rest of the defense rank towards the bottom of the Missouri Valley Conference in points given up per contest, with 33.7. Meanwhile, North Dakota State is averaging a conference-best 39.2 points a contest. This has all the makings of a first-vs-worst kind of game, and the outcome will likely reflect this imbalance.

The Bison also have recent history on their side. When the two teams played each other last year, the Bison won handily, 34-7, which was also NDSU’s sixth-straight win against Western Illinois.