Meanwhile, in Minneapolis...

I usually live for blowouts, because they offer an opportunity to get your game story finished early. If the final minutes are of little consequence, you can use much the fourth quarter to get a great deal of writing done. But I spent the final minutes of Saturday’s dusting of Southern Utah with my eyes trained a slow-updating gamecast of North Dakota State’s highly anticipated fixture with Minnesota of the Big 10. The Bison almost pulled off a shocker on the order of UC Davis’ victory over Stanford, having the potential game-winning field blocked as time expired in a 10-9 loss.

The Bison dominated the game statistically, and were a couple of red-zone turnovers from crushing the Gophers. It’s a shame that North Dakota State is ineligible for the playoffs, because it’s starting to sound as though the Bison have a team that could win the Division I-AA national championship right now (well, in December anyway, no one could win the national championship right now).

It’s obviously disappointing, but from a perception point of view, the result is as good as a victory for NDSU. Remember last September, after the Aggies beat Stanford, when most everything in the immediate aftermath of the game was slanted toward, “What the heck happened to the Cardinal?” Well, in the frigid Midwest, the natural order is still intact. But it shouldn’t be, and that’s something for columnists and writers to get up in arms about. It’s going to be a great PR week for NDSU.

Actually, and we’ll cover this in print edition sometime this week, the Great West race has turned completely haywire. In San Luis Obispo, South Dakota State scored 23 points in the fourth quarter to beat Cal Poly. Two of the three conference favorites (UCD and the Mustangs) now have a loss. Suddenly next weekend’s trip for the Aggies to Brookings, S.D. looks like an absolute monster. Cal Poly is now in serious trouble from a postseason perspective, with games against North Dakota State, Montana and I-A San Diego State still looming. The next couple of weeks should be a lot of fun.