Before Indiana’s Hoosier the Bison swept through the Big Ten in 2025 on the way to Indiana’s national championship, Big Ten teams avoided another Bison mascot in Thundar with 10-time FCS champion North Dakota State.
That might not change with NDSU moving up to the FBS. Minnesota Golden Gophers sideline reporter and KFAN radio personality Justin Gaard said as much when it comes to the Gophers facing the Bison again. NDSU beat the Gophers twice in 2007 and 2011 and fell a point shy in 2006.
“No chance,” Gaard said during WDAY’s Hot Mic Interview with Dom Izzo on Tuesday.
Gaard then referenced KFAN host Corey Cove previously saying, “there’s no such thing as zero percent or zero percent” on a KFAN show. That said, Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck has already indicated he won’t schedule the Bison, though Fleck wasn’t the coach when the Gophers lost the previous meetings.
“No one wanted to play the Bison the last few years,” Gaard said. “And I was at the [2016] game when they beat Iowa, the year after the Rose Bowl.”
“That was the position they put themselves in,” Gaard added regarding the Big Ten in general. “People said, ‘why are we paying this team to come beat us? This seems counter productive,’ so I mean, possibly, I’ll never say never.”
Minnesota Has FCS and G6 Opponents Ahead
While Gaard didn’t rule out a future Gopher-Bison game, the trends with the Power Four are a factor, but not necessarily soon.
“But it just seems like, especially the way that the Power Four schools are structuring their own deal, kind of playing each other more, adding more conference games, I would say it’s probably a long shot for that, too,” Gaard said.
It’s not quite there yet for the Gophers, which open with FCS Eastern Illinois on Sept. 3 and then host Mississippi State on Sept. 12. Minnesota concludes non-conference play with Akron on Sept. 19 out of the Mid-American Conference, and that’s a Group of Six league, the same as the Mountain West Conference, where the Bison play.
The Gophers open with a Mountain West team in 2027 — San Jose State. In 2028, Minnesota has NDSU’s old FCS and Division II rival, North Dakota and Bowling Green from the MAC.
Gophers Have Poor Memories of the Bison
Former Bison head coach Craig Bohl easily motivated his teams to beat the Gophers since many of the players came from Minnesota and didn’t get recruited by their home state school.
While that dynamic may shift with NDSU moving to the FBS, the Bison coming in and beating the Gophers twice and nearly once before that leaves a bad taste in Dinkytown on the Minnesota campus. Gaard revisited a few of those moments — former Bison running back Tyler Roehl dominating in 2007 and ex-Bison defensive back Marcus Williams, a Minnesota native, stunning the Gophers in 2011.
Those are sights the Gophers don’t want to risk, seeing another former Minnesota prep star racing down the Huntington Bank Stadium turf in green and gold. Minnesota has had enough trouble with other teams from NDSU’s old conference over the years.
“But you’ll always have the memories. Tyler Roehl will always be a hero. Marcus Williams will always have the pick six,” Gaard concluded.
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