North Dakota State’s rushing attack top priority for Eastern Washington in season opener

In April 2021, with Eastern Washington holding a two-touchdown first-quarter lead over North Dakota State, Jakobie James remembers feeling optimistic about the Eagles’ chances of advancing in the FCS playoffs.

But quickly that day at Fargodome, the tide turned.

“We were up 14-0 and I’m thinking, ‘We’re about to destroy them,’ ” James, the senior EWU receiver said this week. “The adjustments they made and how fast they made them, it was insane. It showed their championship DNA.”

NDSU scored 42 of the next 48 points in the game and cruised past EWU into the quarterfinals, where the Bison lost to eventual champion Sam Houston.

Saturday in Minneapolis, the Eagles and second-ranked Bison will meet for the sixth time and the first time since that game . It will be the season opener for both teams.

Although many players from that most recent game are gone, both teams are drawing on that game for general impressions of the other in what has become something of a cross-conference rivalry between two of the FCS’ most successful programs, Eastern from the Big Sky and NDSU from the Missouri Valley Football Conference.

“It’s going to be a challenging game,” NDSU coach Matt Entz said during media availability earlier this week. “I don’t think we’ve ever played Eastern Washington and felt like it wasn’t going to be challenging.”

Of the previous five matchups, Eastern won only the first: a 38-31 decision in 2010. NDSU won the next game 50-44 in overtime in 2016. The next three were each decided by multiple touchdowns.

That playoff game in 2021 – played after a pandemic-shortened spring season – marked the first start of NDSU quarterback Cam Miller’s career. For the most part, he just handed off the ball: In that game the Bison ran 57 times for 422 yards; Miller had 30 of those and one of the team’s four rushing scores. He also threw a pair of touchdowns among his six completions (on 11 attempts).

“Having played that game three years ago, I don’t think there’s a lot of things we can grab from that tape just because most of the personnel that played for them are probably gone now,” Miller, now a senior, said earlier this week. “Really for me, now going into my 26th start, (I watch that film) to see how much growth I’ve made from that point on.”

In 15 starts last season, Miller completed 66% of his passes for 1,975 yards and 13 touchdowns to five interceptions. He also ran for 561 yards and 15 scores, part of a dominant Bison running game (265.7 yards per game last season) that powered them to a national title appearance – a game the Bison lost 45-21 to their rival, South Dakota State.

Even with that title game loss, the Bison have dominated the FCS for more than a decade, winning nine of the past 12 championships.

Historically, Eastern has fared worse than most NDSU opponents at stopping the Bison ground game. In their four most recent games, the Bison have rushed for at least 280 yards each time.

“It’s a tall task. It’s absolutely a tall task,” EWU coach Aaron Best said. “But they’re not going to get away from what they do best. … It’s not a faceless opponent. We know who we’re facing, and they’ve earned everything that they’ve gotten up to this point.”

The Eagles will be counting on an immediate improvement in their rushing defense, which ranked last in the FCS last year, allowing 289 yards per game.

Senior Darrien Sampson, the lone current EWU player who played in the 2018 championship game against NDSU, said he’s been telling his teammates to be ready for a physical offense.

“We know we’ve got to bring bigger leverage,” said Sampson, who also played in the most recent matchup. “We were a little too soft for them.”

That has led the team to put in a ton of work, Sampson said, knowing pretty clearly what to expect from NDSU.

The question is whether Eastern’s offense can move the football well enough themselves. In their most recent three matchups, the Bison have outgained the Eagles and held them to an average of 289 yards of offense.

In a sense, the two teams’ tasks are similar. As the Eagles look at the Bison and see a team with a clearly defined identity, when the Bison look at the Eagles they also see a historical pattern to which they can tailor their own plans – even if the personnel are largely different.

“We can look at what they like to run against us and really put that into the game plan,” NDSU senior linebacker Luke Weerts said. “This is a new team with new players, but I think we can draw some conclusions.”