There’s a big football game in Brookings, S.D., Saturday when South Dakota State and North Dakota State play for the Great West Football Conference championship. It’s also the “Battle for the Dakota Marker” – sort of their version of Floyd of Rosedale. The trophy is a replica of the border marker between the states of North and South Dakota.
The game is of special interest to me because I am an SDSU graduate, my daughter-in-law is an NDSU grad and one of my sons attended NDSU for a year before transferring to Iowa State.
There are two polls for the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision and for most of the season, North Dakota State has been Number-One and Northern Iowa Number-Two in the Coaches’ poll while UNI has been Number-One and NDSU Number-Two in the media poll. (SDSU has been in the “Among Others Receiving Votes” category.) But the Bison and Panthers won’t play this year because NDSU and SDSU are in the final year of transition from Division II and are not eligible for the playoffs.
Next year, however, the Jackrabbits and Bison will join the Panthers in the Gateway Conference. It will be a renewal of rivalries from the days when all three were members of the North Central Conference, which is disbanding at the end of this year. The Jacks and Panthers have played the past two years, with UNI winning both games. The Rabbits led at halftime before losing in the UNI-Dome in 2006. The Panthers dominated much of this year’s game in Brookings.
Both SDSU and NDSU have outstanding engineering colleges and I know many engineers from the two schools have been attracted to Cedar Rapids by Rockwell Collins. I’d be interested in hearing from any of them who are KCCK listeners.
George Dorman - News Director
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