Perspective
- Updated: August 25, 2026
A decade later, Jacksonville State, North Dakota State set to test each other on FBS terms. (Includes video of Jax State’s game-week news conference)
JACKSONVILLE — Who could’ve imagined, when North Dakota State ruled the FCS sky and Jacksonville State touched it, we’d see a day when they would play as FBS programs?
Who would’ve thought, as the Bison chilled the Gamecocks 37-10 on that cold, January day in 2016, that there’d be reason to see Jax State the program with a leg up the next time they took the same field?
Yes, North Dakota State enters Saturday’s season opener for both teams as a 6.5-point favorite. It’s just too hard to imagine the Bison losing on Gate City Bank Field at the Fargodome because they so rarely do, but Jax State has a four-year FBS head start.
North Dakota State hung around to dominate FCS a little longer, completing a run of 10 championships in 15 years. This season marks the Bison’s first in the Mountain West Conference, after leaving what effectively became a league of their own.
Jax State never won an FCS title. The Gamecocks played in the championship game once before settling back into their FCS norm, but announced a move up in 2021 and played their transition season in 2022.
They’ve stacked four nine-win seasons with three bowl appearances, two bowl victories, one Conference USA title and two CUSA regular-season titles since starting the move up.
Some 10 years and eight months after Jax State and North Dakota State played in Frisco, Texas, they meet again in very different places, and in a very different time for college football.
Jax State showed how rapidly a roster rebuild can happen in the transfer portal era. The Gamecocks won instantly in a rebuilt CUSA full of programs like their own, having recently moved up.
Jax State made the move up successfully, as if the Gamecocks had won 10 FCS titles in 15 years.
Then again, moving up isn’t what it used to be, and one presumes North Dakota State was overdue. The Bison just had to kick their national-championship addiction.
They also had to cough up a nearly $12 million conference entry fee plus a $5 million NCAA reclassification fee.
The clash of FBS pathways will play out in Saturday’s game in Fargo. Just where do these two programs stand in their brave new worlds? Just how blurred has the line between FCS elites and FBS Group of Six programs become?
No Carson Wentz.
No Eli Jenkins.
No playoffs, outside of an exceptional season and maybe a playoff expansion or two.
Just one program that quickly made conference titles and bowl appearances its new normal, and another team looking to match with the same dispatch.
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