After some not-so-hidden speculation, it was announced that ESPN’s Saturday morning tentpole and televised carnival College Gameday would return to downtown Fargo, North Dakota for the second year in a row.

While there were other valid options for Gameday to go this week – UCLA-Texas, Tennessee-Oklahoma – the powers behind the show decided that a return trip to North Dakota was a better idea, smartly going in August as opposed to mushing sled dogs to a game later in the season.

North Dakota State is one of four non-FBS schools to host College GameDay since 1993 and the first to do it twice, per the school’s website, which is fitting for the three-time defending FCS national champion Bison. NDSU has also beaten a team from the Big 12 the last two seasons – Kansas State last year and Iowa State two weeks ago – so they’re not exactly a pushover.

With the exposure from Gameday, NDSU and Fargo itself went from a snowy wasteland that had a made a movie and a TV show that took place in it to a destination immediately etched onto a college football fan’s must-visit list. 

The Bison – pronounced “Bizon” – are playing the University of the Incarnate Word this week, which sounds like a fake school from a Saturday Night Live sketch.

So watch the Bison put Incarnate Word – apparently a real school in San Antonio that insists on playing football – through the metaphorical woodchipper in the Fargodome, a 19,000-seat arena with grass that is a football fright factory.

Plus, nothing quite beats watching Lee Corso interact with wildlife.

About Jonathan Biles

Jonathan Biles is a staff writer for Awful Announcing.

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