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.
Hope the fans of Fargo can match the scene they provided for @CollegeGameDay last year. Saturday will be fun!
— Lee Fitting (@leefitting) September 7, 2014
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.
BREAKING: GameDay is heading back to Fargo! #GetUp4GameDay pic.twitter.com/snJMnfgp0U
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) September 7, 2014
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