After last week’s minor debacle, we return to the friendly confines of the Bill to get things back on track.
The Game
The (still, because there’s no post-week zero poll) 17th-ranked Kansas State Wildcats
(0-1) host the North Dakota Fighting Hawks (5-7, 2-6 MVFC last year) in the season opener for UND and the home opener for K-State.This is the first-ever meeting between the Cats and Hawks, finally allowing K-State to complete the set of all four flagship Dakota schools. In previous contests, the Cats have
a 9-1 record against the Dakota Four; we don’t discuss the “-1” there and neither does Jake Waters. The majority of those ten games took place before the Dakota teams transitioned to Division I, with three wins over South Dakota and that game we don’t talk about occurring over the last decade. (K-State is 2-0 against South Dakota State, but those games were in 1959 and 1960.) Against current teams from the MVFC as a whole, K-State is 14-4; it was 18-4 until Missouri State moved to Conference USA over the summer. Those four losses include the 0-3 nightmare against Northern Iowa in the years before Snyderball, plus… that game we don’t talk about.
The Hawks are lead by first-year head coach Eric Schmidt, who played linebacker for then-D2 North Dakota at the end of the 1990s. He spent four years as head coach at Crookston High School in Minnesota immediately after graduation before embarking on a 14-year stint as an assistant at Southern Illinois (alongside Kalen DeBoer) as well as his alma mater. He then joined DeBoer’s staffs at Fresno State and Washington before landing at San Diego State last year when DeBoer accepted the Alabama job.
North Dakota was historically the very close second-fiddle to their in-state rival Bison; in the North Central Conference the Hawks (back when they were the Sioux) claimed 24 conference titles to NDSU’s 26, both well ahead of SDSU (14) and South Dakota (10). But in the MVFC years, they’ve been the bottom of the Dakota Four; their only title was a tie in 2020, which was the COVID year. Most galling for the Hawks: last year, there was a three-way tie atop the MVFC between NDSU, SDSU, and South Dakota while UND suffered a sub-.500 campaign.
North Dakota has some good talent, but no existential threats whose presence should cause Wildcat fans to panic.
Kickoff
Saturday, August 30, 6:00pm CT at Bill Snyder Family Stadium (50,000) in Manhattan, Kansas.
Tickets
You can still get in at the box office, apparently. Both end zones are sold out, but there are seats available almost everywhere else.
Weather
There’s a reason there are tickets available: the weather’s going to be yuck. Rain is expected to set in at around 3:00, escalting to thunderstorms between 7-10, which, umm, well. Bring rain gear, and while there might be some decent tailgating early it’s going to get unpleasant during prime tailgating hours.
Odds
Per our friends at DraftKings K-State is a 25.5-point favorite. The over is 55.5, indicating a 41-15 win for the Cats. The money line is -4000 for the Cats, +1600 for North Dakota. Oddshark’s computer is less optimistic, projecting a 34-23 win for K-State.
Television
No television, technically. See below.
Radio
As always, Wyatt Thompson, Stan Weber, and Matt Walters will be on hand on the K-State Sports Network as well as via satellite on SiriusXM 139 or 198.
Internet Streaming
The game will stream on the ESPN+ (subscription required). Audio available via kstatesports.com. Live stats provided by StatBroadcast.
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