Dave WilsonOct 27, 2025, 07:40 AM ETCloseDave Wilson is a college football reporter. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.Follow on X
But this wasn’t just any FCS game. It was No. 1 North Dakota State vs. No. 2 South Dakota State. The Bison vs. the Jackrabbits for the Dakota Marker, the arena where champions are forged. So Peterman, obviously, decided to make the pilgrimage.
The agricultural schools have played for nearly 125 years, but for the first century or so, it was a bit of a secondary rivalry. NDSU’s venom was originally mostly reserved for North Dakota. SDSU had it out for South Dakota. But in 2004, the States decided to move from Division II to D-I, and the original rival schools opted to stay put.
Two coaches, two athletic directors and two administrators from NDSU and SDSU met at the state line between the two and shook on their new partnership of sorts. They would move together. A quartzite stone nearby marked the spot where north and south were split by an imaginary line. A Dakota Marker.
“It’s very similar to a Michigan-Ohio State or Alabama-Georgia, where it’s a border battle,” said Ryan McKnight, who played offensive line at South Dakota State from 2006-2010 and hosts a huge tailgate party as the president of the Jackrabbit Former Players Association. “It’s a national championship feel for a regular-season game,” McKnight said. “You don’t get that everywhere. You don’t get that in other rivalries.”
At the JFPA party, the air was filled with the light fragrance of livestock and an occasional waft of beer. A massive smoker that would be the envy of any Texan rose into the sky on a huge trailer. The entire rig was built by former Jacks. Brookings was buzzing with the opportunity for revenge.
Mikey Daniel, a Brookings native and former SDSU running back, who spent three seasons in the NFL, was eager for them to be back in South Dakota, because he said the Jackrabbits defend their turf.
Most of the players on both teams are from this part of the country — the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin — and often are recruited by both schools. Things sometimes get personal.
But at other times, NDSU-SDSU is one of the most polite rivalries in college football. Fans will tell you that the two teams make each other better. SDSU fans begrudgingly acknowledge that NDSU is one of the great programs in all of sports. NDSU fans admire how SDSU has stepped its game up.
Fans walk up and down Main Ave., hitting classic bars like Ray’s Corner, where Kari Westlund dishes some vicious trash talk.
“Everybody wants to live in South Dakota,” Westlund said, while wearing a “Buck the Fison” T-shirt. “Blue and yellow are much prettier colors than green and gold. We’re warmer.”
The weather is a frequent topic of discussion when canvassing fans on what the biggest differences are between the two Dakotas.
“We’re tougher. We’re up north,” he said. “You boys in the south here, it’s warmer. You can’t take the tough s—.”
Nick’s Hamburger Shop has been open since 1929. Owner Justin Price, who bought it in July and serves as just the fourth steward since the counter-service spot opened, says the SDSU-NDSU rivalry has always been a strange mix of politeness and pride.
“I think there’s that Midwest friendliness to it until the game starts,” he said. “Then after it’s over, we just kind of both go our ways.”
The game didn’t kick off until 7 p.m. CT, but a record crowd of 19,477 packed the Jackrabbits’ Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium. It was mostly blue-and-yellow-clad fans, with NDSU fans admiring how SDSU has gotten better at protecting its stadium from the invading Bison horde.
Fans in striped overalls stood in line for cheese curds and chislic, the “official nosh of South Dakota,” red meat cubes (usually beef, lamb or venison) grilled, seasoned with garlic salt and eaten with toothpicks, like a bar snack.
Then the game started, and Mason was on the sideline in a boot. The game was effectively over quickly. NDSU quarterback Cole Payton racked up for 380 yards and four touchdown runs to lead North Dakota State to a 38-7 victory. The Bison had 500 yards, the Jackrabbits just 166. It was a bitter defeat. As the final seconds ticked off, the green and gold sprinted to the corner of the end zone to hoist the 75-pound Dakota Marker.
“If their starting quarterback wasn’t hurt, it would’ve made things a little bit different,” Bison fan Brandon Miller said. “I still feel we are the better team this year in the grand scheme of things, but it would’ve been a little bit better ball game today.”
In the hotel lobby by campus, NDSU fans walked in and saw a group of SDSU fans and apologized to them for the beatdown.
Peterman said games like this are more important now that NIL and the transfer portal have altered the fabric of the sport.
“For 99% of them, this is it for their football career,” he said. “They’re going to be going right back to work. They’ll be farmers and doctors and lawyers. That’s the heart of America right there.”
And, boy, do they play some football. Since 2011, North Dakota State has won 10 national championships. South Dakota State has won two, as many as every school from the other 48 states combined. (James Madison won the title for the 2016 season and Sam Houston won the spring COVID title game in 2021, beating SDSU.) Each year, the road to those titles really begins with this rivalry game in October, in either Brookings down south or Fargo up north. This would be just the fourth No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in the regular season in FCS history. Three of those came in the Dakota Marker.
CloseDave Wilson is a college football reporter. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.Follow on X
“It’s a bitter respect,” Bison fan Les Ressler said.
Vern Muscha of Bismarck, North Dakota, thinks it’s a badge of honor.
“Are you buying?” one Jackrabbits fan said, pointing to the hotel bar. “If we won, we would be.”
“That’s called North Dakota Nice and South Dakota Nice,” Miller said.