READY OR NOT, MISSOURI STATE FULL STEAM AHEAD WITH FBS
Bears will join Conference USA next season with big plans for football program improvements
BY JEFF KOLPACK
The Forum FARGO
If it walks like an FBS school, quacks like an FBS school and has access to a budget like an FBS program, is it necessarily ready for FBS?
There’s plenty that goes into the Football Bowl Subdivision and North Dakota State is probably wondering where it fits in the mix, if at all.
The Bison opponent on Saturday at Gate City Bank Field at the Fargodome, Missouri State, is signed, sealed and will be delivered next year to FBS Conference USA.
The Bears and Delaware will next year join 15 other FCS programs who have made the move since NDSU first made the playoffs in 2010: Kennesaw State (Ga.), Jacksonville State, Sam Houston State, Coastal Carolina, James Madison, Liberty, Texas State, Massachusetts, Texas-San Antonio, South Alabama, Georgia State, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Old Dominion and Charlotte. Of that lot, Sam Houston, Appalachian State, JMU and Georgia Southern won FCS (formerly called Division I-AA) championships. Delaware won in 2003.
Missouri State, however, hasn’t been close in that discussion, making the playoffs just four times since the subdivision was created in 1983. It will enter FBS with a 1-4 playoff record with the only win over Maine in the 1989 first round. What makes the Bears ready to be competitive at the next level?
“We’re going to have to get after it on the revenue generation side and completely change the script on what we’ve been doing in the past.”
PATRICK RANSDELL, NEW ATHLETIC DIRECTOR
“I think the school is ready as long as it does some things to make it ready,” said Wyatt Wheeler, a sportswriter for the Springfield News-Leader who covers MSU football.
For the Missouri State administration, that means revitalizing Plaster Stadium, which opened in 1941 but has seen several updates. It’s not so much about adding seats to the 17,500 capacity but creating more club-level seating and modernizing the facility.
When current Bears head coach Ryan Beard joined the football program in 2020 along with former head coach Bobby Petrino, the first team meeting had to wait for a science lab class to vacate a room.
“Instead of having (motivational) quotes on the wall and everything where they met every week, they had the periodic table of elements,” Wheeler said. “There needs to be a ton of investment to upgrade that stuff but it seems like they’re committed to do that now.”
The Missouri State move was led by two administrators who are no longer there: President Clif Smart and athletic director Kyle Moats.
“But if you ask any Missouri State fan, they would rather have other people being responsible than the
previous ones,” Wheeler said. “I think they’re in as good of a spot as you can be. I think they did it at the right time, if you have that invite, you better take it right now.”
Patrick Ransdell is the new athletic director, coming to MSU from Appalachian State, where he was an assistant in charge of fundraising. It’s an ideal pedigree to take the MSU job: having been at a school that made the FBS move with experience in raising money.
“We’re going to have to get after it on the revenue generation side and completely change the script on what we’ve been doing in the past,” Ransdell said.
Planning, certainly, is in full force with the hope to roll improvements out to the public this winter and next spring. Architects are currently working on a football operations center, with a ballpark cost Ransdell said will be about mid-eight figures (around $50 million). That would include a new locker room, weight room, offices, meeting rooms, training room and premium seats for the stadium.
“That’s just one project,” he said. “We’ll need to address some other parts of the stadium that will be separate from that project. When it’s all said and done it will be a substantial
number but the good news is Springfield has some really good corporate support and really good people that can help us out.”
It’s possible that Springfield — and Missouri State — is a sleeping giant in football, waiting for somebody to come in and wake up the school to its potential. That’s what happened when former NDSU president Joe Chapman pushed the move to Division I athletics.
South Dakota State is a much better football program in FCS than it ever was in Division II.
The population of Springfield is 170,000 with a greater demographic of around 500,000.
“You start looking around and you’re like, wait a minute, we have something to work with here,” Ransdell said.
Improvements won’t happen overnight. Even if the school broke ground next week, it would be two to three years of construction for non-stadium amenities.
In comparison, NDSU’s indoor practice facility took about that much time at a cost of $54 million.
NDSU facility-wise is already positioned for FBS, but it remains to be seen, as of earlier this week, if an invite is coming its way. Speculation has it the Mountain West Conference is interested in the Bison as a football-only member. If Missouri State feels it is ready for the next level, NDSU would probably also. Take Bison offensive coordinator Jake Landry, who spent four years at FBS Northern Illinois of the Mid-American Conference and three at Temple of the
American Athletic.
“I think we’re on par with the majority of the Group of Five schools,” Landry said. “If this university was in the MAC, I would say we would be toward the top of the MAC in everything that we have going on from our administration, our facilities to how we travel. I see no difference from my four years at NIU to now being here for 10 games.”
With CUSA, Missouri State will be entering the land of mid-week games like the Sun Belt and MAC. That may not be all bad, Wheeler said, to try something new, especially for the students.
“There are some things I’m anxious to see,” Wheeler said. “MSU has kind of shown a liking to the students showing up at those games wanting to drink and ditch class at night and go do something instead. There are some interesting things that are worth the gamble when nothing else was working for Missouri State. I think people will buy into it eventually.”
Of the nine CUSA members for 2025 (Texas-El Paso is leaving for the Mountain West), Delaware and Mo State will join former FCS members Western Kentucky, Kennesaw, Liberty, Sam Houston, Jacksonville State and Florida International.
“Right now this is a learning curve before actually getting into it,” Wheeler said.
“People are learning what a Florida International looks like instead of a Murray State on a Saturday.”
Readers can reach Forum reporter Jeff Kolpack at jkolpack@forumcomm.com. Twitter@KolpackInForum
David Samson / The Forum
North Dakota State players run out on Plaster Stadium in Springfield, Missouri.
GAME DAY GUIDE
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North
Dakota State senior from West Fargo owned his role as an NDSU receiver
BY JEFF KOLPACK
The Forum
FARGO — If catching the ball was Tyler Terhark’s only job at North Dakota State life would probably be a breeze. But that’s not how it works and for five years the West Fargo Sheyenne graduate has been working the different trades of football.
That includes special teams, blocking, tackling, practice and overcoming injuries, among many other things. Terhark has gone through different head coaches and wide receiver assistants in his tenure.
“There were always thoughts in the back of my mind like, is this place really for me?” he said. “Am I good enough? But I can’t thank my coaches and teammates enough. You can see how guys stick together. When you say brotherhood, I think of that here and that’s a big reason I made it five years. That’s a big chunk of my life and I don’t regret a thing.”
Terhark and at least 22 other seniors will be introduced during Senior Day before the Bison play Missouri State at 2:30 p.m. Saturday. He came to NDSU as a walk-on but was later put on scholarship. It was an emotional phone call to his parents he’ll never forget.
It was a reward for doing whatever is needed.
“Obviously, I’m not extremely glorified,” Terhark said. “But when we go into the film room and the teammates know
what it took for me, they realize it and I feel like that’s a big part.”
Terhark almost set the college world on fire in the season opener against Colorado, catching a Hail Mary that was four yards short of the end zone with no time on the clock.
The Buffaloes survived in a 31-26 win.
Terhark got injured in the third game of the season at East Tennessee State and didn’t return until five games later against South Dakota State. In a cruel twist, his roommate Sam Jung was lost for the season, also with an injury.
“That’s just part of the game and it’s unfortunate especially being seniors and missing a lot of our season,” Terhark said.
“But it helps to have an amazing group of guys on our team to help us get through that because you can just tell each and every one of them care. I know the day I got hurt, it was like when are you going to be back? Are you good? What’s going on?” Bears in rare
November position
It’s not basketball season yet at Missouri State. For one of the few times in program history, and ironically in its last year in Division I FCS, the Bears are playing a midNovember game that has major implications in the Missouri Valley Football Conference.
It’s probably been since 1990 the Bears have been in this position in the Valley, which formerly was known as the Gateway Football Conference.
After the Bison, Mo State hosts second place South Dakota State to finish their year.
“What a special opportunity we have,” said MSU head coach Ryan Beard. “Here we are making a run at a school that traditionally you’re on to another sport or you’re talking about different things this time of year. Well, now it’s all about football. How can we get our guys healthy and ramped up and ready to hit the Fargodome?”
Missouri State didn’t
wait around in thinking about the Bison. It wasn’t long after disposing of Murray State 59-31 that the Bears had NDSU on their mind. MSU is 8-2 overall with both teams 6-0 in the Valley. “I told the staff last week that if we get to this eighth win and we put ourselves in a seat to have an opportunity to go win a championship, our guys deserve every single bit of our staff,” Beard said. “Our hearts. Our minds. Our time. I usually live by the 24-hour rule,
it wasn’t quite that this week.”
MSU QB putting up big numbers
NDSU is expected to have its hands full with MSU quarterback Jacob Clark, who is coming off the best game of his career. He threw for 431 yards and four touchdowns in the 59-31 win over Murray State last week.
In the process, he set a school record for singleseason TD passes with 25, surpassing a record held by Jay Rodgers set in
1999. His season yardage total of 3,171 is just 176 behind the mark established by Jason Shelley in 2021 while he needs six completions to beat Shelley’s season record of 230. Clark has thrown for over 200 yards in all 10 of MSU’s games and now has over 4,000 career yards. He’ll be one of the top three QBs NDSU will have faced along with Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and South Dakota State’s Mark Gronowski.
“He’s just been really explosive,” said Bison head coach Tim Polasek.
“He’s really been pinpoint when guys are open and good quarterbacks find open receivers.” Etc. etc. etc.
• NDSU has won 12 straight in the series with the Bears 1-6 at the Fargodome. Missouri State has three league titles: the spring 2021 season, 1989 and 1990. It’s NDSU’s annual Harvest Bowl to recognize its agricultural programs; the Bison are 44-2-2 in those games.
• Southern Illinois is not showing any quit this season. The Salukis rallied from a 28-0 deficit to beat Youngstown State 37-33 last week, breaking a school record for largest comeback in school history. SIU QB Jake Curry was named the Valley’s Newcomer of the Week completing 19 of 26 passes for 322 yards and three touchdowns.