By now, there might not be any reason for surprise.
Certainly a win over the reigning Big Ten West Division champions on the road will go down as an upset, and officially it’s only the fourth time an FCS team has knocked off a ranked FBS program over the last 16 years. But North Dakota State has made such a habit of stepping up a weight class and delivering knockout blows, the true testament of the strength of that program is that the 23-21 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes hardly qualifies as a shocker.