There are a handful of teams in division 1-AA (or the “Football Championship Subdivision”, as the NCAA now prefers to call it) that aren’t exactly like the others. True, many are simply “body bag” opponents there to collect a paycheck to fund their department and hope that their players don’t get beat up too badly. But there are also 1-AA schools like North Dakota State that punch well above their weight class and can give the big boys a solid challenge, especially if the bigger name school assumes that their opponent is merely going to “assume the position”.
South Dakota State competes along side North Dakota State in the Missouri Valley football conference and while they haven’t been able to dethrone the Bison yet, the Jackrabbits haven’t been thumped by a Power Five opponent since their 2013 trip to Lincoln.