The ‘Bozeman Block’ will go down in Bison history; sets up rematch with South Dakota

BOZEMAN, Mont. (KFYR) – Only one team in the FCS quarterfinals is not seeded and North Dakota State is that team.

NDSU trailed for a decent chunk of Saturday’s game against Montana State and forced overtime.

The Bison took a long drive down from the 25-yard line to score seven, but the Bobcats scored on their first play of overtime. Even the announcers were ready for the second overtime, but you have to make the extra point. Montana State’s kicker struggled throughout the day, and NDSU senior Hunter Poncius created a moment — the “Bozeman Block” — that will go down in Bison history.

“Huge play in overtime. I don’t know how often, probably very seldom are you ever involved in a game with a walkoff blocked PAT. Maybe a field goal, but seldom, rarely do you ever see a walk-off blocked PAT to win a game, and a huge game like that,” said Matt Entz, NDSU head coach.

The crazy victory snapped a 26-game home winning streak for Brent Vigen’s team and it broke Georgia Southern’s record of all-time FCS playoff wins. NDSU is now 46-4 in the Division I postseason.

It sets up a rematch against a team that beat the Bison this year — the Coyotes of South Dakota.

Their first contest against USD was a 24-19 loss on NDSU’s homecoming back on September 30. It was also the Valley Conference opener.

“We weren’t very good when we showed up in that first half against them, what was it? 21-3? We can’t let a team get up like that, especially a good team that’s going to get into some short-yardage situations, we struggled to get off the field. We’ve got to be better on third down. We’ve got to be better defensively and we’ve got to be able to score points when we get into the red zone. Field goals just aren’t enough these days. Field goals will get you beat and they did,” said Entz.

The Bison and Coyotes will play on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. Central Time in Vermillion. It’s a national TV game, so it will be shown on ABC.

The Jackrabbits play the first game on Saturday against Villanova. Idaho and Albany are the four and five seeds. The Griz will play on Friday night.

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