Bubba Schweigert’s squad had just come off a roller coaster slate of games – Beating Wyoming for its first FBS win ever, sleep-walking through a narrow victory over Drake, losing to long-time rival NDSU, beating UC-Davis at home, then heading out to Portland State to take on a red-hot Vikings team that had just beaten Washington State a couple weeks earlier.  UND beat them in a slobber-knocker affair 19-17 that left the team a bit beat up.

So naturally they came back to Grand Forks fired up with their new Top 25 ranking and renewed sense of confidence.

The problem was nobody gave lowly Idaho State the memo about how well UND was playing.  Idaho State QB Michael Sanders threw for 427 yards and 4 TD’s leading the Bengals to a 37-31 victory, leaving the Alerus Center faithful stunned.  The bar scene afterwards was docile – UND football alumni happened to be back in town for an organized event, looking to celebrate the big win.  Not so much (don’t get me wrong the beers still flowed but….you know).  That loss sent UND into a mini-tailspin as they lost two more after that before righting the ship with three straight wins to finish 7-4.

Fast forward to 2018 – a shy-high UND team is coming off a huge road win over a highly ranked team and is back at the Alerus Center for Homecoming.  The opponent: Idaho State.  Yep, the exact same scenario is playing itself out again in 2018.

This time the Hawks need to take care of business if they want to make sure they earn that playoff bid that was taken away from them in 2015, mainly because of the loss to those pesky Bengals.

Oh, and what is it about Idaho State that gives UND so much trouble?  Year in and year out it’s a tight game. Wish we had the answer but we do know that they appear to be playing pretty well again early in the year so a win is definitely not a given.

The current UND squad best remember what happened that fateful Saturday.

 

Photo courtesy of UNDsports.com