Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Right now the Bits with TJ. Jeff. Good morning, good afternoon,
good evening, wherever and whenever you're listening to this, welcome,
I'm TJ. It's Bison Bits. We're going to talk about
our favorite FCS football team, the NDSU Bison. And as
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you know if you follow FCS football at all, it
was the Dakota marker last Saturday in Brookings. Being in
Brookings myself, it was a lot of electricity in the air.
STSU fans really thought they were going to get the
marker back, but there was a little hannicky panky going
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on in my opinion. As warm ups occurred. Chase Mason
did not play. He was in a boot, which he
had to have been just about all week. I think
they knew how along he wasn't going to play. They
did not tell anybody. They kind of played the card
game which I talked about, was he going to play?
Were they going to hold onto that information as long
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as they could before they revealed it. Well, that's that's
exactly what they did. They held on to that information
for a long time and it became the Luke Marlvey Show.
Luke Marble I called him Marby. I don't know why.
Luke Marble, the young man from Georgia, it was a
rough day for him, but it wasn't all his fault.
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Of the other aspects to the game that we talked
about last week. We talked about the line of scrimmages.
What line of scrimmage is going to do? What can
that young Bison offensive line hold off against a little
more veteran SDSU defensive line and vice versa with some
of the injuries with Jackson Dudenheffer on the defensive line,
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could SDSU run it right up the middle. The answers
were yes, NDSU's young offensive line could hold on and no.
STSU could not run the balls. The Bison, we know,
won thirty eight to seven. They're opening drive set at all,
got a three and out right away, went right down
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the field, kill about nine minutes off the clock on
that first drive, and it was old fashioned Bison football. Run, run, run, run, run,
and they blew up that jack defensive line and even
I raised an eyebrown in this up was fourteen points
up in the first quarter. They scored thirty one at
the half. Cole Payton again destroyed everyone. It was the
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Cole Peyton show. He threw for two hundred and forty
three yards. He rushed for one hundred and thirty seven.
They had five hundred yards of total offense. SSU two
threw four two forty three and they ran for two
fifty seven. It was quite the mauling. Now. I think
in THESU pulled off the throttle a little bit. Stsu's
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front four defensively tightened up a little bit there in
the early third quarter and well into the fourth quarter.
By the time the Bison put their reserves in the
Cole Payton still broke off a big one for fifty
seven to ice the deal later in the in the
third quarter, or excuse me, early in the fourth quarter,
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pardon me, but STSU threw for one hundred and twenty
three and they rushed for forty three yards on twenty
eight carries, one point five yards of carry. I told you, folks,
I told you. South Dakota State's not the same team.
I can't put my finger on it, but they're not
the same team. And it was obvious. Even if Mason
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plays for STSU. I think it's a thirty eight to
twenty one game. I think it's a seventeen point Bison win.
I don't think he was going to make that big
of a difference where they were going to win. Maybe
maybe because it's not the three and outs that STSU had.
They had numerous three and outs. The Bison had great
pass rush. Not only did they stop the run, but
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they really really had a great pass rush. STSU was
all a three of eleven on third down. I'm trying
to find the sacks here. I don't know if I
can find it, not with this box score that I have,
but I believe the Bison had five sacks in the game. Offensively,
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the Bison were fined nine of sixteen on third down,
which has been their achilles heal this year. Three of
three on fourth down. It was a slaughter six pounds
for fifty five yards. That's something that coach Polisik wants
to clean up. But something happened interesting in that game
I want to bring up before we move on to
the to a really good Youngstown State team coming to
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the Fargodome on Saturday. At one point, Josh Bavitch replaced
Nate Tasta at that left tackle. And if you really
don't follow the Bison, I mean really deep dive into
this team, you might not understand, and it's not on you.
But Babbage is a true freshman. I think he's out
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of Minnesota's maybe the Twin Cities. I think he's a
Minnesota native. Pretty sure he is. I didn't look that up.
He's the first true freshman and I think he's going
to get the start. If he does, he'll be the
first true freshman since Billy turned her to start as
a true freshman. But Babbage had thirteen FBS offers, including Nebraska.
This guy's a stud. How the Bison landed him is
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beyond me. And they threw him out there, not because
Nate Tosten was doing so poorly. I think they were
just so curious as to what Babbage could do. And
Babbage was excellent, played a great I don't think he
gave up any pressures at left tackle. He played very,
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very very well. So just another just another weapon for
NDSU on that offensive line, and that's going to carry
into And by the way, if you're SDSU, you might
have more questions than answers. I think I don't know
if you can I don't know if you're going to
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go to Grand Forks and win. I just don't know
if you're going to I don't see it. I mean
you might even you're probably gonna win down in Vermilion,
but this team is not the same team. They got
some soul searching to do. Mason probably won't play against
Indiana State. I don't know that. Again, they're not talking,
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but there's issues going on, absolute issues going on in
Brookings and they've dropped down to I think fifth in
the Coach's poll. I think other outlier polls have them
as far as six, some at four. But they've got
some issues. So you're gonna have the young man who
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is seven to sixteen, Luke Marble from Smyrna, Georgia taking
over good Luck and the Bison are just clipping along.
Remember November. Coach Craig Bull used to talk about, Remember November,
that's where you really solidify your team and grab that
momentum going into the postseason. And the Bison as of
right now, we're not in November, but we will by
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this week. They've got the momentum and they have a
Youngstown State team who's five and three on the season,
and they're ranked in the top twenty five I think
around eighteen, somewhere in the late teens in many polls,
and this is a good team. This is a team
you better watch out for because they got a young
man at quarterback who's very, very dynamic. He might be
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the best quarterback they will have faced at this point
in the season. I truly believe that bull runguarded his name.
He's a junior. He's not huge. He's six foot two,
fifteen from Middleton or Middletown, Ohio. But he's got thirteen
touchdowns and two interceptions. He's stolen for eighteen hundred and
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seventy five yards. He's also rushed. I think, gosh, he's averaging.
I'm trying to find his rushing numbers here. He's also
rushed for quite a few yards as well. He's going
at sixty seven percent. He's a one forty six rating.
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He is tough, he's athletic, he's fast, and he makes
people miss and that is going to be that's going
to be quite a handful for North kost State to handle.
I'm glad they have them in the Fargo Dome. It's
been a few years since they they had him here.
But this young man is excellent. I know he played
Murray against Murray State last week, but he was twenty
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two twe for two forty eight and two touchdowns. Not
only that, he had fifteen carries for sixty four yards.
So this team had five hundred and thirty nine yards
of offense against Murray State and mister Bowl bruntguard had
over three hundred, like three hundred and two or three
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hundred and twelve yards of it. Very dynamic. If you
think you're just gonna easily keep him in the pocket,
think again, he's gonna be able to slip out of
that with very little problem and create some having and
they can run the ball. They got a guy by
the name of Jaden Gilbert who averaged almost five yards
of carry last week and Donald Barksdale who averaged eleven
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eleven yards of carry on just four carries. But dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.
This team's coming at you. And it's been a it's
been a tough year for Youngstown. I mean, they're they're
really improving. They've had some tough years. But they started
the year against Mercy Hurst. They eat Robert Morris huge
fifty six to seventeen. They lost to Michigan State forty
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one to twenty four. They beat a very competitive talisend
team thirty one, twenty eight. They had the jack rabbits,
and this is something that has to be thought about.
They had the jack rabits by the Cajones late in
that game and let it slip away and they lost
THETSU at home thirty five thirty. They lost at the
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Alea Center to the Fighting Hawks of North Dakota thirty
five seventeen, and they beat Illinois State by five forty
thirty five. Defensively, as you can tell by these scores,
they struggle a little bit defensively, like so many teams
in the Missouri Valley are this year. So the Bison,
I look at it this way, So we break this
down that the Bison are still going to do what
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the buys are going to do. If you want to
bring a safety up in the box, they're going to
run play action and throw it because they've got the
they've got the horses, and they're getting healthy and and
I believe Williams will be healthy at the wide receiver spot. Completely.
They're good against the offensive line, They're healthy all the
way around. And if you're gonna bring that receiver or
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excuse me, if you're gonna drop that safety back in
the coverage they're gonna be able to run the football.
They ran all over They've run all over everybody this year,
and so Youngstown State's gonna have to pick their poison
to help minimize that. And it's the cliche in football
is the old cliche is they're gonna have to keep
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their offense on the field. That is about the only
thing they can do is keep their offense on the field.
And they're gonna have to run. They're gonna have to
get their quarterback out there. They're gonna have to get
that running game going. And the Bison started fast last week.
They haven't always started fast. And again, you're gonna see
how that's gonna turn out. If the Bison can get
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off to a quick start, it'll be over by halftime.
If it's an Illinois State type situation where they got
off sluggishly, Illinois State pushed them around, took a while
to get going. Same thing with same thing with Indiana State,
quite to surprise. And this could be a trap game.
If there's ever a trap game, this is it because
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they just had SDSU. Next week they go to Grand
Forks and that is gonna be talked about. There's gonna
be people, Yeah, there's gonna be people missing work next week,
so keyed up about this game. But now your Youngstown
State wedged in between those two games, and Youngstown State
has to know it. They must understand it, they know
what's going on. This could be a trap game if
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the Bison. The Bison aren't locked down and focus on
this Murray State team. Yeah, it could be. Bo Brunnguard's
gonna have a heyday and they're gonna play like hell
to to beat this team. So I still see him
winning it. But we'll see what Bison team comes in.
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If they stay focused like they did against TSU, it
will be an ugly game. But if they're not focused
like they were at Indiana State and for the first
half against Illinois State, it'll be far more interesting. A
couple of injury reports McKay Collins. I think he's gonna
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come back. They're gonna play that by ear Jackson. Duton
Evers running this week with some still some muscular soreness.
There's a chance he could get some snaps. I don't
know if they're gonna push that real hard, So I
don't know if if that's gonna happen or not. We'll
find out and oh gosh, I just had it in
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front of me. Some more injuries. Alta Peter's out for
the season. Linebacker, all signs showing a cl And this
is off the Bison Report, off of X quoted by
coach Paul sk Jalen crumby the d back he's got
an MCL strain, could be ready if they really needed them,
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but they'd like to give him another week or two.
Finn Diggins me, boy, he's healing really well from some
from some soft tissue leg injuries. He could be back
for Senior Day, which would be this week next week,
you know, so two weeks, three weeks, so, got some
things going on there. So we'll see. They do have
some injuries. Coach Polisik is concerned about the lack of
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depth because of the injuries at linebacker, so we will
see how that comes into play too. How can Youngstown
State take advantage of that a little bit? So we'll
find out some injuries there. Other than that, a very
healthy Bison team. So let's let's break this down. Let's
let's look at it, Let's look at this some more.
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I think this could be a really good game for
break A Pennu I think they might lean on him
a little bit more, take some of that pressure off
of Cole Payton. I'm looking at this game and around
thirty four to fourteen, thirty four to fourteen, Bison get
the victory, I'm hoping, and then we get ready for
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fun in Grand Forks. So hey, gonna be a good week.
Fargodom should be rocking. I will be there, hope you're
there too. And until next week, this is TJ with
Bison bits. Take care of yourself and each other. Bye bye,