The top-seeded Montana State Bobcats and the second-seeded North Dakota State Bison will compete in the FCS National Championship game on Monday, January 6, 2025. It will be the second straight year and 9th time the top two seeds advanced to face each other in the title game.
The Bobcats won all three of their 2024 FCS playoff games by double digits posting a 49-17 win over UT Martin (Big South-OVC) in the second round, a 52-19 win over eighth-seeded Idaho (Big Sky) in the quarterfinals, and a 31-17 win over fourth-seeded South Dakota (MVFC) in the semifinals. For North Dakota State, they dispatched 15th-seeded Abilene Christian (UAC) 51-31 in the second round, seventh-seeded Mercer (Southern) 31-7 in the quarterfinals, and the two-time defending champion third-seeded South Dakota State (MVFC) 28-21 in the semifinals.
The Bobcats-Bison matchup will be the sixth time the two have met in the FCS Playoffs but the Bobcats have yet to win against NDSU in the previous five games. The two played in Bozeman last year with the unseeded Bison winning 35-34 in overtime following a blocked extra point and also played in the 2021 FCS National Championship that NDSU won 38-10.
Montana State won its lone title in 1984 when the subdivision was known as I-AA and lost its only other title game appearance in 2021 against NDSU. On the other side stands North Dakota State, which is making its 11th appearance in the FCS title game. The Bison are 9-1 in the previous 10 games with the lone blemish occurring against South Dakota State last season. There have been 3 previous Big Sky vs. MVFC FCS Championship games with NDSU winning all three matchups. The Bison defeated Eastern Washington 38-24 in 2018, Montana State 38-10 in 2021, and Montana 23-3 in 2023.
The FCS National Championship will kick off at 7 PM Eastern on Monday, January 6, 2025, and be broadcast on ESPN. It will be the last title game in Frisco for at least the next two years and possibly longer after the NCAA moved the host site of the next two championship games to Nashville, Tennessee. This season’s title game will be a chance for NDSU to end the current Frisco era the way it has 9 previous times but Montana State would like to end their 40-year title drought while also seeing the Bison’s “Fargo in Frisco” era end with back-to-back losses in the National Championship game.
Photo Credit to Montana State University Athletics
