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Bison win fourth straight championship

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FRISCO, Texas – Four-peat.

North Dakota State won its fourth straight Football Championship Subdivision national title with a thrilling 29-27 victory over Illinois State at Toyota Stadium.

Quarterback Carson Wentz’s 5-yard touchdown run with 37 seconds left gave the Bison the lead and linebacker Esley Thornton’s interception of a Tre Roberson pass sealed it.

NDSU (15-1) is the first team to win four straight FCS titles. The Bison are 58-3 since the beginning of the 2011 season.

“It’s an amazing accomplishment,” said senior linebacker Carlton Littlejohn. “You never dream of coming to college and winning four straight national championships, only losing three games. That’s something you only dream about, something that happens in video games or something like that.”

This one was the most difficult title win. It took late-game heroics from Wentz, Thorton and receiver RJ Uzendowski to overcome Redbirds’ quarterback Tre Roberson.

Roberson’s 58-yard TD sprint through a yawning hole in the Bison defense with 1:38 left gave the Redbirds a 27-23 lead to quiet about 17,000 NDSU fans who mostly filled Toyota Stadium. The normally stout NDSU defense didn’t have an answer for Roberson in the second half, and he finished with 161 rushing yards and three passing touchdowns.

But for the second time in the playoffs, Wentz led the Bison on a game-winning drive in the final minute. The first was against South DakotaState in NDSU’s first playoff game, when he hit Urzendowski for a TD with 54 seconds left to beat the Jackrabbits 27-24 at the Fargodome.

Urzendowski played a big role in this comeback, too. The true freshman caught passes of 32, 13 and 33 yards on the game-winning drive. The third reception came after Wentz tossed a wobbly, underthrown pass and Urzendowski battled IllinoisState’s DraShane Glass for the ball and came down with it at the Redbirds’ 5.

A play later Wentz kept the ball and burst through the left side of the IllinoisState defensive line into the end zone.

“With our guys, you never saw any doubt in their mind. You never saw any panic in their eyes,” Bison first-year coach Chris Klieman said. “We’ve obviously been in this situation before, even in the playoffs, and our guys just know it’s our time. When you have the success that we’ve had over the past four years, guys just know how to win.”

The Bison overcame a huge game from Roberson, the Redbirds’ junior quarterback. He rushed for 143 yards, scored one TD and passed for three more.

Running back Marshaun Coprich rushed for 106 yards and James O’Shaugnessy scored two TDs.

“I think if we would have came in here as true freshmen and said that our goal was to win four national championships, our goal is to have College GameDay come to Fargo two times, people would have laughed at us,” Thorton said. “Before the season, if we would’ve said we were going to win our fourth national championship after losing 24 seniors, I think people would have laughed at us, too. But that says something about our group of guys. Not just seniors, but all the way down.”


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