Welcome to Bison Sports 2026-27!

Well, its been a long time! I will admit I was fairly burnt out at this time last year, but I think its time to give this blog thing another shot. Feel free to send me suggestions for how I can better improve this blog and other aspects of the website at large.

Welcome back Bison Nation to another year of NDSU athletics!! We have lots to unpack and prepare for and I am going to try to give as much info as I can on what we can expect this season in the three fall sports. 

Women's Soccer
NDSU Women's Soccer has actually already played their first games of the season. They played an exhibition in Madison, Wisconsin against the Badgers on August 8th as their yearly dress rehearsal and then the first game of the season was played on August 13th at home against Green Bay. The Bison ladies have yet to win a game this season, as they lost the home opener against the Phoenix, 0-3. Since the 13th they have yet to leave Fargo, as they would then host Marquette on August 16th and would fall to the Golden Eagles, 0-2. On August 20th, the Bison hosted the Golden Gophers and fell in a 1-2 battle. Recently they hosted the Cougars of Washington State, which resulted in a 0-0 draw. That should bring us up to date. 
The Bison are hoping to find success this season after finishing towards the bottom of the Summit League last season with a 5-12-1 overall record, and a 1-6-1 league record.
NDSU brings lots of youth to the field this season with 13 freshman on the roster, including 2 new goalkeepers. Nevertheless, they do return some familiar faces from last season such as defender Amaya Garrett out of Omaha, Nebraska, who is playing her fourth year in Fargo. The Bison are once again coached by Mike Regan, who is entering his ninth year coaching at North Dakota State.
The Bison women return to action this Thursday at Dacotah Field, when they host Prairie View A&M at 6 PM.
North Dakota State soccer is 0-3-1 overall on the season.

Volleyball
NDSU Volleyball returns to the court with hopes set high on another season in the Summit League! Last year, the Bison posted a 17-11 record overall, and a 10-6 conference record - which was good enough to land them a 4 seed in the Summit League tournament. NDSU defeated Denver in 5 sets in the quarterfinals, but fell to top seed South Dakota State in the semifinals to be eliminated from postseason contention.
This year, the Bison hope to improve on last season's success with most of the roster returning for another year. They will embark on four non-conference road trips before starting Summit League play on September 24th.
The Bison kickoff the season in the Big Easy this upcoming weekend when they play in the Green Wave Classic. They play host Tulane on Friday at 6 PM, and Tennessee Tech on Saturday at 1 PM.

Football
Well, lets just say a lot has changed with the football team since I last talked about them on here! First, they had an excellent regular season in 2025, going 12-0 overall and 8-0 in MVFC play. But they had a lackluster performance at home in the lowest attended FCS playoff game at the Fargodome, losing to eventual runner-up Illinois State 28-29 to be eliminated before the quarterfinals for the first time ever. 
However, in February - they struck gold! On February 9, 2026 - North Dakota State announced they would be leaving the Missouri Valley Football Conference of the FCS for the Mountain West Conference in the FBS starting with the 2026 football season. In June the news just kept coming - as the Division I Cabinet approved a rule change to allow NDSU and Sacramento State (who also announced a FBS transition this past winter), as well as any future transitioning team to the FBS, to be immediately eligible for bowl games and the College Football Playoff. 
So this season is suddenly set to be a rare historic one for North Dakota State football, as they play at the highest level the NCAA has to offer! 
The Bison return lots of depth on the defensive side of the ball, with their strengths being their safeties and the interior defensive line. On offense, NDSU will start another 5th year QB in Nathan Hayes, who has been praised in the past by former QBs Cam Miller and Cole Payton as having the best arm of all three of them. At running back, DJ Scott is expected to take the reigns as the main back after transferring in from Kennesaw State last season and playing behind senior Barika Kpeenu, who has since graduated and is playing in the NFL. While the offensive line lost two key starters in center Trent Fraley and tackle Beau Johnson, they return other guys that played lots of snaps in 2025. The wide receiver core is probably the biggest question for the offense this season, with star receiver Bryce Lance graduating and being drafted by the NFL's New Orleans Saints, and RaJa Nelson graduating as well. However, they do return a few guys who played lots of snaps last season in senior captain Mekhi Collins and junior Jackson Williams. NDSU also brought in two transfer wide receivers Jeremiah Patterson and Jordan McCants.
In a rare twist, the Bison will also have quite the shakeup on special teams. All-conference longsnapper Caleb Bowers left the program for Florida State, place kicker Eli Ozick left for Iowa and backup punter Sam Knoll left for Western Illinois. So the Bison have had to pull in a transfer longsnapper and punter to fill those spots, while senior Drew Klein will take over field goals. Freshman Jayden Onuonga is expected to takeover kickoff duties. 
Alright, now onto the schedule! 
The Bison had to start completely from scratch with their non-conference schedules going forward. This year, they will play Jacksonville State, Fordham (FCS), Sacramento State, and San Jose State (who they will play as a non-con opponent this season). For their inaugural Mountain West schedule, they will host Wyoming, Nevada, and fellow MW newcomers UTEP and Northern Illinois. On the road they will visit conference favorites UNLV and New Mexico, as well as Air Force and Hawaii. Every game except two will be on a TV network this year as part of the Mountain West's TV contract. The Jax State, Nevada, and San Jose State games will be on CBS Sports Network, which should be familiar if you watch the Bison basketball programs. They will have five games on The CW network, which is a new addition to the conference's network stable, which will be the homecoming game against Wyoming, UNLV, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Northern Illinois. They will have one game on ESPN when they visit Sacramento State, and another on FS1 for their first Mountain West conference game at Air Force. The final two games against Fordham and UTEP will be on the conference's new streaming platform MW+ available on most app stores. Since those two are home games, NDSU's main TV provider - ABC North Dakota will cover them statewide just like they used to do for almost all of the football games.
NDSU Football will begin their inaugural FBS campaign this Saturday at 4:30 PM against Jacksonville State on CBS Sports Network. For those that remember, they last played the Gamecocks in the 2016 FCS Championship game. 

Well what an exciting year we have ahead!
​Go Bison!!