North Dakota State and Cal Poly do not have a long and storied history of games against one another, just one playoff matchup where the Bison routed the Mustangs, 47-0 in the second round of the 1990 Division 2 playoffs. NDSU and Cal Poly each were members of the Great West Conference and played every year from 2004-2007. Two games in San Luis Obispo produced two dramatically different outcomes for the Bison.
The 2007 game will go down as one of the legendary games in NDSU’s Division 1 history, where Steve Walker rallied the Bison from a 28-9 fourth quarter deficit scoring 22 points in the final ten minutes, capped off by a Walker to Kole Heckendorf 80 yard touchdown pass with 38 seconds left to propel the Bison to a 31-28 win. You can read Kolpack’s recap of the game, we’ll have more on this incredible game later this week on our podcast when Heckendorf joins us to talk about it.
The other game holds a different spot in Bison history, one in infamy actually. It was 2005, Cal Poly 37, North Dakota State 6. It was the worst loss that Craig Bohl ever had as head coach of the Bison, it’s the worst loss NDSU has had in the last 12 years. That stat is remarkable to think about, because every team (outside of Alabama) gets blown out every now and then.
That was the day that Bison fans got to know the name Ramses Barden. Barden was a 6’6 redshirt freshman wide receiver who torched NDSU to the tune of five receptions for 77 yards and a touchdown, he added a blocked field goal to boot. Barden and the Cal Poly offense racked up 377 yards and held NDSU to 194 in the beatdown. Bohl realized that day he needed cornerbacks to combat the wide receivers that would soon become frequent in college football (i.e. Jake Wieneke) and that day didn’t have the athletes to battle against a guy like Barden.
Bohl said this after the game: “As coaches, we need to create the vision. We’re taking a critical look – we just got whupped. We need to own up on this. People say it’s a terrible week to have off. I’m glad we have this week off.”
Bohl added: “We’re looking at this thing: we just got rocked by a good football team and how did we get rocked? We have some issues to deal with here. We can accomplish the things we need to accomplish, but we cannot have a sense that we’ve arrived and we’re a top 10 team.”
NDSU faced Barden two more times in the next two seasons, his total yards didn’t reach 100 and had just one touchdown as the Bison won both games. But that day in California is one that gets overlooked in NDSU’s D-1 history, but it shouldn’t be. That was the day Bohl found out what he really needed to get his team to the top of the FCS.