Gotta hand it to ESPN, they know what they like and what works best they’re hell bent on doing it as long as possible. They LOVE college football, and intimately know that virtually no other sport or event comes close to delivering the level and passion of audience that follows it. It’s the primary reason why we’ve just come off a slate of more than 40 post-season games where only eight were of true significance and a spell where the network didn’t have a single day other than Sunday without at least one game played since December 19th.
So when the College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams this year they threw out whatever budget limitations that Disney beancounters may have been imposing on other less significant areas and made sure they controlled the rights to the expanded slate, pawning two of the lesser appeal first rounders that competed with crucial NFL games to a desperate TNT while maintaining ESPN branding, graphics and promotion. Later this week they’ll reap the immediate benefits with a Thursday-Friday one-two bunch of de facto semifinals masquerading as the displaced Orange and Cotton Bowls. But that also means that the Monday night championship game window that would in previous years be occurring on a night like this is now happening the evening of both Inauguration and Martin Luther King Day, clearly a night that was desperately in need of effective counterprogramming. Coupled with the Super Wild Card coda that will take place for the second time in three years at SoFi Stadium, that meant at least two more Monday nights with football, a strategy that has led the night’s ratings since way back in September–even when the country’s number two cable system wasn’t carrying the game.
So in need of something as a way to extend the franchise still more and without interruption, they’ve reached into their arsenal and for the first time has upgraded the other national championship game–the FCS title game–to prime time (well, a 7 PM start, since Scott Van Pelt and company shouldn’t have to schlep down to Frisco, Texas for something of this consequence).
But hard-core football fans, as well as the fine residents of the great states of Montana and North Dakota, will definitely carve out time for it because, in their worlds, this is a big deal. As THE ASSOCIATED PRESS’ Stephen Hawkins reported yesterday:
A matchup of undefeated Montana State and perennial champion North Dakota State in the Football Championship Subdivision title game is no real surprise. What is unique is that both quarterbacks, Montana native Tommy Mellott for the Bobcats and Cam Miller for NDSU, were also the starters when the two teams played in the championship game three years ago.
In the era with a transfer portal and lucrative NIL deals — only one of the four remaining College Football Playoff quarterbacks is with his original school — Mellott and Miller remained in place and will close out their college careers by going against each other for a national championship Monday night.
“It is poetic that they both led their teams to this game,” Montana State coach Brent Vigen said.
“I think it speaks to both of our characters,” said Miller, who will make his 54th consecutive start for North Dakota State. “It speaks to the programs that we both play at.”
And the teams involved–in their states, far and away the highest level of competition, success and relevance any college or professional entity that call them home has achieved–have a host of potentially historic goals in front of them, as Hawkins continued:
Montana State (15-0) is looking for its first national title since 1940. North Dakota State (13-2) has won nine championships in its previous 10 trips from Fargo to Frisco. The last for the Bison was a 38-10 victory three years ago when Mellott, then a freshman who became the Bobcats’ starting quarterback in those playoffs, got hurt early in the title game.
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED’s Timothy Rosario added a few others in his preview which dropped this past weekend:
As we prepare for the 2025 FCS National Championship game, we wanted to take a look at how Montana State and North Dakota State compare to previous teams who have made appearances in the FCS national title game over the past five seasons.
Do these teams belong in the same conversation as last season’s South Dakota State team or the 16-0 North Dakota State team in 2019? We examine both teams in this season’s national title game and compare them to those who have appeared in the national title game in the last five full seasons.
Both teams this season compare favorably with the past four FCS national champions. Montana State has the second-highest adjusted margin of victory, winning by an average of 19.1 points per game. It only trails the 2019 North Dakota State team, which defeated opponents by an average of 19.3 points per game.
The most interesting takeaway is that this is the first matchup in the FCS National Championship in the past five full seasons in which both teams appear to be playing at a championship standard. Analytically, this is the closest gap between the teams playing in the national championship in the past five seasons.
And folks who did a lot of flipping when some of those more boring bowls and even those first round playoff games on TNT may have noticed that these teams’ marches to tonight were what ABC proper threw against all of it. Those ADD types likely already know the dominance these teams displayed and how entertaining even their routes were. And with rosters that were actuallt intact from their regular seasons.
So even folks who live in slightly balmier and more densely populated environs should find reason to tune in to this installment of Monday Night Football. What, you’d rather be watching A Will Trent marathon?
Courage…