NDSU starts another title defense with first OT home win in school history

FARGO, N.D. — The first overtime game in the history of the Fargodome was settled on the first play when North Dakota State running back King Frazier scored on a 25-yard run.

The top-ranked and five-time defending FCS champion Bison then held Charleston Southern on downs to come away with a 24-14 win in the season opener on Saturday.

“They had done a great job of bottling us up inside and we told King if there’s nothing there, take it outside and bounce it and he did a great job,” NDSU coach Chris Kliemen said.

Frazier ran for a team-high 79 yards as the Bison escaped an upset bid by the sixth-ranked Buccaneers. They also extended their home winning streak against nonconference teams to 43 games.

“We’re a resilient bunch of guys. We’ve been in these positions a lot,” Klieman added. “We made a lot of mistakes. But that’s a good football team.”

NDSU had six penalties for 70 yards, many of which nullified big plays. A fumble also led to a 3-0 lead following Jacob Smoak’s first college field goal from 46 yards.

NDSU quarterback Easton Stick completed 17 of 27 passes for 194 yards and TD passes of 23 yards to Darrius Shepherd and 47 yards to RJ Urzendowski.

Stick, who started eight games last year after NFL draft pick Carson Wentz was injured, rallied the Bison against a top-10 team.

“That’s a good team,” Stick said. “It was tough getting a read on them . We did some things to ourselves that hurt us. Credit our defense for coming up and giving our offense a chance at the end.”

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Smoak’s 46-yarder gave the Buccaneers a 3-0 lead with 9:44 left in the first half. Charleston Southern’s Tyler Tekac missed a 36-yard attempt earlier in the first quarter.

North Dakota State’s Cam Pedersen missed a 43-yard attempt early in the second quarter, but bounced a career-long 52-yarder off the crossbar as time ran out to tie the game 3-all going into halftime.

Charleston Southern’s Mike Holloway led all rushers with 126 yards, including scoring runs of 47 and 6 yards. His 47-yarder on an option pitch with 13:07 left in the third quarter gave the Buccaneers a 10-3 lead.

The Bison rallied on Stick’s 23-yard pass to Shepherd with 10:02 left in the third quarter and a 47-yarder to wide-open Urzendowski that made it 17-10 with 10:34 to play.

It stayed that way until Holloway’s 6-yard run straight up the middle tied it 17-all with 2:59 left.

CSU quarterback Kyle Copeland was 8-for-20 for 94 yards, but kept Charlestown Southern within striking distance. He completed a fourth-and-10 pass for a first down to keep the Buccaneers alive on their game-tying drive.

The Buccaneers had a chance to win in regulation but Smoak’s 51-yard field-goal attempt was wide left as time ran out.

“We knew it would be a fourth-quarter game. We knew they were a tough team going in,” said linebacker MJ Stumpf. “There were things we didn’t do well enough and we had to grind it out to win. Stumpf had a team-high eight tackles.

NDSU outgained CSU 424-263 in total yards.

Defenses dominated the first half. The Bison held Charleston Southern to 71 total yards while the Buccaneers held North Dakota State to 138.