No. 1 North Dakota State and No. 3 Eastern Washington meet in the FCS national championship game Jan. 5. The Bison look for their seventh title in eight years while EWU wants to go 2-0 in championship games, the first win coming in 2010.
These two teams met in the 2010 playoffs, but this is the first postseason meeting since. The Bison have gone 2-0 in the regular season versus EWU with victories in 2016 and 2017.
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FCS Playoff Central
10 Prop Bets For The National Title Game
2 Huge Senior Classes Meet [divider]
Here are 10 other important stats or figures to know entering the title game:
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10 – NDSU's average number of points given up in the playoffs
The Bison allowed 10 points against Montana State, zero versus Colgate and 21 against South Dakota State. OK, yes, the true average is technically 10.3, but we'll round down for this article's sake.
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9 – # of NDSU HERO Sports All-Americans
Between our Freshman, Sophomore and All-FCS All-American teams, Bison players selected were DL Spencer Waege, OL Dillon Radunz, LB Jabril Cox, P Garret Wegner, QB Easton Stick, OL Tanner Volson, OL Zack Johnson, DE Greg Menard and SS Robbie Grimsley.
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8 – # of times EWU has scored more than 40 points this year
Five of these 40+ point games came in EWU's last six contests, with the 34-point game coming against UC Davis in the quarterfinals.
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7 – # of TD passes Eric Barriere threw in the semifinals
The sophomore tied a school record and broke the FCS playoff record with his seven touchdown tosses against Maine.
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6 – # of FCS titles for NDSU
The Bison are tied with Georgia Southern for the most national championships in FCS/Division 1-AA history.
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5 – # of times NDSU has beaten an opponent this year by more than 40 points.
Three of those games were consecutive against Missouri State, Southern Illinois and Montana State.
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4 – # of losses for the 2017 Eagles
EWU got left out of the playoffs last season at 7-4, which left mostly everyone who follows the FCS scratching their head. The 2018 Eagles have the mantra of "Leave No Doubt" and are now 12-2.
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3 – # of former EWU quarterbacks now in the CFL
Matt Nichols plays for Winnipeg, Bo Levi Mitchell is in Calgary and Vernon Adams plays for Montreal.
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2 – EWU's FCS ranking for turnovers gained
The Eagles have forced 32 turnovers (12 fumbles, 20 interceptions) to rank second behind SEMO's 36.
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1 – Easton Stick's all-time FCS wins ranking if NDSU beats EWU
The senior quarterback is tied with former Bison signal-caller Brock Jensen with 48 career wins. A victory in Frisco moves Stick to No. 1 all time.
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NEXT: 2018 HERO Sports All-American Teams
