Bison overcome game Redbirds behind QB Payton – Fargo – InForum

NORMAL, Ill. — The North Dakota State charter airplane to Illinois State on Friday had one of those bumpy approaches to the Central Illinois Regional Airport. Bison quarterback Cole Payton couldn’t control those weather elements.

He did have command of just about everything else on the weekend.

The Bison senior once again used his potent left arm and deft running ability on Saturday night, willing NDSU to a 33-16 victory over the Redbirds before 9,829 fans at Hancock Stadium. It was NDSU’s third road victory of the season and improved the No. 1-ranked Bison to 5-0, 2-0 in the Missouri Valley Football Conference.

“The biggest challenge is his legs, I mean he’s fast,” said Illinois State linebacker Tye Niekamp. “He’s next-level fast. We kind of knew going into today he’s a guy who can run away from us. It’s frustrating because we had him in the pocket most of the time but he just found a way to get out.”

NDSU is now almost halfway through the regular season, enough evidence that Payton is turning his last season into a memorable one. He was 12 of 14 passing for 194 yards and a touchdown while adding 79 yards on 15 carries on the ground and another TD. He converted a pair of two-point conversions, also.

“He did a good job of kicking out of some sticky moments where he had to make somebody miss in the backfield,” said Bison head coach Tim Polasek. “This is the first game where he really got sped up in some of his progressions. He did a nice job and you could see he made some wonderful athletic plays today just keeping us on the field.”

Payton’s 23-yard touchdown pass to Bryce Lance with 13:14 left in the fourth quarter restored a Bison lead to nine points at 25-16. The senior receiver had been held down for the most part until that point with two receptions for 22 yards.

But when it counted, Payton found him. When it counted, Payton did a lot of things. So did running back Barika Kpeenu, who had a game-high 116 yards rushing on 14 carries.

The Bison defense followed that with a three-and-out forcing a quick ISU punt, and the Bison for the first time all night controlled a significant portion of the game. Helping matters was a 51-yard pass to Jackson Williams on third-and-8 that reached the ISU 20-yard line.

“That’s how they play. They’re really amazing actually,” said ISU head coach Brock Spack. “They’ve done this now for 17 years. It seems like they’re the same team with different names on the back of the jersey.”

The Bison weathered a storm created by Illinois State quarterback Tommy Rittenhouse, who was a handful for the Bison in the first two quarters with several key third-down conversions. He made some plays with his legs, like an 18-yard scramble on first-and-15, a play that eventually resulted in Wenkers Wright’s 6-yard TD run.

David Samson / The Forum

That gave the Redbirds a 9-7 lead. The Bison, however, had the biggest play of the first half when Kpeenu rambled 42 yards for a touchdown with 4:56 left before halftime. After a two-point conversion run from Payton, the Bison took a 15-9 lead at halftime.

“It was a really good look at the scoreboard, we had the lead and we were talking about, hey, this is fun, this is Division I football,” Polasek said. “That’s a good football team over there.”

Yet … the Redbirds ran 42 plays to NDSU’s 19 and dominated the time of possession.

“Illinois State is a really good football team, I thought they came out with the right intent,” Polasek said. “Their first half was really pretty good. They had the ball for 42 plays, that sounds like a recipe that we like to use.”

It was a trend that started from the opening bell. The Redbirds took the opening kickoff and rattled off 12 plays before punting, but Hayden Futch’s boot was downed at the NDSU 1-yard line. On NDSU’s first play, the Redbirds defense sliced through and stopped Kpeenu in the end zone and it was 2-0.

It was NDSU’s first surrendered safety since the 2022 FCS semifinals when Incarnate Word stopped the Bison in the end zone, with the ISU play putting NDSU behind an opponent for the first time this season.

It didn’t last. Bison linebacker Nathaniel Staehling stopped the Redbirds’ momentum by recovering a fumble near midfield, a ball stripped by defensive end Kelton McCaslin. Payton made it count, scoring from 13 yards out, hurdling an ISU defensive back near the goal line to make it 7-2.

Still, it was Illinois State that controlled the first quarter having the ball for just over 11 of the 15 minutes.

“They did a nice job of keeping us off balance both offensively and defensively,” Polasek said.

David Samson / The Forum

Jeff Kolpack, the son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he’s covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995. He has covered all 10 of NDSU’s Division I FCS national football titles and has written four books: “Horns Up,” “North Dakota Tough,” “Covid Kids” and “They Caught Them Sleeping: How Dot Reinvented the Pretzel.” He is also the radio host of “The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack” April through August.