FARGO -- The North Dakota State football office complex is a beautiful facility that has all the Division I amenities. But this week, with the biggest game of the week looming on Saturday, it could just as well be a prehistoric cave.
That's the way the Bison players and coaches are approaching the University of Minnesota game. Hoopla? What hoopla?
In Craig Bohl's world, it's the gospel as first preached by Tom Osborne. The NDSU head coach has patterned much of his coaching style after the former University of Nebraska head coach.
"He was really good as far as just staying the course, having a methodical plan and putting the players in position to play with confidence," Bohl said. "You just instill that in them, not all these magical things. You zone out all the other stuff on the outside. It seemed to work for us at Nebraska and we choose to do that here."
The Bison, who retained their No. 1 ranking Monday in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision coaches poll, travel to the Metrodome for an 11:07 a.m. kickoff. It's a rematch from last year's 10-9 Gopher victory.
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On Monday, Bohl likened being a football coach as working in a submarine. They go to work in the morning when it's dark outside and they go home when it's dark.
The opponent doesn't matter. The players will go through the same routine this week against a Big Ten Conference opponent as they did last week against lowly Mississippi Valley State.
"You stay with the same formula," Bohl said.
That means Bohl meeting with the team captains at the beginning of the week. It means watching tape of the opponent at the same times, practicing at the same times and trying to dismiss what fellow NDSU students are saying about the Gophers.
Bohl has been saying for weeks that his team is a mentally established group. This week is another test.
"I would like to think our guys are mature enough that they know it's about a football game and it's going to come down to executing our stuff," Bohl said.
Not many good seats are left in the Metrodome at the Gopher ticket office. On Monday, the only vacancies were in the upper corners of the upper deck.
No concrete figures could ever be tabulated because of all the different ticket avenues, but Bohl figures NDSU will draw around 25,000 fans to the game.
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Then again, when you're working in a submarine, or living in a cave, crowd control is not a top priority.
"Some days, you feel like a mole," Bohl said.
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