Looking to inject some new juice to the game day experience after a relatively disappointing prior season, FCS football powerhouse North Dakota State teased what their pregame tunnel walks will look like in a video released on Friday.
Well, to clarify, the video was temporarily released. For reasons unknown other than extreme blowback via cyber bullying for their hype vid that dangerously bordered on self-parody, it was taken down. A Colorado Buffaloes content creator kept the digital receipt and reposted it to make sure it lived on in infamy:
Coach Prime, Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter and the Buffaloes are squaring off with North Dakota State to kick off the 2024 season in a highly anticipated duel. It’s not like Colorado proved to have many blue-chip players from last year’s team besides Shedeur and Hunter, but Deion has been active once again in the transfer portal to infuse the roster with more talent. I’m fascinated to see if this Buffaloes stan’s team can back up his trash talk. Pretty on-brand for the Coach Prime-led loud program if you ask me.
Particularly notable in this now-deleted vid was the background track of “Broadway Girls” by Lil Durk (feat. Morgan Wallen), complete with the San Francisco 49ers-inspired tradition of jamming out on a boombox with the tune blaring. Even a perceived banger track like that wasn’t enough for the Bison to fend off the wrath of tweeters at large, though.
Tough crowd! And again, I feel like given North Dakota State’s track record of success, they should give Colorado a hell of a game.
Now buckle up for a considerable dose more of sports-related analysis. The rabbit hole goes deeper on this video. I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but either way, the choice to use the 49ers’ patented boombox is a striking bit of irony. I’m sure other teams use the old-school music players for their walk-ups, but the 49ers are the most visible, popular team I recall doing it.
In case you don’t follow football at all and for some reason clicked on this article, once upon a time, the Bison featured Trey Lance as their starting quarterback. Lance’s only full year as a starter at the collegiate level came in 2019, when he led North Dakota State to its 16th of 17 national championships with a spectacular season. The dual-threat field general threw 28 TDs to zero interceptions, and ran for another 1,100 yards and 14 scores.
That small sample size and lack of experience against superior competition reared its ugly head once San Francisco selected Lance with the third overall pick in 2021, trading multiple future first-rounders to do it. Whenever a team takes a QB near the top of the draft, it’s sort of a coin flip as to whether it’ll work out. Lance was beset by injuries and inconsistency. He never really got a chance to see what he could do in a 49ers uniform and in Kyle Shanahan’s ingenious offense.
Thankfully for San Francisco, they lucked into Mr. Irrelevant Brock Purdy and the rest is basically history. Now in Dallas stuck behind Dak Prescott (and possibly Cooper Rush in a battle for the QB2 spot), Lance’s future as an NFL starter is very much in doubt. But man, did he ever dominate the one time he got the opportunity to take the reins in college.
Right now might be the first time I’ve thought of Trey Lance at all this calendar year. Too bad it came courtesy of the presumably shame-induced deletion of a hype video from his alma mater that’s being panned by many as cringe-worthy.
Anyway, as for the Bison, they matched their second-worst postseason showing since 2011 in losing the FCS Semifinals. The program has nine national titles in that span. Whatever it takes to fire the troops up, no matter how laughable it is to outsiders, I’m sure head coach Matt Entz is all for it. The pressure’s probably really on for him to win another natty. Entz hasn’t gotten it done since 2021. Must feel like an eternity for the NDSU faithful. Talk about weighty expectations!
Here’s the full song from Lil Durk and Morgan Wallen. Will spare you any Broadway chair-related joking fare as that’d be a whole tangent unto itself.