At long last, our national college football nightmare is over!

Well, at least this one. 

Monday marked the deadline for schools to decide to "opt in" to the June 6-approved NCAA-House Settlement that allows colleges to directly pay athletes for the first time in history. 

Monday also marked the day the FCS 800 lb. Gorilla, North Dakota State, made its announcement that it is joining the three other Dakota schools on opting in. South Dakota's announcement came a couple weeks ago while SDSU and UND waited until the end of last week.

NDSU athletic director Matt Larsen held a press conference in Fargo to answer questions, while Happy Hour reeled in veteran Forum of Fargo-Moorhead columnist Mike McFeely to make sense of it all.

What kind of a sea change, if any, will there be with the Bison joining the direct pay-for-play fray? Most importantly, how will this affect a football program that has won 10 of the last 14 national titles? 

Plus, McFeely explains why he again wrote about his and some NDSU fans' (if not NDSU administration) boredom of playing in the FCS — this time over non-conference slates of FCS vs. teams that recently moved up to the FBS from FCS.

And, we talk football! How does McFeely see things shaking out on the field in 2025, particularly for the four semifinalists from 2024, who are all believed to be Top 5 teams to start the season in just — Gasp! Horray! — two months?

Before that....

Happy Hour host John Gaskins offers his take on the "opt in" shakedown, then digs in to ESPN's latest jackassery of attempting to know or care about anything South Dakota sports. The last case of buffoonery was confusing Brookings for Vermillion at the very start of the USD-NDSU national quarterfinal game on ABC. This time, Sportscenter put who on the Mount Rushmore of South Dakota athletes instead of who?

Plus, thoughts on the Minnesota Timberwolves' first two relevant offseason moves — keeping Naz Reid and Julius Randle — and what the next move should be. And, the Minnesota Twins are so miserable that perhaps they should be a seller instead of a buyer when the MLB trade deadline strikes at the end of July.

Finally, a Friday news dump item that we scrape out of the heap on Monday and shed light: Mayor Paul TenHaken calling to set aside $11 million in renovations to The Birdcage, signaling if were up to him, the Sioux Falls Canaries and the park they've always played in (since the latest inception of the team in 1993) are here to stay.