As we celebrate Saturday's kickoff to the 2025 college football season, the fans of both of South Dakota's Division I teams may just have Nashville and the FCS National Championship on their mind. They should. Both South Dakota State and South Dakota fell one win short of playing for the title last year and both are ranked in the preseason FCS Top 5.

If you take a wider view of the college football landscape, it is also easy and logical to wonder just how much longer SDSU and USD — particularly the firmly-established, two-time national champion Jackrabbits — will be in the FCS. So many contemporaries have flocked to the FBS the last decade. Why not the Jacks and Yotes?

No doubt, North Dakota State fans are not only pondering a jump to the FBS, but some are pining for it, if only out of boredom of 10 national titles and most of their games every season for 15 years ending in blowout wins. Declining Fargodome attendance suggests that.

Some NDSU media are shouting from the mountain top to move up, but, of course, as Sacramento State in its public bid to move to the FBS this past year proves, you need an invitation to an FCS conference. Within the last couple years, according to veteran Fargo columnist/reporter Mike McFeely, Bison administrators were at the very least having conversations with officials from the Mountain West Conference officials. Eventually, Northern Illinois got the nod (for football only).

But does that shut the door on the Bison or perhaps the Jacks and Yotes to ever join the MWC, which was ravaged by the departure of six schools to the Pac 12, which was ravaged by the departure of 10 of 12 schools to both the Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12?

If you listen carefully to recent remarks from both Wyoming athletic director Tom Burman (last week with Rapid City radio host Nate Brown) and SDSU A.D. Justin Sell (March 5 on Happy Hour with John Gaskins), it sure seems like the door is open.

Gaskins connects the dots of those remarks — plus the current state of the MWC and landscape of college football — to suggest who may be leaving the FCS and who may be staying in the next decade.

Also, the Minnesota Vikings traded with the Carolina Panthers for an old friend, 35-year-old Adam Thielen, who returns to his home state to provide wide receiver depth for an offense that sorely needs it. In addition to inducing an emotional, nostalgic if not euphoric reaction from most Vikings fans, why did this deal make so much sense?