LARAMIE – The Cowboys are facing their biggest challenge of the season this Saturday.
 
Wyoming will be the first Mountain West opponent to play North Dakota State in the Fargodome, where the Bison posted a 38-2 record in FCS playoff games while winning 10 national titles over the years.
 
The Bison (4-0, 1-0 MW) opened the season, the program's first in the FBS, with dominant wins over Jacksonville State (33-7) and Fordham (38-0), before beating Air Force (38-32) and Sacramento State (31-10) on the road.
 
While the Cowboys (2-2, 1-0) were defeating Hawai'i 27-10 at War Memorial Stadium, NDSU was enjoying an open date.
 
"This will be the most difficult road environment in the Mountain West," UW head coach Jay Sawvel said of the challenge of silencing a sellout crowd of 19,000 in the Fargodome. "Not only the opponent is very good, the fan base is very good. The quarters are very tight, and there's a roof on it. This is the most difficult environment that we'll play in this conference, and we've got to go do it. We need to play a lot better than we have."
 
This series has a chance to develop into a natural rivalry. Laramie is approximately 800 miles from Fargo, N.D., which makes the Pokes the nearest MW team to NDSU.
 
Craig Bohl, who built NDSU into an FCS powerhouse before coaching UW for 10 years, will be in attendance to watch his former coordinators compete as head coaches for the Bison (Tim Polasek) and Cowboys (Sawvel), respectively.
 
Monday, the schools introduced the Battle of the Basins Trophy for the winning team to collect after the final whistle.
 
"This is what college football is. You get a chance to go do things that are difficult. This is difficult," Sawvel said. "We have to go play really well. It's a very good football team."
 
Bison quarterback Nathan Hayes has completed 67% of his passes for 808 yards with seven touchdowns and two interceptions. DJ Scott and Myles Mitchell have combined for 439 yards rushing with three touchdowns each.
 
Jackson Williams (283 yards, one touchdown), Mekhi Collins (134 yards, two touchdowns) and Reis Kessel (106 yards, one touchdown) are Hayes' top targets.
Defensively, Donovan Woolen leads the team with 24 tackles. Kelton McCaslin (3.5 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks), Gavin Sell (19 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss) and Matthew Stenbroten (13 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss) have been disruptive.
 
Marion Moore has two of NDSU's seven interceptions.
 
NDSU and UW have played only once, in 2008, when the Bison lost 16-13 at War Memorial Stadium.
 
After winning three FCS national championships, Bohl left Fargo to become the Cowboys' head coach from 2014-23, winning nine games in his final year with Polasek as offensive coordinator and Sawvel as defensive coordinator.
 
"Obviously, I know their head coach really well, I'm friends with him," Sawvel said. "They've got outstanding players offensively and defensively. This will be a big, big challenge, and we're going to have to play really well. We have some things to build off from last week, but we've got to get a lot better."

The UW-NDSU game will begin at 1:30 p.m. Saturday on the CW.
 
Follow Ryan for more stories on Wyoming athletics on X at @By_RyanThorburn on Facebook at Wyoming Athletics and Instagram at wyoathletics. Also follow him at Pokes Insider at Gowyo.com/pokesinsider.
 
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