page_title: North Dakota State Bison football
section_title: Early history (1894–1921)
hierarchical_section_title: North Dakota State Bison football / History / Early history (1894–1921)
caption_attribution_description: English: First football team of the North Dakota State University.
context_page_description: The North Dakota State Bison football program represents North Dakota State University in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision level and competes in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The Bison play in the 19,000 seat Fargodome located in Fargo. The Bison have won sixteen national championships and 36 conference championships. They won five-consecutive NCAA Division I FCS National Championships between 2011 and 2015 as well as three more consecutively between 2017 and 2019. NDSU is the only college football program to ever win five consecutive NCAA national championships, and hold the record for most FCS titles with eight.
  Since 2011, the North Dakota State Bison have a record of 127–8 which included a record 22-game playoff win streak, making them the most successful college football program in Division I FCS this decade. The Bison are 181–35 since moving to Division I in 2004. Since 1964, the Bison have had only three losing seasons and an overall record of 515–137–4 through that 55-year span, one of the best in all of college football.
context_section_description: The Bison fielded their first team in 1894 and were originally known as the NDAC Farmers. From the early 1900s to 1921, the nickname of the school then known as North Dakota Agricultural College was the Aggies. The first coach for the new NDAC football team was Henry Bolley, who also fielded the first football program at Purdue University in 1887 and was their first Quarterback. He challenged the University of North Dakota to a football match in 1890, but did not have enough players until 1894, the first official year of football at NDSU. In 1902, Eddie Cochems, known as the father of the forward pass was hired as head coach of the Bison where he experimented building an offense around his new technique; which subsequently became legal in the 1906 college football season; Cochems went 9–1 in his 2-year stint as head coach. The college hired famed Michigan halfback Paul Magoffin, the first player to ever catch a forward pass in 1907, as head coach, but he left for the head coaching position offered to him by George Washington University a year later. The 1918 season was cancelled due to the outbreak of the Spanish Flu in conjunction with the first World War. The 1943 and 1944 seasons were also cancelled due to World War II and the shortage of eligible players. Keeping with their Michigan favoritism, the NDAC hired Stanley Borleske in 1919 to coach the football, basketball, and baseball teams. After six years of coaching and a 36–36–7 record, Borleske left for Fresno State but is largely credited with developing the Bison mascot. It was well known he was not a fan of the "Aggies" mascot, wanting something 'strong and fierce' he came up with the 'Bison' which remains the mascot today. He also coined the term "Thundering Herd" which is still a common reference to the NDSU Bison Football fanbase.
caption: First team of the NDSU, 1894
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