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A Rivalry Has to Start Somewhere. For Wyoming and NDSU, It Starts Saturday
LARAMIE, Wyo. - Rivalries aren’t just created out of thin air.
They aren't created by putting a name on a football game, building a trophy or deciding two teams should suddenly dislike each other.
They need games. They need moments. They need heartbreak, celebrations, and a little bad blood along the way.
Wyoming and North Dakota State don't have any of that yet.
But they have all of the ingredients to make it happen.
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When the Cowboys and Bison meet Saturday afternoon inside the Fargodome, they will play for the newly created Battle of the Basins Trophy, a traveling trophy topped with a replica drill bit representing the petroleum industries that have played significant roles in both states.
Neither team seems to be playing into a rivalry.
"Is it a rivalry today? No," NDSU head coach Tim Polasek said this week. "But I think they're getting ready over there for a really physical football game."
Polasek knows Wyoming better than just about anyone in Fargo.
He spent three seasons as the Cowboys' offensive coordinator under Craig Bohl from 2021-23 before returning to NDSU as its head coach. Wyoming defensive coordinator Aaron Bohl has known Polasek even longer.
"Yeah, I love Tim," Aaron Bohl said. "Me and Tim go way back even from coaching here to, when he was a GA at NDSU, I was a nine-year-old kid running around and I'd sit in his meetings and stuff like that. So I've known Tim a long time. He's done a great job. He cares about that place a lot in that area of the country. So it'll be fun to see him on Saturday."
Then there's Aaron’s father, Craig Bohl.
Before spending 10 seasons leading Wyoming, Bohl helped turn North Dakota State into an FCS powerhouse, winning three consecutive national championships from 2011-13.
His fingerprints remain on both programs.
Polasek calls Craig Bohl his "number one mentor," while Aaron Bohl grew up around the Bison program and hasn't been back for a game in Fargo since 2013.
"That's where I learned about college football more," Aaron Bohl said. "I learned a lot from there, a lot of great memories. I haven't been back to a game there since 2013. It'll be fun to be back and fun to check it out."
Craig Bohl will be there, too.
"Obviously he's fully supporting us in every way possible, but he has a lot of great friends on that staff," Aaron Bohl said. "You look across their coaching staff, and it is so many players that he coached. He spends a lot of time with both staffs, and he's really excited just to watch a great game."
Plenty of connections exist between the two teams.
Polasek rattled off coaches on both staffs this week who have connections to the other program. There is familiarity with schemes, coaching philosophies and even the way the two programs believe football should be played.
"In these two teams, the DNA and how we go about our business and the development of what we think about football and how to play football, there's some similarities here," Polasek said.
There are similarities away from football, too.
Wyoming and North Dakota are rural states without major professional sports franchises. Their universities carry outsized importance for people hundreds of miles from campus. Both fan bases are accustomed to traveling long distances to follow their teams.
NDSU players at Mountain West Media Days in Las Vegas last July noticed the connections.
Offensive guard Griffin Empey didn't need to wait until game week to see the potential.
"I think our fan bases and what makes up the identity of our teams and our states are really, really similar," Empey told PokesNews.com. "Like Wyoming and North Dakota both don't have any professional sports teams. So Wyoming and North Dakota State are a lot of the pride of people's everyday lives."
Empey took it one step further.
"I think the makeup of both of our programs and the people pair up for a really, really good rivalry going forward."
NDSU's move from the FCS to the Mountain West made this conference game a reality.
Players had spent years hearing speculation that a move to the FBS might eventually happen, the transition opened the door to games like this one.
"We want to be the best of the best, we want to play the best of the best, and we want to be on the biggest stage possible," NDSU safety Darius Givance said. "Just being in the Mountain West now, I just feel like it's really positioned us to be in that position."
Wyoming head coach Jay Sawvel believes the geography and culture make the matchup a natural fit.
"This is cool, and it's got a great opportunity to do this," Sawvel said. "It's great because I think as far as geography goes and cultures go and all that, this is the most natural rival that they could have in this conference, right? It's one of the more natural rivals that we could have in this conference. So when you get to that, why not? Why not do something?"
Thus the Battle of the Basins was born.
Wyoming athletic director Tom Burman also called NDSU a "natural rival" when the trophy was announced.
"We are excited to add the traveling trophy with a natural rival in NDSU, as our universities and state have so much in common with each other," Burman said. "The Battle of the Basins will be an excellent way to celebrate a conference football game along with great traditions of the petroleum industry in both Wyoming and North Dakota."
Even Aaron Bohl got a laugh this week when he was asked whether the trophy should have featured his father's head instead of a drill bit.
"That would be quite funny," he said.
Polasek understands that attaching a trophy to a game doesn't automatically make it a rivalry.
He's been around enough of them to know what comes next.
"Rivalries are born from big moments," Polasek said. "Rivalries are born from really tight ball games where the physicality..."
The moments and history cannot be manufactured or scheduled. They will be made on the field.
"What this is right now is a traveling trophy that we're so thankful for because you need that in college football in order to keep it special," Polasek said. "And then I think, and I'm going to predict, and I would love to see it, that this turns into a pretty feisty rivalry type thing."
Two programs separated by roughly 800 miles. Two fan bases that see plenty of themselves in the other. Two coaching staffs connected by years of friendships and shared football history. Two states tied together by agriculture, energy, and an identity built far away from college football's biggest metropolitan centers.
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