BSU Football Playoff Hopes on the Line vs. Augustana

The final game of the regular season for BSU football is Saturday at home versus Augustana, and it has gone from a “feel good, end the season on a high note” type of game to a “win-and-you’re in” situation.

Every year, each of the four regions in Division II rank their top 10 teams in the third-to-last week of the regular season, and in the final week of rankings, the top seven teams will get bids to the playoffs. After losing their third game of the season at Winona State three weeks ago, Bemidji State was basically left for dead, with no real path to an NCAA playoff berth.

In fact, the Beavers weren’t even on the board in the first Super Region 4 rankings, but after losses by teams ranked seven through 10 last weekend, they jumped all the way to the last available playoff spot at seven. It’s an improbable position for them to be in, but it’s one the Beavers never stopped working towards.

“We all knew collectively as a group in this team what our potential is and if we if we win out, we’re going to give ourselves a shot,” said senior RB Jarrett Gronski. “All the kudos to everybody on this team as they kept believing, nobody folded. We knew the chances that were given to us and we didn’t give up. We’re going to fight tooth and nail to, you know, get to the playoffs and get to this opportunity that we have on Saturday.”

“We’ve kind of had our backs against the wall this whole season,” admitted senior WR and captain Bubba Peters. “We’ve slipped up a few games. Like [head coach Brent] Bolte said, you know, we know our mistakes and we know that. But I mean, I think the resiliency and how we attack the adversity and every day the past three weeks, it’s just been like that. It’s, how can we improve every single day? How can we take advantage of every opportunity? And it’s always good to have control and not depend on other teams to slip up or, you know, other teams to beat other teams. So, I mean, it’s always comfortable when, like I said, destiny is in your own hands. We put ourselves in a good spot. But, you know, it’s not good enough to – we just got to take care of business Saturday.”

BSU will play Augustana on November 16th at 1 p.m. at Chet Anderson Stadium.