For years, the path seemed obvious.

Dominate the FCS.

Drink too much at Chubs the night before and drop your phone in the toilet (okay maybe that’s just a me thing).

Move to the FBS.

Compete for larger television contracts, bigger games and, if everything broke perfectly, eventually earn a place at college football’s biggest table.

North Dakota State finally took that step.

After 10 FCS national championships—and signs that even historic success could no longer guarantee a full Fargodome—the Bison joined the Mountain West as a football-only member. Their 2025 home finale drew 10,464 fans in a building that seats approximately 19,000.

The timing will be fascinating.

Not because moving to the FBS was necessarily the wrong decision.

But because the definition of what the FBS actually offers is changing.

The playoff is becoming harder to reach—not easier

North Dakota State reached the FBS only months after James Madison demonstrated the dream scenario.

The Dukes, once a familiar FCS opponent, won the Sun Belt in just their fourth FBS season and reached the 2025 College Football Playoff. As I write this late at night from a Virginia hotel barely an hour from Harrisonburg, James Madison’s run feels like both a blueprint—and possibly the end of an era.

The 2026 playoff rules are already less friendly to outsiders.

The champions of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC receive guaranteed bids. What everyone still casually calls the Group of Five is now six conferences—the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 and Sun Belt—but those six leagues share only one guaranteed position. The remaining seven spots are filled by the highest-ranked available teams, which will ordinarily favor Power Four schedules and brands.

Future expansion remains unsettled. The Big Ten has pushed a 24-team model, while the SEC has favored a smaller 16-team field with more at-large selections. Those proposals disagree on format, but both discussions revolve around increasing access and control for the wealthiest conferences… not opening multiple new paths for the Mountain West or MAC.

NDSU will be competing in the Mountain West, but it is still completing the FBS reclassification process. In fact, given the NCAA D1 Cabinet voted to eliminate the two-year postseason transition penalty for transitioning schools.

The FBS is growing.

The opportunity inside it may not be.

Congress may be freezing conference realignment

The Protect College Sports Act adds another obstacle.

Most coverage has focused on NIL, revenue sharing and transfer rules. Buried in Section 205 of the Act is language designed to prevent another power conference from being dismantled the way the Pac-12 was.

The bill applies to a football-driven conference reporting more than $700 million in revenue on its 2025 or a later tax return.

A conference above that threshold generally could not acquire another covered conference—or a school that has competed in one during the preceding five years—unless the resulting league contained at least 75% of the entire FBS.

That is not normal expansion. That is something approaching a national super league.

A qualifying conference could still acquire a school outside that protected category, but only when the transaction leaves the conference with no more than 19 members. A prohibited transaction would be void, and the conference could not defend it by arguing that the move created efficiencies or improved competition. The bill also prevents an outside entity from gathering protected schools and their media rights to create a new breakaway conference.

The language does not completely end realignment. Its exact effect would depend on which conferences cross the $700 million threshold.

It would, however, make it much harder for the richest leagues to keep picking off valuable programs one at a time.

The Big Ten’s final chair may already have a name on it

The Big Ten currently has 18 members and reported distributing $1.37 billion among them for the fiscal year ending in June 2025. It is plainly the type of conference Congress is targeting.

Under the proposed 19-school limit for adding a non-covered institution, the Big Ten appears to have one practical opening left.

It is difficult to avoid the obvious inference: that chair is being kept warm for Notre Dame.

Notre Dame finished No. 11 in the final 2025 rankings but was left out of the playoff in favor of Miami. The 2026 rules now guarantee Notre Dame a bid whenever it finishes in the top 12.

Call it an independence insurance policy—or a little post-exclusion shade from the playoff’s decision-makers.

Either way, Notre Dame now has even less reason to join a conference. It can keep its independent television arrangement and national schedule while receiving a playoff guarantee that no other independent possesses.

That could leave the Big Ten sitting at 18 indefinitely, saving its final non-covered opening for a school that may never need it.

Even if the conference eventually gives up on Notre Dame, it would have one invitation for a long list of candidates. The SEC, currently at 16, could have up to three such openings under the same provision. Those seats would presumably be contested by schools with enormous television markets, recruiting territories and existing Power Four brands.

North Dakota State would not be near the front of that line.

The bill therefore risks making the Power Four more stable—but also much more exclusive.

The Mountain West may be the destination

NDSU did not spend millions of dollars merely to change opponents.

The school reportedly owes the NCAA a $5 million FBS transition fee and more than $10 million to enter the Mountain West. The move brings improved television exposure, more FBS games and broader institutional visibility.

But the traditional theory of moving up was that one opportunity could lead to another.

Win in the FCS.

Reach the Group of Five.

Win there.

Make a New Years Six Bowl, the Playoffs or even get a call to the big conferences.

The Protect College Sports Act could remove the last part of that progression. If the Power Four becomes more closed and playoff access becomes more concentrated, the Mountain West may not be a launching pad.

It may be the destination.

That is still a major accomplishment. It is simply a different value proposition than the one FCS programs considered a decade ago.

What once meant moving closer to a New Year’s bowl or national championship may increasingly mean competing for a conference title and whichever December bowl happens to have the best sponsor that season. (In 2025, the Conference Champion, if not selected to the CFP, was placed into one of the following bowls: Boca Raton Bowl, Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Puerto Rico Bowl, Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl, Frisco Bowl, Isleta New Mexico Bowl)

NDSU could also miss a legacy-FBS revenue benefit

The bill’s proposed national media pool creates another dividing line.

Every participating Division I institution would be eligible for a minimum distribution, and members would be guaranteed more non-playoff media revenue than their best year between 2021–22 and 2024–25.

But at least 15% of the remaining pool would be divided equally only among schools that received FBS football revenue during the 2024–25 academic year.

NDSU did not enter the FBS until 2026.

The Bison could join the media pool and receive other distributions, but the current language appears to exclude them from that legacy-FBS share.

Congress would effectively create two classes:

Established FBS programs and schools that arrived later.

That is one way NDSU’s move could backfire. The Bison would assume the cost of becoming an FBS program while remaining outside a revenue benefit Congress reserves for schools that reached the subdivision first.

Sacramento State made an even more expensive bet

Sacramento State is making a similar gamble.

The Hornets joined the MAC as a football-only member for 2026 after an aggressive and sometimes chaotic FBS campaign. Sacramento State reportedly agreed to an $18 million conference entry payment in addition to the NCAA’s $5 million transition fee.

NDSU and Sacramento State are buying into the FBS at the same moment its top programs may be separating into their own protected economic class.

That does not make either move irrational. Both schools gain television inventory, brand exposure and access to a higher level of regular-season competition.

But they may have paid premium prices for entry into the middle of college football—not the top.

Could the price eventually fall?

Here is the possibility that should interest USD.

Suppose the Power Four eventually establishes a nearly exclusive championship structure, whether through playoff guarantees, conference consolidation or a formal breakaway.

The Group of Six would begin to look less like the lower half of the FBS and more like a new middle division.

If that happens, the economic value of joining it could fall.

Conferences needing teams and television inventory might eventually charge less than the reported amounts paid by NDSU and Sacramento State. Schools may be less willing to pay eight figures when the purchase no longer includes a realistic route to the same national championship as Ohio State, Alabama or Notre Dame.

The current barriers remain substantial. The NCAA charges a $5 million FBS transition fee and requires FBS programs to fund at least 210 scholarships across 16 sports, totaling no less than $6 million annually beginning in August 2027.

But if the top of the sport breaks away, those requirements could eventually be reconsidered for the remaining middle tier.

That could create opportunities for later movers.

A school such as St. Thomas—which completed its transition to full Division I membership in 2025 but currently plays non-scholarship FCS football—would face an enormous investment today. In a reorganized system where conferences such as the Mountain West or MAC need members, the entry price and competitive expectations could look very different several years from now.

NDSU may have paid the old price immediately before the product changed.

Where does that leave USD?

For USD, waiting does not necessarily mean lacking ambition.

USD reached the FCS national semifinals in 2024. The Coyotes compete in a subdivision that still provides a direct path to a recognized national championship.

If the Power Four closes itself off and Group of Six programs receive only one shared playoff opportunity, the strategic question changes.

It is no longer simply:

“How quickly can USD move to the FBS?”

It becomes:

“What version of the FBS would USD actually be joining?”

There are risks to staying. The FCS loses media value every time a recognizable program leaves. NDSU’s departure weakens the Missouri Valley Football Conference’s national profile, even while opening the championship race for USD, SDSU and others.

But there is also risk in paying millions to enter a subdivision whose best opportunities are disappearing.

USD can watch how NDSU’s television exposure, ticket sales, travel costs and playoff prospects develop. It can also wait to see whether the Protect College Sports Act passes, whether the Power Four becomes more exclusive and whether the price of joining the middle tier eventually declines.

The bottom line

North Dakota State probably made the correct decision based on the landscape in front of it.

The Bison had accomplished nearly everything possible in the FCS. Attendance showed signs of fatigue. The Mountain West offered a new challenge and a larger platform.

But the landscape is moving quickly.

The playoff now guarantees the Power Four access while six other conferences share one protected position.

Congress is considering legislation that could limit the richest conferences to only a handful of additional members.

Notre Dame has received a playoff guarantee that allows it to remain independent while the Big Ten’s apparent final opening waits.

And the bill’s media formula could exclude NDSU from a revenue share reserved for schools already in the FBS two years before the Bison arrived.

North Dakota State may not have moved at the wrong time.

It may have been the last school to pay a premium price for the old version of the FBS.

Patience may prove more valuable than urgency.

The Coyotes do not need to decide today whether they eventually belong in the FBS.

They need to wait and see whether the FBS the Bison just joined still exists when that decision arrives.