Title/Author:
“Horns Up: Inside the
Greatest College Football Dynasty” by Jeff Kolpack
Tags:
Football (American),
college, dynasty
Publish date:
March 8, 2016
Length:
236 pages
Rating:
4 of 5 stars (Very
Good)
Review:
When a college football fan talks about towns that are home to some of
the best football programs, they just roll off the tongue. Places like Columbus, Ohio…Happy Valley,
Pennsylvania…Tuscaloosa, Alabama…Fargo, North Dakota.
Yes, that last city belongs in the conversation. Fargo is the home of the
North Dakota State Bison, the only team to win five consecutive national titles
in any level of college football. Their march
to these championships, as well as the decision by the school to join the
Football Championship Series (FCS, or formerly Division 1-AA) is chronicled in
this book by second-generation North Dakota sportswriter Jeff Kolpack.
The book stars off with the rise of Bison quarterback Carson Wentz, who
was the second pick of the 2016 NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles. From
there, the book will take the reader into the school administrative offices,
the coaches work areas, the locker room and even on the campus when ESPN hosted
its popular College Game Day show in Fargo in 2013 and 2014. Through it all,
Kolpack writes with a style that shows he is not only knowledgeable about the
program and the game of football, he displays that he also thoroughly enjoys
covering the team as he intersperses some personal, but pertinent, stories as
well.
The game coverage is very good, especially the chapter that has excellent
summaries of each of the five championship games in which the Bison became the
FCS champions. This was a chapter near the middle of the book, which seemed to
be a strange placement for a summary chapter. That was the biggest drawback
encountered while reading the book as it did not have a good flow by jumping
around from topic to topic without a sense of order.
However, the stories of key persons in the Bison program, everyone from
Wentz to coach Craig Bohl and athletic director Gene Taylor, are what make the
book fun to read. Kolpack’s knowledge about the school and the football team
will educate the reader about the team, the enthusiastic fan base and the dedication
of the players. The stories about the fans making trips to Minneapolis when the
Bison would play the Gophers, a Big Ten team, were very interesting,
outnumbering the fans from the much bigger school and even winning two of the
three games played by the two teams.
For any football fan who wants to read either about a true football
dynasty or about the rise of a smaller program, this is the book to pick
up. Of course, Bison fans will want to
read this as well, even if they have probably soaked up all this information on
their team from other sources.
Book Format Read:
E-Book (Kindle)
Buying links:
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