Note: This is NCAA Division I mascot #1 of 5 in celebration of the first week of the 2015 NCAA Tournament. The No. 11-seeded Dayton Flyers play the Boise State Broncos tomorrow, in Dayton, in one of the “First Four” play-in games. Can Dayton do it again?
Note: The Northern Iowa football team (9-4) advanced to the second round of the 2014 FCS Tournament last weekend. Despite a 8-4 regular season record, UNI was the only team to defeat three-time defending FCS champion North Dakota State (11-1), which snapped their 33-game winning streak. UNI was also the only team to defeat Illinois State (10-1); they are scheduled to meet the Redbirds again in the second round of the FCS tournament on Saturday, December 6.
The North Dakota State Bison mascot, Thundar, is NCAA Division I pixel art mascot #96 of 351. In football, the Bison are the current three-time defending NCAA Division I-FCS national champions and have a 43-2 record since the start of 2011, the best record in all of Division I football during that time frame. To date, the Bison have won 25 straight games, the longest streak in both Bison and FCS history. (View reference images.)
Note: The North Dakota State football team has won its last five games against FBS teams: at Kansas (2010), at Minnesota (2011), at Colorado State (2012), at Kansas State (2013), and, most recently, at Iowa State last weekend by a score of 34-14.
Note: Last year, the Eagles opened their football season with an impressive 49-46 victory over the No. 25 Oregon State Beavers in Corvallis. Dynamic Eastern Washington QB Vernon Adams threw for four touchdowns and ran for two more, including one with 18 seconds left that sealed the game for the Eagles. Four months later, Eastern Washington (12-2) made its third trip to the Football Championship Subdivision semifinals in four seasons. The Eagles nearly advanced to the national title game against two-time defending champion North Dakota State, but were upset in the closing seconds of their 2013 FCS semifinal game. Three years prior, Eastern Washington won the school’s first national championship in football following the 2010 installation of red turf in Roos Field. Eastern Washington is now known for its intense red playing surface, nicknamed “The Inferno.”
P.S. Happy Labor Day! The Portland State Vikings lost 14-29 to the Oregon State Beavers on Saturday in Corvallis in their first football game of the season.
The Villanova Wildcats mascot is NCAA Division I pixel art mascot #90 of 352. The 1985 Villanova Wildcats men’s basketball team is the greatest of all Cinderella stories, becoming the lowest-seeded national champion in NCAA history. (View reference images.)
The Harvard Crimson mascot, a hideous distortion of John Harvard (who was a puritan clergyman from England), is NCAA Division I pixel art mascot #87 of 352. (View reference images.)
