From the Fall 2026 issue of Bison Illustrated.
Photo by Gavin Fernholz, Dynamic Studios.
Tim Polasek enters his third season as NDSU’s head coach with a 26-3 record, two Missouri Valley Football Conference championships and the 2024 FCS national championship already on his résumé. He was runner-up for the 2025 Eddie Robinson Award, presented to the FCS national coach of the year. Polasek has deep NDSU roots, previously spending 10 seasons on the Bison staff, including three as offensive coordinator. His career also includes FBS stops at Northern Illinois, Iowa and Wyoming, where he served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2021-23.
Q: How do you define a successful first FBS season?
Tim Polasek: Quite frankly, that’s a really good question, especially for where we’re at in this process of entering a new league and a new level.
For us in-house, success has always been defined, as far as I’m concerned and getting back here to be the head coach, as: Do we reach our full potential?
I think for the fans, initially, what that means is we’re not talking about wins and losses. We’re talking about everybody competing, improving and being tough as hell each and every day. That’s first and foremost.
Then, on top of that, it’s continuing to run a great program. Kids who are achieving at a high level academically, kids who are great community members, good in society, good for society and prepared to go out into the real world and dominate.
Especially in the portal and NIL era, we’re not talking about training guys anymore for four and five years. There’s a lot more change.
Then, on top of that, it would be a Mountain West Conference Championship, most certainly. Our players spoke very passionately about that. Winning and losing is still a big part of our DNA.
So, a successful season looks like: Do we reach our full potential? Are we running a great, first-class program? And then, a Mountain West Conference Championship and being in the conference championship game is critical for bigger and bigger moments in NDSU’s storied history.
Q: When you guys found out about this leap, were you in the know before it was announced, and how were you preparing for it?
Polasek: For sure. Going all the way back to my interview process, that was maybe the one question. It wasn’t shocking. It didn’t catch me off guard. I just didn’t know what would come up in that setting. But it was, “Okay, if we were to move up, what league would be ideal?”
I think North Dakota State has done such a tremendous job—the administration, the president’s office, the school—in doing all the correct processes. The research had been done, so I was very tied in that way.
Then, obviously, we got a little bit of word in November and December. With the early exit in the FCS tournament, we were able to get out and start to hit some major supporters to see if they’d be behind it. So, yes, there was an anticipation.
The cool thing—and it’s going to be part of our story here—is Jill and I had made the decision to stay prior to knowing if we were going FBS. But I knew there was maybe a 1% to 5% chance, and those percentages just kept going up.
So, I most certainly was in the know, and I was very grateful for that in the process.
Q: Once you did find out, did anything change in how you prepared for the season or approached the offseason, or was it mostly business as usual with a stronger emphasis on execution?
Polasek: I think the timing of it is unique. In football, we don’t have the luxury of making excuses or having excuses. It’s all about production and producing.
But it was very interesting how it was going to impact recruiting. The 2026 class had already been wrapped up. The 2027 recruiting board was already off and running. I would say at least 50% to 66% of it was developed already, so there was a lot of change that needed to happen with recruiting. Offers needed to be reevaluated. Can guys play at this level? Can they not?
We don’t want to change our recruiting footprint too much, but the level of skill kid is most certainly going to go up. That was a big change in attacking recruiting, for sure.
Then, football opponents are football opponents. Whether it’s January and you’re going into a new league or the same league, you have your non-conference opponents that you’re starting to learn about.
So, we started to take a deep dive into all these different universities that we’re going to be playing on a regular basis and who are potential rivals.
“Change”—or probably “adjusting” is a little bit better. We have to get familiarized with our new opponents and coaches.
Q: The road schedule includes a lot of different states and some significant travel. Have you changed anything regarding travel, sleep, recovery, or preparation because of that?
Polasek: All of it. Yes.
I really appreciate the job Trish Shannon, our athletic trainer who’s responsible for the health of our guys, has done. It goes far beyond just rehab and this, that and the other thing. Our strength and conditioning staff, too. I challenged them immediately with some of the nuances of the new calendar.
But here’s the deal: When you travel west, it’s not going to have that big of an impact on how you perform. But traveling back is going to have a huge, huge impact on development and on preparation for your next opponent.
I’ll give you an example. We’ve got two games this year where we’re going to be getting back in the 6 a.m. range. As a coaching staff, I’m going to ask them to giddy up and go right into work. Obviously, the day will be a little bit shorter time-wise than what it used to be, but we’ve got to get some sleep.
For the players, treatment and rehab will be pushed back a little bit, as will their ability to get in and maybe watch some tape on their own, because that’s technically our off day.
Honestly, traveling east across multiple time zones, in my opinion, is a little bit harder for that specific game. But preparation-wise, it’s going to be a bear. It’s going to be a monster on the coaching staff.
We’ll have to do a good job with how we handle ourselves on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturday nights.
Q: Last question: What excites you most about this leap, and what should NDSU fans expect?
Polasek: What excites me the most is the potential in this program.
We have some successes to fall back on. We’ve been in FBS games and have done well. I think we’ve won nine out of 14.
The unknown is: How do we handle the travel? How do we handle back-to-back FBS opponents now? How do you handle three tough games in a row? How do you handle stumbling in Week 6, knowing that you’re not out of it and you’ve got to stay on the gas?
Those things—the little bit of unknown about how exactly we match up, how exactly, week to week, our depth is going to compare to those other teams that have been FBS for a while—the travel is going to be a challenge.
But I do think the excitement lies in the potential within this program, these kids and our coaching staff, and how good we can be.
It’s obvious, right? We have work to do as far as still raising some money because we do have to get new meeting rooms. We have to get our offices revamped and those kinds of things.
But the unknown and the excitement level of our potential is really good. Potential is also a scary word in sports. It’s about production.
So, we need to be attacking this thing, and we need to lead this conference in physicality.
Read the Fall 2026 magazine feature.
