(Editor’s Note: Blake Clay is a member of the Northern State football team. He is the newest member of the SD SportScene staff. He will help to provide regular coverage of NSU squads, cover high school events, and also be a regular on the weekly SD SportScene podcast.)

The Northern State University football team will take on its first Division I foe in program history when the Wolves travel to Vermillion to take on the University of South Dakota Coyotes.

With Upper Iowa leaving the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference after the 2022 season, it left one non-conference game open to teams in the NSIC. This year, Northern coach Mike Schmidt decided to schedule the fifth-ranked team in the country at the FCS level.

“We have absolutely nothing to lose. We’re going to be exposed where we’re weak, which is exactly what you want,” said Schmidt. “We’re gonna find out what we have to get better at because they’re just so good and they’re gonna expose you with that.”

It is a huge challenge for the Wolves, but no better way to start off the year than this, according to Schmidt.

“What an opportunity. What an opportunity for our players, our fan base, our alumni to showcase Northern State football on that stage,” Schmidt said. “It’s going to be such a fun night, a fun atmosphere, a tremendous opponent. … Plus, we’re playing a great opponent on an awesome stage to showcase Northern State.”

The Wolves will walk into the DakotaDome for kickoff at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 29 in a “fun atmosphere.” The home opener for the Coyotes has been announced via Twitter that it will be a Black Out game for the fans.

Not only are the Wolves taking on their first ever Division I opponent, they will have had three full weeks of fall camp to prepare, instead of two weeks in every year prior. Having three weeks to prepare, the structure of practices has been a little bit different.

“I feel like this year, we’ve done a little more open series type work early in camp to see how we’re going to play, how we’re going to react, how we’re going to adjust,” Schmidt said.

A difference in approach to fall camp has had a different impact on the team.

“On the field, we’ve played a lot faster,” Schmidt said, “and I think we feel a lot more organized and prepared than we have in the past.”

The Wolves are starting their third week of fall camp this week, and rounded out week two by finishing with a scrimmage-like day on Saturday. The main purpose of the day was to see how the team would react in a game-like setting. A main standout for the Wolves: the defense.

“I think you could see the way the defense is playing right now is exciting, because there is a lot of hats that get to the ball,” Schmidt said.

That is led by a deep linebacker room headed by Luke Gunderson, who has been placed on the East-West Shrine Bowl watchlist, and Jake Adams coming off an amazing freshman campaign who was inserted into a starting role last year because of injuries and has not looked back since.

With kickoff only 10 days away, the Wolves will look to switch gears in their preparation to get ready for USD.

“We gotta cut back a little bit as we kind of start nearing game week, but we gotta ramp up some of the younger guys, the fringe guys, the guys that got to figure out special teams spots, who’s going to travel, who’s not,” Schmidt said. “They gotta get more opportunities to see how they’re going to react.”

Although the younger group will be getting more of the competitive reps, the solidified role players still have to perfect their craft as they get ready for USD.

“And now it’ll probably be a polish week there, a lot more situations to get us ready to go,” Schmidt said. “Plus trying to figure out who really fills in the rest of the depth chart.”