ESPN College Football

MINNEAPOLIS -- North Dakota State fans are gobbling up tickets by the thousands for Saturday's game against Minnesota at the Metrodome.

The Bison figure to bring more than 25,000 fans with them on the three-hour trip from Fargo, N.D., to the Twin Cities, but the way Gophers coach Tim Brewster sounded on Tuesday, they better enjoy this one.

It may be their last.

Last year, the Bison played the Gophers in football for the first time since 1937 and nearly pulled off a stunning upset in a 10-9 loss. North Dakota State isn't on future schedules after Saturday, and its return is an unlikely scenario because Brewster said he doesn't think the matchup helps the Gophers in recruiting.

"It's just a matter of, do we recruit North Dakota? Is North Dakota an area we identify as a place where we're going to go and spend a great deal of time recruiting?" Brewster said. "I don't think so."

The first-year coach is concentrating his efforts on football-rich areas like Florida, Texas, California and Ohio, states that have far more talented players than North Dakota.

Brewster has also put a priority on keeping Minnesota's best high school player from leaving the state, and the Bison are heavy recruiters in the area. There will be 33 players wearing green and yellow on the Metrodome turf on Saturday.

"It's just not going to be an area where we're going to go and get a lot of our football players. I don't think it's been that way in the past and I don't think it will be that way in the future," Brewster said. "No negative at all to them. North Dakota State has a great football team. They've got a great program. What I'm looking for is I'm looking for the benefit to the University of Minnesota."

It's one of several factors surrounding this matchup that make it a tough situation for the Gophers. Brewster has said all along that he would rather not play teams from what used to be called Division I-AA, a group of smaller schools that often pad the schedules of college football's heavyweights who want to ensure they gain enough wins to become eligible for a bowl game.

"As I've said from Day One, it's not about the number of wins we have, it's about winning a championship," Brewster said. "And that's where I'm kind of stuck on winning a championship.

"I'm not trying to win games so we're bowl eligible. I've been to 16 bowl games as a player and as a coach. Going to a bowl game does not excite me. Playing in a championship bowl game excites the heck out of me."

Then there is the rub of the actual game itself. Even though the Bison have long been a respectable program -- first in Division II and now in I-AA -- the Gophers are still expected to beat them.

When the games are close, like last year's thriller in which the Gophers had to block a field goal attempt to preserve the win, chuckles resonate across the football landscape.

If they were to lose, it would be a disastrous situation. Just ask the Michigan Wolverines, who are still climbing out of a hole from a season-opening home loss to Appalachian State.

"It's kind of a lose-lose situation for us," Gophers receiver Eric Decker said. "We're expected to blow them out. But if it's close, people are going to wonder. And if we lose, it's a tough situation. I think playing Division I-A teams gives us an opportunity to show us what we can do and help our rankings, I guess."

This year, the Gophers (1-6) seem to be especially vulnerable. They have lost five in a row and face a 6-0 North Dakota State team that is ranked No. 1 in their division.

"We kind of look at this like this is their Super Bowl," Decker said. "It's close to home. It's a big rival, I guess, for them. And they're going to bring a lot of fans in. So I feel like we need to prepare like this is a Big Ten game."<

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Jon Krawczynski can be reached at jkrawczynski(at)ap.org.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

This story is from ESPN.com's automated news wire. Wire index