Dakota Marker
| Sport | Football |
|---|---|
| First meeting | 1903 NDSU 85, SDSU 0 |
| Latest meeting | December 10, 2016 NDSU 36, SDSU 10 |
| Trophy | Dakota Marker |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 106 |
| All-time series | North Dakota State leads, 60–41–5 |
| Largest victory | North Dakota State, 85–0 (1903) |
| Longest win streak | North Dakota State, 17 (1976–92) |
| Current win streak | North Dakota State, 1 (2016–present) |
| Dakota Marker | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Winning the annual NDSU/SDSU regular season football game |
| Sponsored by | NDSU Chapter Blue Key National Honor Society & SDSU Student Association |
| Location | Fargo, ND or Brookings, SD |
| Country | United States |
| First awarded | 2004 |
| Currently held by | South Dakota State |
The Dakota Marker is the trophy awarded to the winner of the annual football game played between the rival Division I Championship Subdivision North Dakota State University Bison and the South Dakota State University Jackrabbits. Both schools are members of the Missouri Valley Football Conference.
The trophy is a model replica of the quartzite monuments that marked the border between North and South Dakota when Dakota Territory was split into 2 states along the Seventh Standard Parallel (45°56'07" N). The monuments were seven feet tall and ten inches square at the top, and were mined and inscribed near Sioux Falls. 720 markers were placed at half-mile intervals along the border by Charles Bates in the summers of 1891 and 1892. The monuments were inscribed with the initials "N.D." on the north side and "S.D." on the south side.
The trophy itself was proposed by Adam Jones, then-President of the NDSU Chapter of Blue Key National Honor Society, and was unveiled to the public on April 21, 2004 at a ceremony just outside Hankinson, North Dakota, a community near the North Dakota/South Dakota border.
The inscriptions include: N.D., S.D., and 190 M (the distance between Fargo, ND and Brookings, SD along Interstate 29). The trophy weighs nearly 75 pounds and is commonly carried around the field immediately after the game's conclusion by the winning team.
NDSU and SDSU had regularly played each other for several decades as members of the Division II North Central Conference. In 2004, the move by both schools to Division I FCS prompted the creation of the trophy, as both schools lost their primary in-state rivals (NDSU/UND and SDSU/USD) who both remained in Division II at the time. Both teams became members of the newly formed Great West Football Conference, and the annual NDSU/SDSU game took on more importance from a regional bragging rights standpoint as the "closest neighbor" football rivalry. The series continued when both teams joined the Missouri Valley Football Conference in 2008.
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