FARGO, N.D. — Last summer, Matt Larsen got a firsthand preview of the team that would soon take the NFL by surprise. North Dakota State’s outdoor practice field sits right outside the corner window of the athletic director’s office. In July, the school’s most popular alum brought his teammates here, leading his own offseason throwing session and taking them out for bison burgers afterward, despite the fact that the local joke is, “Don’t eat the mascot.”
They might have planned on this, but little did the rest of us know that, seven months later, Carson Wentz and those Eagles receivers would be back in the upper Midwest for the final game of the 2017 season.