If ever a case of Murphy's law applied to a football team, it would be this year's North Dakota State Bison. Whatever could go wrong has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. After a promising opener against Iowa State, who just defeated a resurgent Nebraska team in Lincoln for the first time since the Carter Administration, the Bison have been plagued by everything under the sun save H1N1 (at least not yet anyway).

After a tumultuous offseason, the injury bug has spread among the Bison faster than the new influenza strain. Case in point: after Saturday's loss to Missouri State, head coach Craig Bohl noted with a bit of gallows humor that he even saw a cheerleader headed into the trainer's room following the game. No word on the extent of her injuries. The situation at linebacker is so severe, the top four on the depth chart are all scratched for this weekend's tilt with Western Illinois, that Bohl and crew may want to think of taking a page from Adam Sandler's "The Waterboy" and suit up their own Bobby Boucher.

The icing on the cake, or the ankle, comes in the form of losses due to an invisible barrier preventing the Bison from punching the ball in the end zone on goal-to-go, a phantom penalty call forty yards away from the play, junior high special teams performance, and a ball that just refuses to take a Bison bounce. "It all comes down to execution. You go out there and execute the plays and if the offense is clicking and the defense is in the right positions, you generally don't come up short," said Pat Paschall after another 100-yard rushing effort. Paschall finished with 148 yards on 26 carries on his way to topping the 1,000 mark for the season. "I think we need to go out there and put a full game together."

Either way you slice the pumpkin pie, the result is the same. North Dakota State has limped to its worst start since 1975 when the Bison were 1 - 6 before finishing 2 - 7. There was a funny twist to that 1975 season, but we'll get to that silver lining in a moment. Like nearly every other of their first seven games, the Bison were in it late. This time, an uncharacteristic fumble by Paschall on the Missouri State 1-yard line cost the Bison an opportunity to tie in the closing minutes. It was Paschall's only fumble on the year to date, and his first since he coughed one up against Missouri State in 2008.

Bohl gave his now familiar post game homily. "The margin for victory and defeat is very small and right now, we're playing just well enough to get beat," explained Bohl. Bohl, and the several Bison football players that followed at the postgame press conference were not frustrated. It was more disbelief, as in what possibly can happen next. Maybe a zeppelin will Hindenburg from the sky and block a game winning field goal, or a stray shotgun spray meant for a hearty pheasant will pop a game winning Jose Mohler touchdown pass to Warren Holloway.

His disbelief to this latest run in with Murphy's law was palpable. "It's not going to take too much more for us to turn things around and start winning games," said Bohl. "We have to keep our focus. Our players are working hard and our coaches are working hard. We're in every game." The coach who led the Bison to consecutive 10-1 seasons what seemed like forever ago is now 7 - 12 since those fast fleeting glory days.

The cries from the pitchfork and torch crew grow louder and louder with each loss. But they may want to give pause and consider that Bohl isn't too far off the mark when he says the Bison aren't that far away. They're not. It's a jagged little pill to swallow, but the Bison are probably the best 1 - 7 football team in America. The quick and dirty:

• The Bison were a single play away from wins against Sam Houston State, Illinois State, and Missouri State.
• The 15-point defeats to Northern Iowa and South Dakota State were much closer than those scores indicated, particularly against UNI where the Bison outgained and outplayed the Panthers.
• On the road at Southern Illinois, the Bison hung with the Salukis, trailing 17 - 14 midway through the fourth quarter with the ball and a chance to take the lead before ultimately falling 24 - 14.
• The Bison have managed to remain in every game even as the walking wounded begin to outnumber the healthy.
• The Bison start more freshmen and sophomores than Reed-Johnson's flag football team. That experience and a healthy chip on the shoulder headed into the offseason should bode well for the Bison in 2010.

Now, back to that twist from 1975. As I mentioned, the Bison finished 2 - 7 that year, tied for last in the NCC. How'd they do the next year, 1976? The Bison stormed back to go 9 -3 and a perfect 6 -0 in NCC play to claim the conference title on their way to the national semifinals. That 1976 season came to an end with a 10 - 3 loss on a brutally cold December day at Dacotah Field to eventual national champion Montana State. But it's happened before - and the prevailing winds may be blowing in that direction sooner than their 1-7 record indicates.