North Dakota State's football team is coming to TCF Bank Stadium on Saturday to face the Gophers. And the Bison are bringing their feverish fan base along for the trip.

The hordes of North Dakota State followers -- more than 20,000 bombarded the Metrodome when the Bison upset the Gophers in 2007 -- will make the Twin Cities look like Packers country with their green and gold apparel.

"We've heard numbers between 15,000 and 20,000," said Sherri Schmidt, the school's alumni association's associate executive director.

For NDSU's alumni and supporters, many of whom reside in the Twin Cities metro area, Saturday night's matchup isn't just a game. It's an event.

They've booked more than 1,000 nights at five downtown hotels, according to the Minneapolis Convention and Visitors Association.

The game itself is proving to be a tough ticket to get.

"It's one of the more popular games of the season," said Cortney Storsved, director of operations at Minneapolis-based Ticket King, who said the local broker has only a few remaining tickets for Saturday's game. "Their fans are super supportive."

NDSU's alumni association has created an official website devoted to the weekend's theme: "The March to Minneapolis: I'm There!"

On Friday night, Bison fans will gather at the Depot in downtown Minneapolis, where dueling pianos will take requests. The next morning, they'll head to the State Fairgrounds for a massive midday tailgating party.

"There's just been a tradition of following our football program around the country," NDSU athletic director Gene Taylor said.

It's not uncommon for a school such as Wisconsin to command a similar presence in the Twin Cities when its football team travels to Minneapolis. But North Dakota State has an enrollment of 14,000 students, not 42,000 like the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The lofty numbers who will attend Saturday night's game will be the result of several factors: The Bison travel extremely well, especially with a drive of only 235 miles to face the Gophers; the Twins Cities is the closest major metro area to Fargo; and the multitude of alumni living in the Twin Cities.

Bison on the big stage

According to admissions director Jobey Lichtblau, 58 percent of NDSU's current freshman class is from Minnesota and Saturday's game is a three-hour local advertisement for the university. The school employs a full-time admissions coordinator in the metro area to enhance its recruitment efforts. He said the struggling economy and rising education costs have contributed to the influx of Minnesotans who've chosen North Dakota's "affordable" flagship university.

"The numbers have grown over time," he said. "We're very similar to the University of Minnesota, but different because of our size."

When Twin Cities-based students graduate, they often return home but stay connected to their alma mater, which creates a prime opportunity for networking events and celebrations leading to Saturday night's game.

Schmidt said the game will anchor the weekend festivities, but she said she has heard from alumni who plan to host family reunions and meet-and-greets around it, too.

"We have people from all over," she said. "This has become almost like a homecoming gathering. ... It's definitely become a huge social venue."

But some NDSU fans won't have tickets. The school received an allotment of 3,000, Taylor said. But he said far more will show up to support the program, even if they can't get into the game.

"So many are getting tickets from various sources," said Taylor, who thinks as many as 15,000 Bison fans might find tickets. "There will just be a lot of people that will go down to the Twin Cities and watch it in a restaurant or a local establishment."

Successful history

Winning has been a major factor in the Bison fans' allegiance.

Before becoming an NCAA Division I-AA school in 2004, the Bison had won five Division II football playoff titles. The winning tradition invigorated the fan base. The move to Division I-AA -- now known as Football Championship Subdivision -- enabled the school to compete against its Division I-A neighbor to the east.

In 2006, the Gophers squeezed by the Bison 10-9 at the Metrodome. The following year, however, the Bison got their revenge with a 27-21 victory in the Dome.

Norma Borgeson, president of the NDSU booster club, said Saturday's matchup is a measuring stick for a Bison program that made the FCS quarterfinals last season.

The 2007 game was a boost for the team's national profile, she said.

That year, Bison-decorated vehicles flooded Interstate 94 from Fargo to Minneapolis. Borgeson, along with thousands of her peers, will return this weekend in hopes of seeing the Bison prove -- again -- that they can compete with the Gophers.

"I guess we want to pick up where we left off and hopefully do it again and beat the Gophers again," she said. "It's a chance to show it wasn't just a one-time fluke win."