North Dakota State received two touchdown passes from Tony Stauss and a pair of pass interceptions from Craig Dahl as the Bison posted a 27-21 homecoming victory over Southern Utah University in a Great West Football Conference game played Oct. 16 before a Fargodome crowd of 15,449.

North Dakota State recorded its inaugural win in the GWFC to improve to 1-2 in the league standings and 5-2 overall. The Bison are scheduled to host No. 9-ranked Cal Poly at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23 at the Fargodome.

Stauss, a 6-foot, 209-pound senior quarterback from Racine, Wis., completed 23-of-30 passes for 191 yards, two TDs and no interceptions. He threw a 4-yard scoring strike to Marques Johnson in the second quarter and 8-yard TD pass to Travis White in the third quarter. Stauss moved into first place on the NDSU career completion list and now has 325 to break the record of 304 set previously by Kevin Feeney (1995-98).

Dahl, a 6-1 1/2, 207-pound sophomore from Mankato, Minn., picked off pass to stop drives in the first and second quarter. He also recorded three pass breakups including one in the final seconds of the game. Overall, the Bison defense came up with four interceptions (Brian Erenberg and Jared Essler), three sacks (Dwight Summerville 1.5, Joe Mays 1, Alvin Robinson 0.5) and a fumble recovery (Isaac LaVant).

After NDSU posted a 20-0 halftime lead, Southern Utah made things interesting in the final two periods. Casey Rehrher connected on two touchdown passes in the second half, a 32-yard strike to Andy Hadfield with 9:05 left in the third quarter and a 22-yard completion to AJ Smith with 5:14 left to play to pull the Thunderbirds to within 27-21. In between, SUU took advantage of a Levi Erickson's 67-yard fumble recovery following a Mike Palefau sack.

Rehrer completed 23-of-39 passes for 219 yards, four interceptions and two TDs. He also led the Thunderbirds in rushing with 44 yards. Jerome Eason caught eight passes for 103 yards, while AJ Smith hauled in seven passes for 37 yards. SUU had 295 yards of total offense compared to 244 for NDSU.

Southern Utah's defense limited North Dakota State to 53 yards rushing, the lowest total since the Bison rushed for 55 yards in a 10-0 loss to Northern Michigan on Sept. 6, 1980. NDSU has been held to under 100 yards rushing only 13 times since 1979 and have won only three of those 13 games. Kyle Steffes, who gained 43 yards on 19 carries, scored on a 1-yard run in the first quarter.

North Dakota State placekicker Cory Vartanian hit two field goals of 21 and 40-yards in the second quarter. Stauss completed passes to seven different receivers in the contest. White led the Bison with eight catches for 87 yards and Johnson came up with five receptions for 25 yarsd.

Bison Notebook: Tony Stauss also moved into fourth place all-time with 26 touchdown passes. Stauss trails No. 3 Terry Hanson (1965-67), No. 2 Ryan Johnson (1997-2000) 31 and Kevin Feeney (1995-98) 37 ... North Dakota State improved to 46-35-3 in homecoming games. The Bison have won six homecoming games in a row and 11 of the last 12.