North Dakota State redshirt freshman running back Marty Brown is having the type of season many around the Bison football program thought he could have.

The 5-foot-11, 214 pound Omaha native scored three touchdowns in NDSU's 59-6 rout of Murray State Saturday. It's the second time this season that Brown has scored three touchdowns in a game, having accomplished that against Towson back in September.

Brown has ran for 674 yards and ten touchdowns on the year, the ten scores is good for fourth-best in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, while his rushing yardage is the most in Division I for a freshmen.

He was named to the initial Jerry Rice Watch List last week, that award goes to the top freshman in the country in FCS. An NDSU player won the award one time prior, that was Trey Lance in 2019.

NDSU returns home this week to host Northern Iowa, a team that hasn't played at the Fargodome since 2021. UNI comes in losers of six straight games, having allowed 30 points or more in each of those games. The Panthers are 0-4 in Valley play and haven't beaten the Bison since the 2014 season.