Sunday the Dakota Athletic Conference will try something new. The DAC will unveil the first Dacotah Bowl at the FargoDome in Fargo, N.D. with all eight football teams taking part in games that will last the entire day.

"It will be a feast for a true football fan," DAC commissioner Lavern Jessen said. "We will have game starting at 8 a.m. (MST) and lasting until 10 at night."

The idea for the Dacotah Bowl first began being floated around three years ago by coaches as teams were having trouble finding a third non-conference game to fill their early season schedule.

"It is a struggle every year to find non-conference games, and virtually impossible to find that third game," Jessen said. "This gets everyone up to that 10th game."

"I think it is a good showcase plus you get to play a game indoors where weather, field conditions, wind, all of that is not a factor," South Dakota School of Mines head coach Dan Kratzer said.

The format for Sunday's games pits the top team in the conference against the fourth-place team, while the second- and third-place teams play each other. The teams in fifth and sixth place will play as well as the bottom two teams in the conference standings.

"We set it up that way because the top two teams are still battling for a playoff spot and we didn't want to knock one out by having them play each other again," Jessen said.

Dickinson State enters the bowl in the driver's seat in the conference standings having beaten second-place Minot State last week to remain perfect in the DAC. Jamestown overcame a slow start to the season at 0-3 to earn the third seed, and Black Hills State's shutout victory over South Dakota School of Mines on Saturday secured the fourth spot.

The Hardrockers will face a Valley City State team it hung 60 points on two weeks ago in a win in their 5-6 matchup, while Dakota State and Mayville State round out the games.

"The way it is set up makes sure there will be good, competitive matchups," Kratzer said.

The biggest change brought by the Dacotah Bowl - most DAC teams already faced one conference foe twice a season to get enough games - is the fact that the contests will count in the conference standings.

Jessen said he is hopeful the bowl is successful as he anticipates somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 fans to attend various games throughout the day, there are no guarantees going forward after Sunday.

"We hope there is a lot of interest generated but we will gather information after the game and make plans for the future," he said. "Nothing is set in stone for the following years."

The conference will still be eight teams strong next season, but after that Minot State is moving up to the NCAA Division II level, which would leave the DAC with an odd number of teams.

"Obviously, there are both positives and negatives with this, but we had to do something because of the scheduling," BHSU head coach Jay Long said. "The negative is that you lose a home game.

"Other conferences have done something like this and so we will try it and evaluate after that."

Jeff Budlong covers college sports for the Rapid City Journal. He can be contacted at jeff.budlong@rapidcityjournal.com.