(STATS) - There wasn't going to be a slow transition or a five-year plan for success when North Dakota State and James Madison hired new head coaches for the 2019 season.

It was "win now" from the start for NDSU's Matt Entz and JMU's Curt Cignetti, but nobody doubted it would happen.

Their squads haven't moved off their No. 1 and 2 rankings, respectively, since the preseason, and will meet in the NCAA Division I FCS Championship Game Saturday at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.

Entz, 46, served as NDSU's defensive coordinator for five seasons from 2014-18, a part of four national championship seasons on former coach Chris Klieman's staff. Only seven starters returned for Entz's first season as a head coach, but the Missouri Valley Football Conference power has rolled to a 15-0 season.

"Probably the No. 1 thing or my greatest concern, it goes all the way back to spring ball, was making sure that it still looked like Bison football," Entz said, "how we practiced, how we go about our work during the week, how we attack the weight room, how (strength and conditioning) coach (Jim) Kramer works with our student-athletes in the summer. That was my greatest fear."

Associate head "Coach (Randy) Hedberg, (offensive coordinator) Tyler Roehl were both two guys that I leaned upon greatly in that process. Of course, as a new head coach, it doesn't matter what program, there's things you maybe want to tweak or change, but I didn't want to reinvent the wheel, of course. I wanted it to continue to look like and feel like Bison football when you walked on the practice field.

"Just the number of things that you have to have maybe you're hands on during the course of a season. Sometimes it's frustrating (because) I want to spend more time with the defensive staff, but there's other things that are pulling at you, especially when you're at a program like NDSU. But the great thing about it is I had a lot of help, great support, not only from our administration, but we got a great coaching staff here at NDSU as well."

Cignetti, 58, was the head coach at Elon in 2017 and '18, winning a game at James Madison in his second season, after coaching at Division II IUP for six seasons. He inherited a veteran Dukes squad from coach Mike Houston that was the 2016 FCS champion and the runner-up to NDSU in 2017, but felt disappointed a year ago after finishing second in CAA Football and getting ousted in the second round of the playoffs. They haven't lost to an FCS opponent while going 14-1 this season.

"This is my ninth year and had worked through some of the issues, some of the mistakes maybe you make early on," Cignetti said. "And it was my third program, and I also had familiarity with JMU because of D-I. Obviously we played them in the last two years.

"It wasn't broken, kind of like the first two programs I took over. And I had a great respect for what they had accomplished here in the past. And I had a blueprint. I had a plan. I knew what I wanted to do.

"So it's all about, number one, being able to hire good people, which I was able to do because we have such good support here at the university level. And then just one day at a time, implemented the blueprint and really started to see it come together about the middle of fall camp."

With a win Saturday, Entz would become the first Division I coach to reach 16 victories in his first season. Like NDSU, JMU would set a school record for wins in a season with one Saturday under Cignetti.