In case you missed it — and unless you are from the Badlands, I’m guessing you did — there was a college football game played Sunday.

It was a fairly big one in fact.

North Dakota State and South Dakota State played for the Football Championship Subdivision national title.

The second largest division of college football crowned its champion in Frisco, Texas.

This should have been the prize moment for the group of schools that play in this division, like our own McNeese State.

Instead, it was lost in the wash.

The game got overlooked on a Sunday afternoon of football in the NFL. With a bevy of games that had playoff implications taking place at the same time, it was hard to find a reason to watch a pair of smaller colleges battle.

And the game was also played on the eve of TCU and Georgia playing for the big college title on Monday night. So even the college football world was looking elsewhere.

This has been the case for the last few years, but it only seems to be getting worse for the FCS folks. They simply get lost in the mess of games that have larger implications. That is unfortunate for all.

What makes this even worse is that it’s very solvable.

The semifinal games took place on Dec. 17, three weeks before the championship. The time off killed any momentum the FCS playoffs may have generated.

Granted, you are not going to play the game on Christmas Eve. That was a big NFL day anyway.

It could have been played on Dec. 23, six days after the semis.

That would have been a Friday and the game would have stood alone at night.

If the FCS people didn’t like that, wanting not to go against the holiday weekend, then waiting until the following Monday would have worked.

That was a national holiday and would have been perfect for television with little competition in the early afternoon.

It also would have been just nine days after the semifinals and with both Division II and III titles long decided there would have been little competition.

Maybe that’s not perfect but it sure would have been better than what did happen.

The NCAA continues to tell us how important the FCS level is but it treats the division like it doesn’t really matter.

If the NCAA wants us to take its words seriously then its own actions must follow.

FCS players and coaches deserve their own day, one they don’t have to share with just about everybody else.

Until then it will remain college football’s forgotten championship.

Except in the Badlands maybe.

By the way, South Dakota State won 45-21 if you haven’t heard.

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Jim Gazzolo is a freelance writer who covers McNeese State athletics for the American Press. Email him at jimgazzolo@yahoo.com