Jalen Sundell was driving for Uber when the Seattle Seahawks called. Grey Zabel was about to become the highest-drafted FCS offensive lineman in NFL history. On Sunday, they’ll start next to each other in Super Bowl 60, two former North Dakota State roommates who arrived in Fargo weighing around 240 pounds and left as NFL-caliber linemen. Their shared path reveals something the rest of the league keeps missing: NDSU doesn’t recruit finished products. It builds them.
Why the Seahawks Interior Relies on Fargo’s Blueprint
Seattle’s decision to pair Sundell and Zabel wasn’t sentimental. It was strategic. The Seahawks needed athletic, scheme-versatile linemen who could handle Mike Macdonald’s outside zone concepts, and NDSU has spent a decade proving it can manufacture exactly that type of player.
Since 2014, the Bison have sent six offensive linemen to the NFL Draft: Billy Turner, Joe Haeg, Dillon Radunz, Cordell Volson, Cody Mauch, and now Zabel. That’s a first-rounder, multiple Day 2 picks, and a string of contributors scattered across NFL rosters. The program has won 10 national championships since 2011, but the factory floor matters as much as the trophy case.
“I was 240 coming out of high school. Grey was 240, 230 coming out of high school, so there wasn’t a lot of big schools that thought that we could put on the weight of what it took to become a Division One football player,” Sundell told PFSN in San Francisco at Super Bowl Media Night.
Power 5 programs saw undersized prospects from small-town high schools. NDSU saw athletic frames with room to grow. The Bison staff, working with nutritionists, projects the mass players can add without sacrificing movement skills. Tight ends become tackles. Linebackers become defensive ends. Skinny kids from nine-man football programs become Super Bowl starters.
Zabel arrived at the 2025 NFL Combine and tied Tristan Wirfs for the third-highest vertical jump by an offensive lineman in combine history. That athleticism, paired with only four sacks allowed across 2,700 career snaps in Fargo, made him the 18th overall pick. Sundell, an FCS All-American who battled a foot injury that tanked his draft stock, went undrafted. Cleveland signed him, then cut him before camp. He drove rideshares to pay bills until Seattle brought him in for a tryout the day before training camp began.
The gap in draft capital was enormous. The gap in production this season isn’t.
According to PFSN Offensive Line Impact, Sundell posted a 78.6 OLi score with a C+ grade, ranking 24th among centers. Zabel finished at 77.1 with the same grade, 27th among guards. One cost a first-round pick; the other cost a tryout invitation. Both grade out as average-to-solid NFL starters.
What the Patriots Will Face Sunday
That near-identical output matters when you’re scheming against New England’s front. The Patriots paid $104 million for their interior disruption, and Sundell and Zabel will need to communicate constantly to handle the stunts and games the defense deploys.
Sundell missed four games with knee surgery in mid-November but returned in December and played every snap over Seattle’s final four regular-season games, including a 13-3 win at San Francisco that clinched the NFC’s top seed with 180 rushing yards. He’s built for movement, at 6-foot-5 and 301 pounds, and processes the run game quickly enough to climb to the second level on zone concepts.
“The national championship in college was our Super Bowl, so it didn’t get any bigger for that,” Sundell said. “This feels very familiar.”
That confidence comes from playing in meaningful games every year at NDSU. The Bison expect to compete for titles. Their players arrive in the NFL with experience managing pressure that Power 5 transfers from losing programs simply don’t have.
“Beyond our wildest dreams that we would be playing together, let alone starting together and playing in the Super Bowl together,” Sundell said. “It’s just crazy.”
The scouts who passed on Sundell would probably agree. But the Seahawks saw what NDSU has been showing everyone for a decade: development trumps pedigree. The big schools missed these players because they couldn’t imagine what they’d become. Seattle didn’t have to imagine. They just watched the tape from Fargo.
