FARGO – There's Pay it Forward, the national campaign to benefit others popularized locally by Bell State Bank. On the East Coast, before he became the starting quarterback for the University of Richmond (Va.), Kyle Lauletta had a similar thought.

A project that he started while still in high school in the Philadelphia area is called the Pass it On Program. The idea: take new or used sports equipment and get it to kids who don't have the resources to get it.

"I have a lot of friends who grew up playing a lot of sports that in high school didn't play anymore," Lauletta said. "I was just thinking of all that equipment and all those things they had that went to waste."

So he and his brother Trey Lauletta, a former quarterback at Bucknell, formed their partnership of sorts and donated equipment to the Boys and Girls Club of Philadelphia. Growing up in the suburbs, Kyle Lauletta said, there was just an awareness in his family that some underprivileged kids needed stuff to play sports.

"It took a little bit of time to gather the equipment but it was kind of an easy gesture that can go a long way," he said. "It's something during the offseason and when I'm done in school that I'll get involved more."

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He's got other school matters on his plate, like his Richmond team traveling to Fargo to play North Dakota State in the Division I FCS semifinals at Gate City Bank Field at the Fargodome. The Spiders bring a potent offense with running back Jacobi Green rushing for 1,563 yards and Lauletta throwing for 3,427 yards.

He's completed 229 of 365 passes for 63 percent with 18 touchdown passes against 13 interceptions. Like a lot of teams that get this far, the end of the season has been much better than the beginning of the season.

In Richmond's case, there was a getting-acquainted period with a new offense under new offensive coordinator Charlie Fisher. The Spiders opened the season with a 50-21 loss at Maryland-which was not unexpected-but then had to rally to squeeze by unheralded Hampton University (Va.) 31-28, a game in which they were down two touchdowns on a couple of occasions.

"We were in dire, dire straits," said Richmond head coach Danny Rocco. "We came out in the second half and we rallied. I have a young football team and one of the things that doesn't get talked about very often is the reality that your team is allowed to get better."

Still, there were a couple of close losses in November to New Hampshire and Villanova, but then came back-to-back wins over William & Mary-the second being in the second round of the playoffs.

"We saw that there were a lot of rematches," Lauletta said of the playoffs. "It was pretty strange. The fear of winning the first of a two-game match is the other team has nothing to lose. We didn't look at it like that. I think that first round of the playoffs was the most focused I've seen the guys all season because of how far we've come."

The win over Illinois State last week gave the Spiders a chance to play a game where Lauletta has always wanted to play: the Fargodome. He grew up watching the FCS playoffs and NDSU on ESPN, he said.

"We're going to embrace the opportunity but at the same time we're not looking at this team as a four-time champion," he said. "This is a different team this year than the previous three years before that. I see a lot of similarities in North Dakota State as the Illinois State team we just played, just seeing who they are and respecting the accolades they have and all they have accomplished."