South Dakota State football defeats North Dakota in Missouri Valley conference opener
Sep. 30—BROOKINGS — The Jackrabbits were facing 3rd and 18 at the North Dakota 39-yard line. It was late in the first half, and the 12th-ranked Fighting Hawks had just scored to cut the South Dakota State lead from 14 to seven. UND would be getting the ball first to start the second half. Though top-ranked SDSU had dominated the first half, a failure to get points on this drive would give the visitors a chance to pull closer, perhaps even tie the score going into halftime, and seize momentum in this Missouri Valley Football Conference opener.
Would the Jacks run a draw up the middle, settling for a modest gain that might put them on the fringes of kicker Hunter Dustman's range? Set up a screen pass to star running back Isaiah Davis and hope blockers get him to the second level where he might break a tackle and pick up the first down?
No, the Jacks simply went for the chains. And Mark Gronowski found Jaxon Janke on an 18-yard deep curl. First down.
Five plays later, Gronowski found Janke again, this time for a 6-yard touchdown to complete an 18-play, 91-yard drive that stretched SDSU's lead to 14 and set them on their way to a 42-21 win in front of 19,231 Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium fans.
The Jacks twice pushed their lead to 28, at 35-7 and later 42-14, which made it easy to forget how important that drive before halftime was. SDSU converted three third downs and a fourth down, and ended the game 6-of-8 on 3rd down conversions.
"Just team football," SDSU coach Jimmy Rogers said of the 3rd and 18 conversion. "Our guys are good at finding space. If you play zone defense we're gonna work to find windows and we found one there. It's scary to play man in that situation because we have running backs that can take it 18 yards in a heartbeat. Mark saw the look and we executed it."
UND coach Bubba Schweigert credited SDSU for outplaying his team, but was certainly thinking about that 3rd and 18 after the game was over.
"That was a key point in the game," he said. "That 3rd and 18, big play. We needed to get stops like that to give us a better opportunity."
While that marathon drive was the clincher, the Jacks' fast start to the game was equally important and even more impressive. They went 75 yards in seven plays on the game's opening series and 77 yards on nine plays on their second, going up 14-0 with a pronounced emphasis on running the ball. Isaiah Davis ran over and past the Fighting Hawks, while the offensive line of Garret Greenfield, Mason McCormick, Gus Miller, Evan Beerntsen, John O'Brian and Quinten Christensen steamrolled the defense.
"Physicality is how I'd describe it," said Davis, who rushed for a season-high 132 yards and three touchdowns. "It starts with preparation, all week. It's Mark doing his job, the wide receivers playing unselfish and the O-line making the blocks."
Rogers said he wanted to defer and start the game on defense if SDSU won the toss. When they didn't, he and offensive coordinator Zach Lujan put the game in the hands of that O-line and watched them go to work.
"It was a ton of fun," said McCormick, the standout left guard. "As much as we like to take the credit, Isaiah makes all these great plays and the big ones don't pop without the receivers and tight ends doing their job, too. It always takes time to get rolling again (as an O-line), there's a natural rust with things, but I think guys gelled today and you saw that out there."
After Janke's touchdown made it 21-7 at half the Jacks defense went to work, getting big stops in the third quarter to allow SDSU to build the lead to 35-7. SDSU finished the game with 266 rushing yards on 37 attempts, and were averaging 7.7 yards per carry until taking a knee on their final two plays dropped it to 7.2. Angel Johnson had a 50-yard touchdown run and Amar Johnson had 56 yards on 13 carries as well.
Meanwhile the defense got its first two sacks of the season, one by Adam Bock, who returned from a foot injury to make his season debut only to notch 10 tackles.
The Hawks (2-2) finished with just 234 yards of offense to SDSU's 433, as the Jacks held UND quarterback Tommy Schuster to just 118 yards through the air. Aside from a 14-yard scramble by Schuster, UND's longest rush of the day was seven yards, as they finished with 68 on the ground.
"Our gameplan was shutting down all their funky formations and different matchups they like to do," said Isaiah Stalbird, who had eight tackles. "They're a good team but we were on point all day."
The win extends SDSU's school-record winning streak to 18 games. And moments after scoring a beatdown on a team just outside the FCS's top 10, Rogers said this: "If you walked into that locker room after the game there was a sense of feeling like they didn't play their best, and I'm proud of the team for that. I know they know we can get better and finish better than that."
