TerryVandrovec

Some news and notes from South Dakota State’s 43-36 win over Missouri State in double overtime Saturday:

Receiver Dale Moss and quarterback Austin Sumner had historic outings against the Bears. Moss had the most receiving yards by an SDSU player since Josh Davis – the Jacks receivers coach – went for 187 in 2003. And Sumner’s passing total was the highest at SDSU since Dan Fjeldheim went for 460 in 2002.

SDSU has won all four meetings in the series with MSU, with both games at Plaster Field being decided by seven points.

Former Jacks quarterback Reed Burckhardt was at the game in a work capacity. He’s a BLESTO scout for the Minnesota Vikings. BLESTO is one of the two major scouting services in the NFL. Basically, the seven teams that are a part of the group each contribute one scout – usually the youngest on staff – to help compile findings.
Burckhardt covers a 10-state area and once put on 13,000 miles in two months. He said that he rarely sees games, spending far more time at practices.

Who wants to play Monday morning quarterback? Come on, I know you do.
Why did SDSU run out the final 1:13 of regulation (with a timeout in hand) instead of trying to put together a scoring drive?
“We had to go against the wind,” coach John Stiegelmeier said. “You get sacked, you throw an interception and they’re back into kicking a field goal. … Our skill guys are yelling, ‘Throw the ball deep, throw the ball deep,’ but they don’t get paid to make those decisions.”
And why did SDSU go for two when down 14-9 in the first quarter?
“That’s what the card said,” he explained. “We don’t look back. The card said go for two. If you get it, it’s a field goal to tie it. There’s no doubt about it. That’s what I’m talking about – those decisions. Every play matters in a football game. … I think we made a lot of right decisions in those situations, honestly.”

SDSU hadn’t scored as many points as it did Saturday since that infamous playoff loss to Montana in the 2009 playoffs. The Jacks have now outgained their opponents five weeks in a row, while Sumner has surpassed 300 yards passing in four of those games. SDSU gained 7.4 yards per play against MSU.
Also in that, Moss and Aaron Rollin have gone over 100 yards receiving in the same game twice this season. They’ve combined for 100 catches.
“You have to have respect for both of them,” Bears coach Terry Allen said.

SDSU has given up 28 sacks this season compared to six last year. And that’s with only one real change on the offensive line – the graduation of Ryan McKnight.

The Jacks are now 6 of 9 on field goals this year with another miss Saturday. Less than ideal, certainly. But their opponents are 3 for 8, including a costly miss late in regulation by MSU.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.

Some odds and ends in advance of South Dakota State’s game at Missouri State on Saturday. Kickoff is set for 2 p.m. I’ll have live coverage starting at 1:

Although the Sagarin Ratings show this game as a tossup, the Gridiron Power Index has SDSU ranked 41st and the Bears 63rd. The Jacks are also ahead of their next two opponents: No. 52 Southern Illinois and No. 62 Western Illinois.

If there’s a player to watch, it’s the man in the picture above - Bears senior WR Jermaine Saffold. Last year, he just missed on setting a school record for single-season receiving yards and this week he’s bound to break the MSU mark for career receiving yards. The 6-foot-1, 198-pounder averaging more than 24 yards per catch with seven touchdowns.

For SDSU, this marks the first of two consecutive games against teams that run a 3-4 defense (with Southern Illinois on tap for next week). For whatever reason, the Jacks seem to have improved against that scheme since being befuddled by it in their D-II days (primarily against North Dakota).
“I think sometimes we should lick our chops when we see it,” coach John Stiegelmeier said. “I don’t think we should get as excited about it as we do.”

After looking at the tape, Stiegelmeier did not see loafing on the punt return for a touchdown that SDSU gave up last week to NDSU. He said after the game that he suspected there was a lack of effort.

Recruiting update: The Jacks had 10 high school players on campus last week and are likely to extend a few more scholarship offers this week. But still no known verbal commitments.

Don’t be surprised if there are changes to the lineup again this week. The staff is using the depth chart more loosely for the second straight week.

Injury update: SDSU linebacker Chris Tracy is questionable, QB Austin Sumner will continue to play through turf toe and DT Chase Douglas is expected to get more reps this week. He got about 15 snaps last week in returning from injury.

Neither the Jacks nor the Bears turned over the ball last week, but SDSU continues to bring up the rear in the Valley in terms of turnover margin at minus-9. No one else is worse than minus-4.

In maybe the most striking strength vs. weakness stat, MSU is last in the league in pass defense (233 ypg), while the Jacks rank first in pass offense (280 ypg).
Despite how shaky the unit looked last week, SDSU should have an edge on special teams, too, as the Bears are last in the Valley in kickoff coverage, kickoff returns and punting.

Jacks senior DE Jake Steffen spoke about playing for the program in these last three games, an idea that was imparted by some of the SDSU greats that were on campus last week.
“They still follow our program and take a lot of pride in being a part of it and still look into it,” he said. “It was a really cool experience to be around them and have that legacy and that tradition around us.”

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.

Here is the replay from this week’s live chat. Lots of conference affiliation talk.

Come back here Saturday and Sunday for live coverage of SDSU football and women’s basketball respectively.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.

Some news and notes from this week’s Missouri Valley Football Conference coaches call:

Western Illinois (2-5) visits Youngstown State (4-3), a squad that stayed in the playoff picture with a home win over St. Francis last week.
Penguins coach Eric Wolford is wary of the Leathernecks in light of their 50-percent rate on third-down conversions. But his team was able to get rested and build some depth in last week’s lopsided win.

Illinois State (5-3) is back in the top 25 at No. 22 after consecutive wins over ranked teams (South Dakota, Indiana State), but faces another stiff task in heading to Southern Illinois (2-5). The Salukis will miss the playoffs for the second straight season, but have proven plenty formidable in losing close contests to top-5 teams Northern Iowa and North Dakota State in the last month. They’ve also won four in a row against the Redbirds.
“All we’re talking about right now is getting better,” ISU coach Brock Spack said of the playoff possibilities.

No. 18 Indiana State (5-3) is idle Saturday and hosts NDSU next week. The Sycamores will have “evening scrimmages” this week in which the redshirt guys play with the veterans calling the plays.

In the game of the week and maybe the game of the year in the league, No. 2 Northern Iowa (6-1) travels to No. 3 NDSU (7-0) for the sixth meeting between top 10 teams in Valley history. It’s also a meeting between the top two scoring defenses in the country. Both also excel in turnover margin.
The Bison have yet to beat the Panthers since moving to the FCS level.
“You can’t get a ticket,” NDSU coach Craig Bohl said. “It is arguably the biggest game we’ve played in the Fargodome.”

Finally, SDSU (2-6) travels to Missouri State (1-7) in a homecoming game that will air on KDLT and Mediacom.
Oddly enough, both teams are receiving top-25 votes, the Jacks in the media poll and the Bears in the coaches poll.
“Maybe people don’t pay attention to record and just think good league, decent program, let’s give them some votes,” SDSU coach John Stiegelmeier said. “But, surely, we should not be getting votes in any poll.”
The Bears are coming off their first win of the season, taking down Western Illinois 31-17 in Macomb. Like the Jacks, they have a young quarterback in sophomore Trevor Wooten.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.

This week on the Too Much TV podcast, it’s time to ponder Ponder, Minnesota Vikings rookie quarterback Christian Ponder, that is. (See what I did there? Only the freshest jokes for my readers.)

Guest Dave Campbell covers all sorts of Minnesota sports for the Associated Press in Minneapolis, including the Vikings. He’s also a former colleague of mine and a really solid dude. We’ll get his take on the state of the franchise, the future of its new quarterback and the contentious stadium issue.

It’s good. Trust me. Here’s the link.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.

No time to waste:

As I reported today in the print edition, SDSU has hired firms to do the market analysis and design work on an indoor practice facility and football stadium: Architecture Incorporated of Sioux Falls and Crawford Architects of Kansas City, Mo. The former has local ties, while the latter has stadium experience.
Architecture Incorporated has done the SDSU student union and the Children’s Museum in Brookings, while Crawford has been involved at places like Fenway Park and the McLeod Center.
As for what the end of the hiring process means for a timeline, athletic director Justin Sell hopes to be able to have the first major financial gift in place by Jan. 1 and enough money in hand to seek final approval from the Board of Regents on at least one of the projects by next Oct.
“We’ve got some good ideas and we’ve had some preliminary conversations, certainly,” he said. “It comes up with various groups. A lot of people ask us about how to get involved, too.”

On a related note, Sell indicated that SDSU has made headway in terms of getting enough money to build a grandstand and pressbox at its baseball field.
“We’ve got someone that is very interested in helping us finish the work that we need to do on the baseball stadium,” he said. “We’ve identified an interested party that has come forward and is willing to help on getting that done.”
Sell wouldn’t elaborate on specifics.

The SDSU golf team has landed a verbal commitment from Joey Pickels of Yuma, Ariz., the senior said in an email. He helped Yuma Catholic win the Division III state championship last spring.

While on campus over the weekend, the members of the Coughlin-Alumni all-stadium team signed a bunch of memorabilia. Those items - peppered with NFL signatures - will be auctioned off during the athletic department’s spring fundraiser.

And, finally, Oral Roberts is expected to make a major announcement today. It’s widely believed that will be a move to the Southland Conference as the Golden Eagles didn’t send a rep to the Summit League AD meetings in Chicago that started Monday. Stay tuned for more info on that.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.

A few final thoughts on SDSU’s 38-14 loss to No. 3-ranked North Dakota State on Saturday:

The Jacks have lost three in a row at home (and all by double digits) for the first time in their NCAA Division I history. The most recent such skid came in 2000.

Missouri Valley Football Conference commissioner Patty Viverito was on hand to present the Jacks with the league’s team academic honor. SDSU has dominated that award since joining the Valley.

Five of the last six Dakota Marker meetings have featured some sort of return for a score - and in each case it’s resulted in a win. In that span, there have been three punt returns and three interception returns.
This time, it was Bison receiver Ryan Smith returning a punt in the fourth quarter. Smith is from the Greeno family tree and two of his sisters ran track at the University of South Dakota.
SDSU coach John Stiegelmeier wasn’t pleased with his team’s effort on that play, admitting he was going to look for loafing on the game tape.

The Jacks used some different defensive personnel this week, starting Rodkem Matthews and Bo Helm at safety instead of Anthony Wise and Skyler Luxa with Darryl Jackson at corner instead of Helm.
“We had some young men that we thought had worked hard enough to deserve starting,” Stiegelmeier said. “We had some guys that did not start that had been starting that we thought maybe that would motivate them a little bit. I’ve never been a believer in that, but I don’t make all the personnel decisions.”

Injury update: LB Erich Feller was limited, LB Chris Tracy got dinged up early, DT Chase Douglas returned in a limited role and QB Austin Sumner seemed to aggravate a foot injury late.

There again were snapping issues out of the shotgun, although SDSU didn’t commit a turnover for the first time this season.
“What am I supposed to say to (center) Will Castle? ‘Don’t do that’? I’ve told him that,” Stiegelmeier said. “It’s hurting. And I love those guys.”
The coach did, however, put plenty of blame on himself and his staff, too. For instance, he said that the kick out of bounds was a result of asking freshman Ethan Sawyer to do too much.

Jacks tight end Vince Bendetto made five catches after having just four through the first seven games. LB R.C. Kilgore and backup QB Jordan Thomas also had career games in reserve roles.

NDSU committed just one penalty and it came late in the third quarter. SDSU was flagged five times. That makes five weeks in a row that the Jacks have committed as many or more penalties than their opponent.

SDSU set a new season-best in allowing just 327 yards. But it failed to come up with a takeaway for the fourth time this fall.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.

Here’s some stuff in advance of the Dakota Marker game - South Dakota State vs. No. 3 North Dakota State - on Saturday in Brookings. I’ll have live coverage starting at 1 p.m.:

The Bison (6-0) lead the Football Championship Subdivision in scoring defense, allowing 11.2 points per game. Only two teams from the Missouri Valley Football Conference have done that at the end of the season and both won the league title.

This is the fourth week in a row that SDSU (2-5) is facing a Walter Payton Award candidate. However, Bison senior running back D.J. McNorton doesn’t have nearly the stats that the previous three did (70 carries, 351 yards, 7 TDs). He has missed time due to injury and is splitting reps with Sam Ojuri. Still, McNorton is one of 12 players in program history to surpass 2,000 yards rushing in a career.

For all the talk about SDSU freshman Austin Sumner, who is now up for the Jerry Rice Award, NDSU boasts the more efficient quarterback in Brock Jensen. The sophomore broke a school record last week by completing 19 consecutive passes. His completion percentage for the season is 71.8 and he’s thrown nine touchdowns to just one pick.

From the for-what-it’s-worth file, SDSU has played the 117th-most difficult schedule in Division I to this point, according to the Sagarin Ratings. NDSU is 210th in strength of schedule, last in the Valley. (The point: The Bison made good use of their larger budget in terms of crafting a schedule.)
Also, the Sagarin Ratings have the Bison as a 17-point favorite on the road.

SDSU leads the Valley in passing offense by more than 50 yards per game. However, Jacks coach John Stiegelmeier had some frank words when asked about his team’s lack of a ground attack.
“I think we overestimated the maturity and the ability of our offensive line,” he said. “There have been times where the scheme looks good, but we’re not getting it done.”
Coming into the season, that unit was thought to be one of the two best on the team (along with the linebackers).

Injury update: SDSU offensive lineman Alex Olinger is done for year - for real this time. (He dressed last week after coaches said he’d undergo season-ending surgery.) Defensive tackle Chase Douglas is questionable. Running back Zach Zenner and Sumner are both fine after getting dinged up late against UNI.

You know how the Jacks have a tendency to throw interceptions that get returned for touchdowns? Well, NDSU cornerback Marcus Williams has made a habit of cashing in on pick sixes with two this year. He also returned the second-half kickoff for a score last week against Missouri State.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.

South Dakota State held its annual winter and spring media day Thursday in Brookings. Once again, the focus was on basketball.

Here’s a short Q and A with each coach. Same topics, even.

Aaron Johnston, SDSU women’s basketball coach:

Q. Your impressions of the returning players?
A. I like all of our returners - Jill (Young) and Jennie (Sunnarborg), our two seniors, have had very good offseasons and look like seniors. That’s what you want. That other group that’s the big kind of question mark is that junior class with Leah (Dietel), Ashley (Eide), Steph (Paluch), Katie (Lingle) and Tara (Heiser). That group has really taken a big step forward. All of them have taken kind of backup roles or had some injuries, some things that have maybe slowed them down, and now they’ve grown into more significant players for us.

Q. And how have the newcomers been?
A. All four of our freshmen really have done well. Gabby (Boever) - it’s the first she’s played basketball in almost due years so she is truly a freshman- and Rachel (Wolters) and Mariah (Clarin) and Megan (Stuart), all four of them have been very good in practice. Megan and Mariah as post players have a chance to play right away. They’re very talented. Rachel shoots the ball really well and that’s always an important part of our offense. Gabby’s really our only true point guard so there’s things she brings that some of our other players don’t have the background to do. I’m really excited about all of them.

Q. Where are things overall with about two weeks until the opener?
A. Good. I like where we’re at. Defensively, we’re not as good as we need to be right now. That’s a big concern. It’s something I thought we had to address last year, talk a lot about. And as we got better with that part of our game, we were a much better team. In terms of taking care of the ball, I think we’ve been better so far this year. We’ll have to see what it’s going to be like against other teams and other defensive schemes, but two areas we’ve struggled with we’ve been much better. 

Scott Nagy, SDSU men’s basketball coach:

Q. Your impressions of the returning players?
A. My guess is the guy that will make the biggest jump in terms of stats is going to be Chad (White). And he has to, he needs to for us and I think he will. With the freedom we’ll give him - he doesn’t have to replace Clint (Sargent), but I think in terms of production, I think he will. I think he’s a better defender. I know he’s a better rebounder. So he gives us some things at that position. He doesn’t score like Clint; he’s not off the dribble. But he’s still going to score points and he makes players around him a lot better.

Q. And how have the newcomers been?
A. The three guys right now that I think will have a chance to play are the two Zachs and Taevaunn (Prince). They all could help us. If we stayed healthy, I don’t think there’s enough minutes for all three of them to play. Maybe two and maybe even one. And so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Physically, Taevaunn is the kid that’s the most ready. Even though he’s a freshman, he’s 20-years old and he came in here weighing 210. He’s physically ready and defensively is where I’ve been the most pleased with him. He’s starting to fit in, starting to figure it out.
Monaghan is just super skilled and a lot more athletic than we thought. But at 165 pounds, that’s our concern with him. And Horstman has been good. The thing I say about Zach is what he does well is he doesn’t try to do things he can’t do. He fits in well with good guards around him, he makes good plays and he causes problems because he’s athletic and long. They’re all further along than I expected. 

Q. Where are things overall with about two weeks until the opener?
A. I walked away from yesterday’s practice frustrated, but then the film showed that it was better than I thought. Maybe it was just because we put in some new stuff and guys were confused, but defensively it was better than I thought, which is the most important thing. Offensively, we’ve not been very good in practice. Hopefully, that’s because our defense is better. We’re not shooting the ball very good right now. That will come. We have good shooters. I guess I should be happy that it looks like we’re going to be better defensively.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.

Here’s the replay from this week’s live chat featuring 20 minutes with South Dakota State women’s basketball coach Aaron Johnston.

A big thanks to him for stopping by.

Remember to stop back at 1 p.m. Saturday for live coverage from the SDSU vs. North Dakota State football game.

Terry Vandrovec also posts regular updates on his Twitter page.