South Dakota State’s Football team began its campaign towards its third National Championship with its second largest win of the season last Saturday, Nov. 29 against New Hampshire. In the 41-3 win, Chase Mason made his return from a five game absence and Julius Loughridge eclipsed the 1000 yard rushing mark in likely the Jacks last home game of the season. Not only did SDSU have to fight the Wildcats, they also had to deal with the weather. When the players realized they had the opportunity to play in a snow game though, some didn’t view it as a challenge.
“The vibes were high this morning when we all got to the facility … We knew what the weather was gonna be and it was going to be a nice snowstorm, and we just said lets go, lets go out there and have fun and play ball,” said linebacker Joe Olman. The road to the title isn’t going to get any easier with SDSU playing No. 3 Montana this Saturday in the third consecutive post-season matchup between the two schools. With it all on the line, the Jacks are making the most of the opportunity.
“I love it. There’s not many teams that get the opportunity to go out there and play ball this time of year so it’s just fun to go out there and lay it out there,” Mason said.
Firstly, there is the environment SDSU will have to prepare for. It isn’t the weather or climate that will pose a concern, it’s the fact that the Grizzlies haven’t lost a home playoff game since 2013. On top of that, SDSU has never beaten Montana in Missoula as they are currently 0-7. The Jacks have started to build up some momentum against the Grizzlies, the last two games against Montana have been wins, but history says that Missoula hasn’t been easy on the Jacks. There might be some extra meaning for some players on the Grizzly squad, SDSU beat Montana two seasons ago in the National Championship.
Disregarding the home field advantage, the Grizzlies offense has been potent this season. They lead the Big Sky Conference in points per game with 40.8, and are second in points allowed per game with 23.5.
Montana’s offense is led by Big Sky passing yards leader Kaeli’i Ah Yat. He leads the Big Sky in passing yards, passing touchdowns and is partly responsible for one of the best scoring offenses in the entire FCS.
Who else could be responsible for their offensive success? Running back Eli Gillman. He’s been a over thousand yard rusher in back-to-back seasons, and currently has 1261 rushing yards on the year. He’s not much of a receiving threat, his most receiving yards in a game this year was 43, but his talent on the ground more than makes up for it. Oh, and he won the Big Sky Offensive MVP award this year.
The Grizzlies had two players on the defensive side of the ball win First-Team All-Big Sky Defense, defensive lineman Hunter Peck and linebacker Peyton Wing. Peck, who transferred to Montana after a great NAIA career, has 33 total tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks. Wing does a little bit of everything, he intercepts, he sacks and he tackles. He has 59 total tackles, 3.5 sacks and three interceptions. Like Peck, he is also a transfer playing his first year at Montana.
How is SDSU looking going into Saturday’s bout? The Mason return is definitely a good sign, but there is one other player that, if he plays, could make a big impact, Cullen McShane McShane, who is a Second-team all-MVFC linebacker, missed the last game against New Hampshire with an injury. Having him back would be great for the Jacks, he has 81 tackles on the year and a forced fumble. In the event that McShane is unable to play, backup Bryce Johnson looked good filling in. He tied a career high ten tackles last Saturday, his fellow linebacker Joe Oleman recorded nine on top of that.
Speaking of Mason, he looked very good against New Hampshire. He went 16/20 on passing attempts, a completion rating of 80%. Mason tacked 230 passing yards and three touchdowns, but did throw an interception, the second of the season for him. Despite not picking up a ton of rushing yards this season, he has made up for it with his passing ability.
“I think today was just the definition of complementary football. They went out, got 14-0’d right away in the first quarter, we came out, got stops right away, we kinda just kept going with that…I think all facets of the game was really well today,” Olman said.
As mentioned earlier, Loughridge now has more than 1000 rushing yards on the season thanks to his 100 plus yard performance against the Wildcats. He averaged 6.2 yards, rushing 16 times for a net gain of 102 yards. Three other running backs saw action for the Jacks, Corey Blair Jr., Josiah Johnson and James Basinger. The three of them combined for 63 yards on 13 attempts.
Defensively, it is no surprise that it was a standout game for all three levels. The defensive line was able to tally a sack, the trio of Olman, Johnson and Matt Goehring combined for 23 tackles and the secondary recorded an interception. In total, New Hampshire was able to run for 144 yards and throw for 48.
Going into the Montana matchup, SDSU’s offense is averaging 28.54 points a game, 161.5 rushing yards and 215.38 passing yards. The Jacks have rotated through three different quarterbacks this season, the three of them have combined for 2800 passing yards exactly. In total, the offense has scored 49 touchdowns this season. Opponents have averaged 19.77 points against the SDSU offense and roughly 300 yards per game. They have scored 31 touchdowns against the Jacks defense.
For the third consecutive year, it’ll be SDSU facing off against the Montana Grizzlies. SDSU is playing its second game of the post season, the Grizzlies will be coming off of a bye. You can watch this Saturday’s game at 1 p.m. on ESPN plus.
