BROOKINGS – South Dakota State faces one final non-league test this week before the start of Missouri Valley Football Conference play when the team travels south to face Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday at Strawberry Stadium.
The Lions are a traditionally strong FCS team with three playoff appearances since 2013 and a long history at the I-AA/FCS level. They should provide the Jackrabbits with a tough challenge to complete the non-conference play.
A member of the Southland Conference, the Lions had a 3-8 record last year and are 1-2 this year, although both of their losses came against FBS programs.
Southeastern Louisiana is based in Hammond, Louisiana, a city of just over 20,000 residents 45 miles northwest of New Orleans. It is a public school with an enrollment of 14,000 students and an endowment of $23 million.
The football program was founded in 1930 and made the jump from Division II to Division I-AA when it was founded in 1978. However, it was discontinued in 1986 and remained inactive until 2003. Then the program was restarted, first as a standalone I-AA program before moving to the Southland League in 2005, where the Lions have been ever since.
South Dakota State has played the Lions twice, and the last time the teams met happened to be the Lions’ best season in their modern era. That was in 2013, when SLU went 11-3 and reached the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs. Their only regular-season losses that year came against TCU and the Jackrabbits, who beat SLU 34-26 at Coughlin Alumni Stadium in Brookings. That was the second game of a home-and-away series that SDSU won 31-14 at Strawberry Stadium in 2012.
More recently, the Lions worked under coach Frank Scelfo, a former college baseball player who spent much of his career as a quarterback coach, working at Tulane, Louisiana Tech, Arizona and the Jacksonville Jaguars, among others.
He took over at SLU in 2018, and last year’s 3-8 season ended a streak of four straight winning seasons. In 2022, the Lions beat Southland 5-1 to claim the conference title and beat Jason Eck’s Idaho team 45-42 in a first-round playoff classic. The next week, they were eliminated by Samford, ending a 9-4 season.
The Lions this year started with a 52-0 loss to Tulane and a 35-10 loss to Southern Miss, both FBS opponents.
Last week they earned their first win in their home opener, narrowly beating Eastern Washington 28-24, and now they’ll host the No. 1 seed national champions. It’s quite a schedule for the first month, but Scelfo believes it’s what his team needs to get where they want to go.
“When I came here, I said I wanted to put this team in the same category as South Dakota State, North Dakota State, Eastern Washington, Villanova and Idaho,” Scelfo said Monday at his weekly press conference. “They are the perennial bluebloods of FCS football and the only way to do that is to play them. And win when you get the opportunity to play them.”
The Lions were strong on the run in their win over Eastern Washington, with Anthonio Martin rushing for 149 yards on 28 carries and Harlan Dixon rushing for another 92 yards and two touchdowns. Quarterback Eli Sawyer threw for just 72 yards on 12 of 21 passes, but scored two touchdowns.
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“They’re really physical up front,” Jacks coach Jimmy Rogers said. “They’re not as (big) as some of the O-linemen in the Valley, but they’re explosive. They stay in their blocks and are nimble. (And) they have the athleticism to confuse you in 1-on-1 situations. So we’ve got to be physical up front and make good tackles.”
Injuries will be a factor for SDSU, with several starters out. On offense, left tackle Sam Hagen, left guard Ethan Vibert and backup running back Angel Johnson are not expected to play. Freshman William Paepke will make his second start at guard and Marcus Hicks, a transfer from Oklahoma, will make his first in place of Hagen.
On defense, safeties Tucker Large, Cale Reeder and Dontay Johnson are missing from the weekly lineup, as are D-linemen Reis Kirschenman and Bryce Hawthorne.
Matt Zimmer is a Sioux Falls native and longtime sportswriter. He graduated from Washington High School, where he played football and baseball and developed a lifelong love of the Minnesota Twins and Vikings. After graduating from St. Cloud State University, he returned to Sioux Falls and began a long career as an amateur baseball and sports reporter. Email Matt at [email protected].
