BROOKINGS – It was a victory for the South Dakota State University football team on Saturday night.
That’s all that should be important.
But things were more complicated after the 24-3 Beef Bowl win over Division II Augustana University at Dykhouse Stadium.
Penalties, turnovers and mistakes were galore for Jackrabbit coach Jimmy Rogers, who said he gave his team a “message of reality” in the locker room after the game.
“If you were in this locker room and I didn’t even bring it up, it would almost feel like a loss because the expectations and the standard of what we hold ourselves to is really high,” Rogers said, adding that he just wants to see his team grow and learn from their mistakes to improve.
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It’s a strange feeling for the Jackrabbits, who are now 2-1 on the season. SDSU has won a home game for the 23rd consecutive time and there was never any doubt about that. But as a two-time defending champion and a No. 1-ranked team for nearly two years, they were hoping for a much crisper performance.
“We didn’t do everything right in a lot of ways,” Rogers said. “Some things are positive, but when you have three turnovers and nine penalties for 110 yards – they have almost as many penalties as their entire offense – you pay for it when you play against better teams at this level that are that big, that skilled and that physical.
For the record, Augustana finished the game with 171 yards of offense, half of SDSU’s 374 yards.
Even then, the Jacks’ offense had a mixed night. It will be hard to argue with SDSU’s progress in the running game, which managed 233 yards on 36 carries, averaging 6.5 yards per carry. The passing game had its share of missed kicks and two interceptions from normally solid quarterback Mark Gronowski.
“We’ve got to make the open shots,” Rogers said. “Some of them are untimely mistakes, some of them are just having a bad day today. The reality is we’re relying on (Mark) quite a bit and he just needs to relax and not feel like the weight of the world is on his shoulders.”
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Running back Amar Johnson said Augustana played deep coverage and asked SDSU to play shorter passes. SDSU reached third down 10 times on offense and averaged 3rd-and-7 to catch up in those situations.
“It’s just a lot of new pieces. It takes time for them to fit together,” Johnson said. “We’re going to get the team’s best shots. We’ve got to take whatever the team gives us.”
Johnson’s point: SDSU faced an Augustana team that was, as coach Jerry Olszewski described it, spectacularly focused and motivated to show it could compete with the Jackrabbits. That was evident seven seconds into the game when SDSU botched the opening kickoff, allowing Augustana to score the only points of the game.
Despite some costly yardage penalties, SDSU’s defense was on top form for most of the night. Augie’s field goal came after a four-play negative-four-yard run, and two other promising Vikings drives ended with a bad snap on a first-half field goal attempt and a missed field goal in the fourth quarter.
Three points allowed is a feat that matches SDSU’s defensive standards on any other night. As Rogers pointed out, the Jacks held Augie to a combined 3-of-18 on third and fourth downs, the “money downs” as he described them.
“There are a lot of things that could have gone in Augie’s favor, and we just kept fighting,” Rogers said. “There were some good things about it. But sometimes we failed, and we can’t be comfortable with failure.”
SDSU will travel to Southeast Louisiana next week to return to FCS competition, and the Jacks will have a chance to raise their level of play in an away game.
“We just beat a team by 21 points and it feels like the death of South Dakota State. Is that right?” Rogers said in his press conference, earning some laughs. “So I think we’re in a good position. We need to mature and grow from this. These are the mistakes that will come back to haunt us later if we don’t accept them now.”
