CSN West: Coyote Pretty

I grew up in the 1980s as many of you know in a small town in North Dakota. And as many of you know, I grew up watching Division II football and mainly the North Central Conference, which included the now FCS teams of Northern Colorado and the four major Dakota schools.

Back when I was growing up, the two major teams contending in the NCC races were North Dakota State and the University of South Dakota.
In fact, those two teams played for the Division II title in 1986 — a 27-7 victory for NDSU. And the year before that, those two teams met in the DII semifinal round with USD again falling to NDSU.

After that, however, a two-decade postseason drought endured for South Dakota. USD again made the DII postseason in 2006 under current Coach Ed Meierkort — winning an opening-round contest before falling to eventual DII national champion Grand Valley State (Mich.) in the second round. This was just before the Coyotes moved up to the FCS ranks in 2008.

In what might be considered the biggest game since those playoff games, South Dakota defeated the FBS Big Ten’s Minnesota 41-38 last Saturday.

How did the Coyotes pull off the upset at Minnesota?

In one simple answer, it was junior quarterback Dante Warren. He now has one victory as USD’s starting quarterback.

Warren had a career day with 433 yards of total offense and five touchdowns to lead the Coyotes to the upset of the BCS conference Gophers. Warren went 21-of-30 through the air for 352 yards and three touchdowns. He added 81 yards and two touchdowns rushing.

We thought we’d have a chance to throw the ball,” Meierkort said. “We didn’t know how successful because of the pressure, but once we were able to keep (Dante Warren) out of their grasp, that really helped us a ton and allowed us to call a more free-spirited game. If we would have played this too close to the vest, we’d have lost this game, because they were stacking our run game. It was tough sledding. That’s what you get when you play a Big Ten defense; they’re going to stop that run.

After trailing the majority of the game, Minnesota scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to close the gap to just three with 3:21 left. The Coyotes faced a third-and-four with 1:50 left, but Warren completed an eight-yard strike to junior wide receiver Dustin Nowotny. The Coyotes ran out the clock with two victory formations to preserve the upset.

Warren had plenty of other help on offense in the week after USD lost to another FBS team in Central Florida. Sophomore wide receiver Will Powell had a career-high eight catches for 156 yards and two touchdowns and fellow sophomore Tom Flanagan had five receptions for 59 yards. Seven Coyote wide receivers caught passes.

“Last week, I was learning as I went,” Warren said. “Playing against UCF got me caught up to game speed. Everything today felt natural, and I credit that to last week.”

On the defensive side, junior safety Shane Potter led the Coyotes for a second straight game in tackles with 10 stops, including seven solo tackles. Junior linebacker Adam Broders had 1.5 tackles for loss and linebackers Shea Williams and Darius Hogans had fumble recoveries.

Who do the Coyotes have next on the schedule?

South Dakota has its full slate of Great West Conference games with North Dakota and Cal Poly at home and UC Davis and Southern Utah on the road. The Coyotes also play two Missouri Valley teams in Northern Iowa at home and North Dakota State on the road.

USD will have its home opener this weekend with NAIA Northwestern Oklahoma State and later will travel to FCS newcomer Lamar. The Coyotes also have former NCC and current Big Sky member Northern Colorado coming to Vermillion.

With this schedule, there are several tough games upcoming with playoff contenders. While this victory over Minnesota is a highlight, USD will not be able to contend for the playoffs this year as it continues its transition from DII to DI. The Coyotes will complete their transition beginning in the 2012 season.

Hasn’t this happened to Minnesota before?

Yes, the Gophers lost to the same former NCC team that South Dakota was a rival with in North Dakota State in 2007 and were nearly defeated a year ago by another USD rival in South Dakota State but found a way to win that one, 16-13. The Gophers, under current coach Tim Brewster, also had a rather narrow victory against Montana State in 2008 with a 35-23 victory.

In any event, South Dakota looks like a team that can do damage in the Great West Conference and should prove to be a formidable foe for any team it plays. It’s great to see a school that had such a good run while I was growing up looking to do it again many years later. �
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CSN West Games of the Week

Stephen F. Austin (1-1, 0-0) at Northern Iowa (1-0, 1-0)

These two teams have met seven times with the last game played in 2004. UNI holds a 5-2 record but lost the last game against SFA, which also was in Cedar Falls. The Panthers are coming off a 16-9 victory in their season and conference opener against North Dakota State.

Stephen F. Austin is coming off a 59-14 rout of the Northeast Conference’s Albany in the Lumberjacks’ home opener. SFA lost to FBS Texas A&M 48-7 in its season opener.

The big story in the opening week was the Panther defense. It tied a school record with 11 sacks in the NDSU triumph. Ben Boothby led the way with four sacks, tying the school record for sacks in a game. James Conley notched 2.5 sacks, and L.J. Fort tallied 2.0. UNI held NDSU to a -40 yards rushing. The Panthers offense also clicked with the exception of being in the red zone (inside the opponent 20-yard line). UNI scored only one touchdown and three field goals while having six drives within this scoring range.

Quarterback Tirrell Rennie, a newcomer, had an impressive debut for the Panthers, throwing for 172 yards and rushing for 96. Runningback Carlos Anderson also set a career high with 158 rushing yards.

Stephen F. Austin is led defensively by two players that some publications had as preseason honors in linebackers Jabara Williams and Devin Ducote. Williams recorded a game-high 19 tackles against Albany while Ducote added 16 tackles. He also picked off a pass, which he returned for a touchdown.

The Lumberjack offense is headed by another preseason honoree in quarterback Jeremy Moses. The senior has passed for 484 yards and four touchdowns in the first two games. His favorite target has been sophomore Graly Crawford, who has 12 receptions for 107 yards and a touchdown. Crawford also is a threat as a kick returner as he returned a kickoff and a punt for a touchdown against Albany last week.

UNI will need to solve its scoring zone enigma this week to pull out a victory and its defense will have to change to defend a quicker, more pass-orientated offense.

SFA will need to contain Rennie and Anderson in the UNI running game and likely will need to force UNI to pass. I think this game will be rather high scoring, but I think the home field will give UNI the advantage. I like the Panthers by four. Northern Iowa 35, Stephen F. Austin 31. �
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Montana (1-1, 0-0) @ Eastern Washington (1-1, 0-0)

Let the red turf debut. In the first game to be played at Roos Field (formerly Woodward Field) will be a big contest between these two Big Sky foes. The game will be the ninth time in the last 15 meetings both teams enter the game nationally ranked.

The Eagles hope the change to the red synthetic turf will result in better results. Since 1990, Eastern has won four times in Missoula, but Eastern has won just twice at home. The last victory for the Eagles over the Grizzlies as a home contest came in 2002, when they played the game in Spokane — a 30-21 victory that ended the Grizzlies’ 24-game FCS win streak.

The Grizzlies are coming off a loss to Cal Poly by a 35-33 score. A week earlier, the Grizzlies opened the season with a 73-2 thrashing of NCAA Division II Western State College from Colorado. EWU is coming off a victory over DII highly ranked Central Washington 35-32 in the second edition of the “Showdown on the Sound” at Qwest Field in Seattle. A week earlier, Eastern lost its opener at FBS Nevada 49-24.

The Eagles were outgained in total offense by Nevada 553-432, and by Central Washington 352-311. Eastern junior runningback Taiwan Jones leads FCS in all-purpose yards, with an average of 278.5 per game after two games. He has scored four touchdowns to rank fourth nationally in scoring and is 10th in rushing.

Montana is headed by quarterback Justin Roper. Despite the loss at Cal Poly, the Grizzlies outgained the Mustangs by 465-340 yards, including a huge 416-178 advantage in passing yardage.

I believe this also will be a high-scoring affair and EWU will have some energy with the new field early but I think the Grizzlies will be able to come back to win late.

I will take the Grizzlies by a touchdown. Montana 41, Eastern Washington 34. �
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CSN West News & Notes �
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+ The Big Sky Conference announced last week that Cal Poly and UC Davis will join the league as football-only members. Both FCS schools currently compete in the Great West Conference for football, but are Big West members for the majority of their sports. An effort will be made to include the Aggies and the Mustangs in the Big Sky as quickly as possible, but the move is not expected to take place until at least 2012. Big Sky Commissioner Doug Fullerton also said the league is eyeing a 10th full-time member, which would bring the football members to 12. At that point, the Big Sky would split into two six-team divisions. �

+ Through the first two weeks of the season, the Missouri Valley Football Conference has a 7-7 mark in nonconference games, which includes a 6-1 record against non-FBS schools (the only loss was to nationally ranked Delaware on the road). The league is 1-6 against FBS teams this season. �

+ Northern Iowa’s Billy Hallgren connected on three field goals in the season opener for the Panthers and now has made more field goals than any other active FCS kicker (50). �

+ The first Big Sky Conference game of the season turned into a four-overtime thriller, won by Weber State 50-47 over Northern Colorado. It tied for the longest conference game in league history. On Oct. 13, 1984, Montana State beat Nevada 44-41 in a four-overtime game. The game also was delayed roughly 20 minutes when the lights at Stewart Stadium went out during the third overtime. The game finally ended more than 4 hours and 30 minutes after it began when Northern Colorado kicker Mason Puckett missed a field-goal attempt.

+ Northern Colorado cornerback Brandon Owens was suspended by the league for throwing a punch at a Weber State player during the third overtime of their game. It was not seen during the game but it was discovered on videotape. Owens will sit out the first half of this week's game against Idaho State.

+ Weber State senior quarterback Cameron Higgins became the 11th quarterback in league history to throw for 10,000 yards. Higgins threw for 340 and four touchdowns in the triumph over Northern Colorado, upping his career total to 10,366. Higgins ranks ninth in Big Sky history. He needs 2,251 to become the league’s all-time leader. Higgins also ranks 10th on the Big Sky’s all-time total offense list with 10,293 yards. �

+ Portland State is the only Big Sky team to win a road game this season, downing UC Davis at Davis 41-33. It was the first victory for Coach Nigel Burton with the Vikings.