Matt Zimmer: Breaking down the South Dakota State football schedule

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Jun. 4—BROOKINGS — It took a little longer than usual, but South Dakota State finalized its football schedule last month. Twelve games, seven of them at home, all against Division I opponents.

The Jackrabbits will return to FBS play after a year off by challenging Northwestern but will, of course, be missing the Dakota Marker game as it officially goes on hiatus with North Dakota State having moved up to the FBS level and the Mountain West Conference.

Coming off a 9-5 season in which they were ranked No. 2 in the nation until quarterback Chase Mason went down with an injury, the Jacks have national championship aspirations once again and should be ranked in the nation's top five when the first polls are released later this summer.

Here's a game-by-game look at the slate, with the Jacks set to report for training camp in 56 days.

The last addition to the schedule, the Jacks were able to land the Florida-based Hatters over a Division II or NAIA opponent, which is where they probably would've had to otherwise turn.

Stetson competes in the Pioneer League, the FCS's non-scholarship conference, so this still kind of serves as a tune-up contest similar to playing a D2 team. The Hatters went 3-9 last year under first-year coach Mike Jasper, and haven't had a winning season since 2019.

There aren't as many ties between the programs as there were a year ago, as the Wildcats replaced Zach Lujan with Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator and saw D-line coach Christian Smith jump to Penn State, but former SF Jefferson standout Griffin Wilde is still Northwestern's top receiving target, while former SDSU O-line coach Ryan Olson is the Wildcats' run game specialist and assistant O-line coach.

What should be even more interesting, though, is the facility. The Wildcats are moving into new Ryan Field this year, a 35,000 seat stadium with a final cost of nearly $900 million, but Northwestern isn't officially opening it until their third home game of the year, against Penn State.

That means South Dakota State (and Colorado) will play the Wildcats at Martin Stadium, which is Northwestern's soccer and Lacrosse facility. Normally a 2,000 capacity park, Northwestern added temporary seating for an additional 10,000 fans for football games, bringing capacity to 12,023.

That will make for a weird Saturday. The Jacks will be playing a Big Ten team in an FCS-sized stadium (for a $500,000 payout).

SDSU's last game against an FBS opponent was their 44-20 loss to Oklahoma State in 2024. Their last win over an FBS team was their 42-23 rout of Colorado State in 2021.

The Wildcats went 7-6 last year, which included a 4-5 record in Big Ten play and a 34-7 win over Central Michigan in the GameAbove Sports Bowl.

This feels like a potentially winnable game for SDSU.

The Chargers are entering their second year in Division I and the Northeast Conference after a successful run in Division II. They were 5-5 last year after having gone 10-2, 8-3, 8-3 and 8-3 in their final four post-COVID years in Division II, though just two of those five came against D1 opponents (Albany and Merrimack).

New Haven eliminated football in 2004 and the program was dormant for five years. The Chargers have not had a losing season since bringing it back in 2009.

This is a game SDSU should be able to win comfortably, but the Chargers' history of success suggests they're not a team the Jacks should overlook or expect to put up little resistance.

The Jacks kick off conference play with the Penguins, who are coming off a strong season and bringing back the Walter Payton Award winner as FCS offensive player of the year.

YSU went 8-5 last year and qualified for the FCS playoffs, losing to Yale 43-42 in a game where they blew a 35-7 halftime lead, but the return of quarterback Beau Brungard is the big story.

Brungard won the Payton award after throwing for 3,200 yards and 26 touchdowns and rushing for another 1,468 yards and 27 scores. In the NIL/Portal era, any award-winning player at a sub-FBS level is automatically assumed to be on their way out the door, so the Penguins hanging on to Brungard is a huge deal for them and the FCS.

It also means the Jacks will have their work cut out for them in their conference opener.

Last year the Jacks beat YSU 35-30 in Ohio, overcoming an early 14-0 deficit and holding off a late rally. All Brungard did in that one was throw for 275 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for another 130 yards and a score.

The Jacks third consecutive home game and fourth in the first five weeks comes against the Panthers of the OVC-Big South Association.

Other than a mirage-like 8-3 season in 2023, the Panthers have been an FCS bottom-feeder for most of the last decade.

Since making the playoffs in 2015, EIU has gone, in order:

6-5

6-5

3-8

1-11

1-5

1-10

2-9

8-3

3-9

3-9

Will this year be any different? Maybe, but asking the Panthers to go into Brookings and knock off the Jacks seems like a pretty big ask even if they are a markedly improved squad.

Tennessee Tech was the league champion from the OVC-BS last year, going 11-1 in the regular season and 8-0 in conference play, and they lost their playoff opener 31-6 to a 7-5 North Dakota squad. At home.

The Jacks' first road game in a month will be a challenging one, as they take on last year's national runners-up at Hancock Stadium, looking to avenge one of the uglier losses in recent program history from a year ago.

The Jacks hosted the Redbirds in their regular season home finale and just completely wet the bed in the first half, as a comedy of errors allowed ISU to take a 28-0 lead after one quarter, which they pushed to 35-0 less than five minutes into the second.

In a weird twist, the Jacks mostly dominated the rest of the game, scoring a pair of touchdowns before half to make it 35-13, then cutting it to 35-21 and driving into scoring position with a chance to make it one-score game late. It didn't seem like much at the time, but players and coaches credited the recovery for inspiring their playoff-clinching win at UND the following week.

The Redbirds lost a lot from last year, notably quarterback Tommy Rittenhouse, his top target Daniel Sobkowicz and a handful of guys who transferred out, seven of whom moved up to the FBS level.

The Jacks' 'improvement week' comes at a relatively opportune time, at the midpoint of the season. Sometimes coaches consider a bye coming in between the end of non-conference and start of conference play to be ideal, and that certainly has benefits from an evaluation and reassessment standpoint, but injuries often are what really determine how well-timed the bye week will be.

At any rate, the Jacks will have two of their toughest conference games in the bank before their bye, which should give them a good opportunity to take a deep breath and recharge before embarking on a stretch run that still includes its share of challenging games.

In an odd scheduling anomaly the Jacks are facing the Fighting Hawks in Grand Forks for the third year in a row and fourth time in the last five seasons.

It hasn't been a problem for SDSU of late, as they've won five consecutive meetings, three of which have been in Grand Forks.

Last year, of course, was the most memorable from the SDSU side of the rivalry, as the Jacks overcame a 14-0 deficit to beat UND in overtime on a walk-off soft-of Hail Mary from Jack Henry to Grahm Goering that snapped a four-game losing streak and lifted them into the playoffs.

With NDSU out of the picture, SDSU is on the short list of national championship contenders in 2026, and many expect the Hawks to climb the FCS hierarchy with the Bison out of the way as well. It wouldn't be a surprise if this were a battle of top 10 or top five teams by the time it rolls around.

The Racers haven't been competitive against any of the Valley's contenders since joining the league, and there's little reason to think they can give the Jacks a game in Brookings.

Last year SDU beat them 35-17 in Kentucky with Luke Marble taking most of the snaps at QB.

Then again, the Racers did get their only win of the season at Indiana State, the same team that beat the Jacks in Brookings. By this point in the season we should be able to tell if the Racers have started making significant improvement under third year coach Jody Wright.

The Yotes are still looking for their first D1 win in Brookings, and first-year coach Matt Vitzthum — USD's third coach in three seasons — will lead them into Dykhouse Stadium for a nationally-televised Halloween rivalry clash.

It will be interesting to get a sense for how the build-up to the game feels. SDSU fans have at times delighted in telling USD fans that the Coyotes are 'not their real rival', and now that the Bison are gone, the Jacks have no choice but to turn to them as their new primary rivalry game.

This can quickly and easily become one of the best rivalries in FCS, even if it's not as good as the Dakota Marker was, and that would benefit both teams and schools, so I assume eventually everyone will sort of fall in line, but I definitely won't blame any USD fans for being hesitant to embrace it wholeheartedly.

As for the game, as of right now the Jacks feel like decided favorites, as they have far fewer question marks than the Yotes do. We'll see if that's still the case by late October.

Remember when the Panthers were an FCS power? That feels like a long time ago.

New coach Todd Stepsis seems like a great guy and he was successful at Drake; perhaps he'll get UNI back into contention, but it'll take some work (and some help from people who write his paychecks).

In the meantime, the UNI-Dome is no longer an intimidating place for the Jacks to go. They won there 41-3 in 2024.

UNI is coming off consecutive 3-9 seasons, with only one Valley win in each — against Indiana State and Murray State.

The Salukis missed the playoffs for the second straight season last year and haven't finished higher than sixth in the Valley since 2021.

Still, they were 7-5 last year and 8-5 in 2023 — they've kind of settled into a space as a second-tier Valley team, which also makes them a second-tier national contender.

The Salukis haven't beaten SDSU since 2021, when they came to Brookings and erased an early 21-0 deficit. They're actually better in Brookings (3-5) than they are against the Jacks at home (1-6), with their only win over SDSU at Saluki Stadium coming in 2008.

Who knows what either team will look like by mid-November due to injuries or other potential factors, but this could be a trap game for SDSU, or one with major playoff implications for both teams.

Revenge is the most overused fan and sportswriter cliche in sports, but it's hard not to think the Jacks will have some frustrations to take out on the Sycamores in this one.

Most likely, unless things have gone very wrong for SDSU, they'll have more important objectives going into the regular season finale than paying Indiana State back for last year's Dykhouse Debacle in which the Sycamores beat SDSU 24-12 despite getting outgained 441-228, but one of those could be creating momentum going into the playoffs, and the Jacks players would probably enjoy doing that by putting the kind of beating on ISU they were expected to last year.

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