BROOKINGS – The South Dakota State football team hadn’t hosted South Dakota in four years, but on Saturday the Jackrabbits gave the Coyotes a rude welcome back to Brookings with a 28-3 victory in front of a sold-out crowd at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium.

“It definitely made an impact,” Jackrabbits head coach John Stiegelmeier said of the home crowd. “It makes an impact when you give energy, which they did.”

Despite the home crowd, the Coyotes took control of the game early. A 29-yard run from Travis Theis set up Eddie Ogamba’s 37-yard field goal to get South Dakota on the board and after a couple of drives went nowhere, a muffed punt by Jadon Janke gave the Coyotes prime field position to add to the lead early in the second quarter.

The momentum shifted on third and goal from the SDSU eight-yard line when Cale Reeder intercepted Carson Camp with a leaping interception in the corner of the end zone and tipped the scales back into the Jackrabbits' favor.

“It felt like a big play,” SDSU cornerback Dalys Beanum said of Reeder’s interception. “I didn’t know if anyone thought the defense would get off the field, so I think when he got that pick inside the red zone, that that was really big, so I think that changed the momentum for sure.”

Reeder’s interception came just in time as the big plays arrived before halftime for the SDSU offense. Mark Gronowski found Jaxon Janke on a 26-yard touchdown pass with 9:29 left in the second quarter that gave the Jackrabbits a 7-3 lead and fresh off his season-high 199 yards rushing against Western Illinois, Isaiah Davis gave SDSU some breathing room with a 47-yard touchdown run that put the Jackrabbits up 14-3 at halftime.

The big run has been a trend for the junior who finished the day with 108 yards rushing and now has 307 yards and five touchdowns over his last two games.

“I know at the beginning of the year, [the runs] weren’t getting hit,” Davis said of the big play. “I knew that if I kept trusting and kept hitting the same gap, it was going to eventually. We have some new guys up front that are starting to click and you see that in the runs that are starting to pop off.”

Davis scored his second touchdown of the game – a five-yard run – on SDSU’s first drive of the third quarter to put the Jackrabbits up 21-3 and while the Jackrabbits’ offense was putting points on the scoreboard, the SDSU defense was keeping the Coyotes off of it. 

Carson Camp had a rough day for USD, completing just 5-of-12 passes for 44 yards and throwing two interceptions. Part of the Jackrabbits’ stellar coverage was thanks to a ferocious pass rush which saw SDSU rack up seven sacks on the afternoon.

“We saw it on film that [Camp] is a really great scrambler…so we were preparing for him to run a lot,” Senior defensive end Reece Winkelman said. “When you do that, it kind of closes up the rush lanes and we had lockdown coverage on the back end so that always helps a lot to get home.”

In turn, Beanum, who also had an interception later in the game, was quick to credit the pass rush for the secondary’s success.

“They make my job so easy,” Beanum said. “When the quarterback is just constantly scrambling around…they make our job on the back end way easier.”

With a dominating defensive effort, SDSU’s offense took the ball and churned out a 15-play, 80-yard drive that took 8:13 off the clock. The long drive ended with Davis’s third touchdown of the game to go up 28-3 and effectively put the game on ice.

“My college roommate told me we look like Ohio State,” Stiegelmeier said of the drive. “Four yards and a cloud of dust. Like the old Ohio State…I think that when we can go 15 plays in eight minutes, I’ll take that. That discourages everybody from USD’s fans on down to the rest of the program.”

The game never got closer as the Jackrabbits held USD under 100 yards of total offense until their final drive of the game and 136 yards on the afternoon. With one final sack, the Jackrabbits defended their home turf and picked up their fifth straight victory.

“It felt really good,” Winkelman said of the win. “In my time here, we are 2-2 against [South Dakota] and you hear about the tradition of us beating them, but when you’re 50 percent [for your career], it’s a pretty big deal to go out winning.”

The Jackrabbits improved to 5-1 on the season and 3-0 in the Missouri Valley Football Conference with the victory but Saturday’s game served as a precursor to a showdown with North Dakota State in Fargo on Oct. 15.

“It’s kind of fun,” Winkelman said. “We got USD, NDSU and UND – all the Dakota games just like that. Everyone’s looking forward to it…we’re kind of going through the ringer but even without a bye week, nobody is really down on themselves. We’re going to go out there and keep trucking.”

Stiegelmeier also added that his team should be ready for the Bison next week.

“We surely gained confidence from this game,” Stiegelmeier said. “We respect NDSU. We embrace the rivalry and it’s one of the greatest in college football. We take one game at a time, so I don’t know how this game will impact us but we should be confident that we can play their football.”