BROOKINGS — The college football season is at the midway point and South Dakota State has yet to lose a game.
The Jackrabbits have won their first six contests and have won by an average of 19.3 points per game. SDSU has outgained its opponents on average by 138 yards per game.
With those numbers, you would think the Jacks would be pleased with how they’ve played on offense in the first half of the season. That’s not necessarily the case.
SDSU head coach Dan Jackson has not criticized his team’s offensive performance so far this season, but he knows that the Jacks have things to work on if they want to win a national championship.
In SDSU’s 31-3 win over Northern Iowa this past Saturday, the Jacks scored on five of their 13 possessions. Two possessions resulted in missed field and the other five possessions the Jacks did not get a first down.
Jackson noted that SDSU needs to be better on first down if they want to have sustained success on offense. In the five drives where the Jacks punted and did not get a first down, they averaged 1.6 yards on the first play of the drive. Jackson said his team needs to gain more yards on first down and avoid negative plays to begin the drive.
“Some drives in [the Northern Iowa game we were] gashing them in the run game and the pass game and there was a good mix and we were keeping the defense off balance and there were different tempos that we operated with. Those are the things that I see when we’re rolling. No different from any other offense, if you get hit for a loss on first down or there’s a penalty that backs you up or a havoc play by the defense that gets you behind the sticks, then it becomes a more challenging situation. … We need to eliminate any havoc plays and getting hit for a loss. Second and 12, second and 14, those aren’t good for us. We need to get more into second and six and second and five and be more productive on first down. Those are going to be things that help us stay on track,” Jackson said.
SDSU went up 14-3 against the Panthers with 4:23 left in the second quarter. The lead remained at 11 points until there was 1:14 left in the third. Against Youngstown State on Oct. 4, SDSU fell behind 14-0 in the first 16 minutes of the game. The Jacks did not lead until they outscored the Penguins 21-0 in the third quarter.
Jackson said his team needs to come out ready to go and keep their foot on the gas pedal for all four quarters.
“We just have to avoid the lulls. … Not relaxing. When you have a two-score lead, let’s make it three and let’s make it four. Let’s capitalize on this takeaway that the defense created. There’s a level of energy for our players that we’ve talked about and they’re going to create themselves and we want to take the next step as an offense in terms of evolving together and solve problems and create solutions within the players,” Jackson said.
Those two games are examples of the Jacks playing good football for only certain portions of the game. Jackson said after a 51-7 win over Mercyhurst on Sept. 27 that that was the most complete game he’s seen from his team and in that game the Jacks did not punt and scored on every possession.
SDSU quarterback Chase Mason said after the win over UNI that the Jacks are still trying to put four quarters together and when they do that, it’s going to be hard to stop them.
“Every week we look for opportunities to improve. You’ve seen it pretty much every week. When we’re rolling, we’re rolling. It’s just about getting the confidence between the three groups. But when we’re rolling, I don’t think anyone can stop us. It’s just getting connected and keeping that confidence up through the guys and focusing on what our jobs are on each side of the ball,” Mason said.
SDSU plays at Murray State on Saturday at 6 p.m. Central time.
