South Dakota State routs UC-Davis 56-24 in first round of FCS playoffs
BROOKINGS – The Jackrabbits are going back to Cali.
South Dakota State won its first-round playoff game with ease Saturday, routing UC-Davis 56-24 at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium. With the win, SDSU (9-3) will take on 4th-seeded Sacramento State next week in the second round.
The Jackrabbit defense intercepted six Aggie passes while the running back duo of Pierre Strong and Isaiah Davis had its first big 1-2 punch performance of the year to spark an SDSU offense that dominated play. The Jacks rushed for 433 yards on 42 attempts, overwhelming an Aggie team that came in losers of two in a row and nursing injuries on both sides of the ball. For an SDSU team that had looked fairly underwhelming down the stretch of the regular season, there was significance to not just winning, but winning big.
“I felt like today was a statement day,” Davis said. “To let everybody else know we’re going to bring it. It was good to have a dominating game to prove how we can run the ball.”
Davis ran for 217 yards on 15 carries for his first career 200-yard game, while Strong ran 19 times for 185 yards and added his sixth career touchdown pass, yet those might not even have been the top individual performances of the day. That honor may have to go to sophomore cornerback Dalys Beanum, who intercepted three passes on the day, the last of which he returned 59 yards for a touchdown, a score that put the exclamation point on the win for SDSU.
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Beanum was the first Rabbit since Tyler Koch in 2007 to pick off three passes in a game, and the six team interceptions tied a team record set twice in the 1950s.
“At the timeout before (his third interception) everyone was telling me ‘get three, get three’,” Beanum said. “I was like, man, if they try me I gotta go get it. When I saw the ball in the air I just attacked it and then when I was at about the 30-yard line I was like, I’ve got to get in the end zone now.”
It ended a blowout, but the Aggies hung around for awhile.
After UC-Davis took a 10-7 lead on a 4-yard pass from Miles Hastings to CJ Hutton, SDSU reeled off 21 straight points, going up 28-10 on an 18-yard Davis touchdown run, Strong’s 10-yard pass to quarterback Chris Oladokun on a trick play, and a 33-yard strike from Oladokun to Jadon Janke.
After the Aggies cut it to 28-17 going to halftime on a 20 yard run by Ulonzo Gilliam, Adam Bock opened the second half with a pick-six, catching a deflected pass out of the air and taking it 39-yard for a touchdown to open the second half scoring and make it 35-17. That was the last time the Aggies were in striking distance.
The moments before halftime bore some resemblance to SDSU’s early season loss to Southern Illinois in which they blew a 20-0 first half lead, and the Jacks played like that may have been on their minds, and they could not let it happen again.
“What we talked about (at halftime) was, let’s not let them back in,” said coach John Stiegelmeier. “Let’s go play our best football. We were not sharp at the end of the second quarter, and they were. But we responded really well.”
The running game’s dominance was especially impressive, with Davis and Strong both picking up huge chunks of yardage all day. The offensive line of Aron Johnson, Mason McCormick, Wes Genant, Eddie Miller and Garret Greenfield (with contributions from Bo Donald and Gus Miller, who recovered a Strong fumble in the end zone for a touchdown) made it look easy for SDSU’s two superbacks.
“They started cracking our edge pieces a lot so they were able to run off-tackle pretty well to start the game,” said Aggies defensive back Erron Duncan. “I also think just having them commit to the run throughout the game really put pressure on us to tackle and be gap-disciplined, which a lot of times is difficult to do. It just takes one guy out of their gap and then they’re busting one down the field.”
Oladokun threw for a season-low 89 yards but fired two touchdowns and had a season-long 20-yard run on a 3rd and 19 to set up a score. Don Gardner and Cade Terveer had interceptions and Tolu Ogunrinde and Josh Manchigiah each had a sack. Cale Reeder led SDSU with eight tackles.
Six interceptions. 400-plus rushing yards. You’re not going to lose very often when reaching those benchmarks.
“I ask for that every week,” Stiegelmeier joked. “It surely builds confidence anytime you can run the football. It builds confidence for the whole team. It brings us together. I know this: On the sidelines, our offense and defense were really excited about the success both of them were having.”
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: South Dakota State routs UC-Davis 56-24 in first round of FCS playoffs
