FCS storylines ahead of championship game Sunday
John Stiegelmeier leads South Dakota State; Sam Houston State unlike old Bearkats.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – If you follow NCAA Division I’s Football Championship Subdivision closely, you’re familiar with Sam Houston State. You know the orange helmets, the Bearkats with a “K” nickname, charismatic head coach K.C. Keeler.
You probably also know the ’Kats are a regular in the playoffs, a perennial power in the Southland Conference, but a team that hasn’t measured up once they got deep in the tournament.
To wit:
h In 2014, Keeler’s first year at the helm, SHSU lost 35-3 to North Dakota State in the semifinals.
h In 2015, it lost to Jacksonville State 62-10 in the semifinals.
h In 2016, the Bearkats were 12-0 heading into a quarterfinal matchup with James Madison. The Dukes eked out a 62-7 win that day.
h In 2017, SHSU was 12-1 when it visited the Fargodome in the semifinals. Bison 55, Bearkats 13.
To be fair, those failures came after Sam Houston State went to national championship games (losing both) in 2011 and 2012. But after the ’Kats missed the playoffs in 2018 and 2019 it was fair to wonder if their time as an FCS heavyweight had passed, and when they won the Southland again this year, it was tempting to think these were the same old Bearkats. Dominant in the regular season, sure to be exposed against better competition in the playoffs.
So much for that.
The ’Kats (9-0) took down the defending national champ and the topranked team in the country in back-toback weeks to punch their ticket to Frisco, Texas, for Sunday’s championship game. Those two opponents – North Dakota State and James Madison – are widely regarded as the elite programs in the FCS. Whatever doubts or criticisms one might have had on Sam Houston State don’t hold up anymore.
And the way the Bearkats look at it, it’s two down, one to go.
“In my opinion, for us to win the national championship we’re gonna have to have beat the three best teams in the country back to back to back,” Keeler said. “We’ve beaten two of them. Now can we beat the third one?”
Jacks: ‘We won’t overlook them’
The South Dakota State Jackrabbits know that they can and know how well they’ll have to play to prevent it from happening.
“I’ll say this – we won’t overlook them,” said Jacks defensive tackle Xavier Ward. “Any team can beat any team. It just takes a will and a drive.”
Well, that and really good players and coaches, and the Bearkats have those. Keeler already owns a national championship ring, from when he took Delaware (the team SDSU just beat to get to Frisco) to the title in 2003. And he’s assembled a roster that outscored its regular-season opponents by an average score of 45-17, produced six wins against ranked opponents and has shown the ability to excel in all three phases of the game.
“There are no weaknesses,” said Jacks coach John Stiegelmeier. “There’s a lot of strengths. Their players are very good. Their quarterback is excellent, their skill on offense is excellent, their lines are very good. Where they have improved the most from the Sam Houstons I’ve watched in the past, I think, has been their defense and especially their defensive line.”
Defensive dominance, offensive firepower carry SHSU football
Indeed, the “Soft Houston State” jokes are a thing of the past. SHSU has held opponents to 78.9 rushing yards per game and a mere 2.2 yards per carry. That’s in part because in college, sacks are counted as negative rushing yards, and the Bearkats have recorded a whopping 37 sacks in nine games.
On offense, the Bearkats have a prolific passing game behind quarterback Eric Schmid (2,599 yards and 17 TDs passing) and big-play receivers Jequez Ezzard and Ife Adeyi, who both average more than 20 yards per catch, but they can run it, too, with Ramon Jefferson (656 yards) and the shifty Schmid (382 yards, eight TDs).
Still, with as much respect as the Jacks have for Sam Houston State’s personnel, it’s the Bearkats’ resilience that impresses them most.
After holding off a tough, 10th-ranked Monmouth squad 21-15 in the first round, the Bearkats took a 17-2 lead on North Dakota State, only to allow a 94yard kickoff return score and 76-yard punt return TD in the space of two minutes to cough up the lead. Knowing the Bison’s history, virtually everyone watching assumed the ’Kats had blown it and NDSU would coast to victory, but SHSU rallied with a nine-play, 72-yard drive late in the fourth quarter to retake the lead, then made a defensive stand in the final seconds to hold on for the 2420 win.
A week later, the ’Kats found themselves trailing James Madison 24-3 at halftime, only to outscore the Dukes 28-3 in the third quarter on their way to the 38-35 win.
“They can score fast and they can change games really quickly,” said Jacks linebacker Logan Backhaus. “Last week when they were down 24-3 I’m sure a lot of people wrote them off. They scored I think 21 points in two minutes.
“One thing we’ve focused on is keeping on the gas, keep moving forward and don’t let up until the game is over. That’s going to be very important this week.”