South Dakota State is in the midst of one of the greatest two-year runs in the history of small-school college football. Yet because it’s not quite as prolific as a pair of runs forged by the rival Bison, somehow SDSU enters this season’s FCS national championship game with an understated streak despite its utter dominance over the last two years.
In reality, SDSU’s rise has been steady for more than a decade. The Jackrabbits transitioned to Division I in 2004 and made the FCS playoffs for the first time in 2009, the year before North Dakota State’s first FCS playoff appearance. South Dakota State won first-round playoff games in 2012, 2013 and 2014, advanced to the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs for the first time in 2016 and the semifinals the following year.
South Dakota State has qualified for the FCS Final Four five of the last six years and has played for the championship twice in the last three years, including losing the 2021 spring season championship and winning the national title for the first time last season.
The Jackrabbits enter Sunday’s FCS title game against second-ranked Montana riding a 28-game winning streak. The last time SDSU lost came at Iowa 7-3 to open the year last year. The last time South Dakota State lost to an FCS squad came in the semifinals of the 2021 playoffs when SDSU fell 31-17 at Montana State.
“Our opponent is really good,” Montana 12th-year head coach Bobby Hauck said 10 days ahead of leading his alma mater to the fourth national championship game appearance under his direction. “You don’t win that many games in a row without being a dominant, dominant football team. We have our hands full. These guys are really good and our preparation has to be really good to have a chance.”
Externally, South Dakota State’s run has been analyzed as one that’s impressive. The Jackrabbits are certainly the kings of the current FCS as the future of the subdivision continues to evolve. But often times, pundits fall back upon the fact that the winning streak and the title pursuit have not reached the heights (yet) of North Dakota State’s peerless dynasty over the last decade-plus.
NSDU rolled to 33 consecutive wins during a streak that saw the Bison win five straight national titles between 2011 and 2015. After losing in the semifinals of the 2016 playoffs, NDSU picked up even more steam, winning 39 consecutive games, the most in FCS history and the third-most in college football history behind only Bud Wilkinson’s legendary Oklahoma Sooners teams that won 47 in a row between 1953 and 1957 and Washington’s run of 40 straight wins between 1908 and 1914.
(Washington actually went undefeated for 61 straight games under Gil Dobie during that span but tied three times. Still, Dobie’s 58-0-3 record during that time broke Yale’s all-time record and stood until Wilkinson’s juggernaut came along nearly 40 years later.)
South Dakota State would have to win Sunday plus the first 11 regular-season games next year to surpass North Dakota State’s record FCS streak. And SDSU will need eight more total title game wins and seven more title game appearances to match NDSU’s unbelievable run between 2011 and this season, where the Bison lost in its 12th straight semifinal appearance.
But you have to start somewhere. And if NDSU hadn’t dominated the landscape the last decade plus, South Dakota State’s current run would be the greatest winning streak the subdivision has seen. For perspective, even though Montana has won two national titles and played in the title game seven times since 1995, the longest Griz winning streaks are 24 games (14 to close the 2001 national title season and 10 to start 2002) and 21 games (seven straight to close the 1995 championship season and 14 straight to begin 1996 before losing in the title game).
“The most challenging part of trying to repeat and keeping the streak going is a bunch of exterior factors,” said SDSU All-American senior offensive lineman Mason McCormick, one of SDSU’s team captains. “The media and all these things, they try to create something to write about. Ultimately, we are going out there to compete our tails off every day. Going against our defense all the time is what makes us better. I think sticking together in this transfer portal world has been the most difficult part.”
In revered head coach John Stiegelmeier’s 26th and final season as the head coach (and his 36th at SDSU overall), South Dakota State ripped off 14 straight wins after the Iowa loss, gutting out a 24-22 win over UC Davis for their first victory. The ‘Jacks knocked off top-ranked and defending national champion NDSU 23-21 on October 15 in Fargo and won the next week 49-35 at North Dakota to affirm themselves as the favorites. In the playoffs, SDSU cruised, winning its three games leading up to the championship by a combined score of 123-45 against Delaware, Holy Cross and Montana State, respectively.
In the title game, the Jackrabbits made a statement, ripping North Dakota State 45-21 to earn their first national title.
Immediately following the title game win, Stiegelmeier announce his retirement and most of the rest of the Jackrabbits decided they were staying. The entire offensive line is the same as a year ago, as is the steady hand of cool quarterback Mark Gronowski, the intimidating presence of beastly running back Isaiah Davis, the looming figure that is 6-foot-7 senior tight end Zach Heins plus a salty defense spearheaded by two-time All-American linebacker Adam Bock who leads a unit that is giving up just 9.5 points per game this season.
“The most challenging part has been eliminating complacency,” Bock said. “Once you win one, it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, we did it.’ But it just as hard to not get complacent and keep working toward that second one. I feel like we’ve done a good job of that and just trying to get better every single day.”
Internally, despite all the success and dominance — SDSU has outscored opponents 537-136, including 123-12 in three playoff wins — the cumulative mindset of the Jackrabbits remains one of a program that still has plenty to prove.
“It should feel like you’re hunting every day,” said first-year head coach Jimmy Rogers, a SDSU alum who has spent 15 of the last 17 years at his alma mater as either a player or coach.
“If you are a competitor and you know what it takes to win, you don’t discredit the losses because you can learn a ton from losing. This program has felt the heartache of that for years. To look past those losses and not find the fine detail in how you get better, you’ve wasted that opportunity.
“I don’t think the mentality changes. You are hunting your best. You are trying to draw the best out of yourself on a daily basis so you can have the most success and give your best to the football team. I think it’s fairly simple but it’s not always easy. But I think you can always find it and I feel like this team has that. They have an edge to them. You can see in how they play. There’s a confidence and that confidence is bread through adversity.
“These guys weren’t highly recruited, they weren’t highly sought after and they’ve gotten the most out of their time here. They don’t feel like they’ve arrived, I can promise you that.”
Perhaps the most unlikely part of South Dakota State’s utter dominance is that it’s happened under a first-year head coach. But when you talk to Rogers or listen to the deliberate, driven, intense young man speak, it becomes very clear that excellence is the only thing that’s acceptable to Rogers.
The 35-year-old had his college football career as a linebacker end at the hands of the Grizzlies. In 2009, SDSU built a 48-21 lead late in the third quarter in Missoula only to see Marc Mariani turn into a super hero and lead to Griz to on a 40-point run on the way to a 61-48 win, a victory that sparked UM to the national title game for the second year in a row and the third time under Hauck’s guidance.
That marked the last time Montana advanced this far. Meanwhile, North Dakota State rose to prominence, then dominance. Between 2011 and 2021, North Dakota State won nine national titles, posting an unfathomable record of 142-9 over that span. Only one of those losses — a 27-17 home loss to James Madison in the semifinals in 2016 — came in the playoffs.
Of the eight regular season losses, four came to South Dakota State, one of many indicators of the quite rise of the Jackrabbits to the heights where they currently sit.
“I think that’s what we set out to do when we came here,” Rogers said. “I envisioned being the best team in the country when I committed here. Does it take time? I took longer than I expected. I took years of heartache. But it took a consistent approach of effort, toughness and will, finding the right kids who want to compete and consistently want to do that day in and day out.
“We have that. It means the world to me. It’s been years in the making. It’s not just this one team. Because a team year to year is made of an accumulation of years that has been putting in already. This year’s senior class is special because of the years of work that has gone into this. It means the world to me to lead this senior class one last game. We need to finish on the right note.”
When Hauck took over at Montana, the Griz program had already made its ascension. Montana won the national title in 1995 and 2001 and finished as national runners-up in 1996 and 2000. Hauck’s task was to help the Griz maintain and level up all at once.
Hauck went 80-17 during his first seven seasons at UM between 2003 and 2009, including 51-6 in Big Sky Conference play. Hauck’s squads won seven straight Big Sky titles. The last one, in 2009, was Montana’s latest until this season.
The Big Sky’s all-time leader in head coaching wins has admired SDSU from afar.
“My perspective is they have had great continuity and they built their team to win their conference first, which if you can win that conference, you have a chance to win the championship,” Hauck said. “They have a formula for it, whether it’s recruiting or style of play.
“They are always going to be an athletic, big, physical, sound football team who can win the game in the trenches and they are a on a roll right now, two years without losing a game.”
SDSU’s offensive line, who relish their nickname of the “605 Hogs,” has been dominant this season, helping the Jacks average 235 yards per game on the ground while allowing just 10 sacks.
Davis has been a revelation, rushing for more than 100 yards eight times and rolling up nearly 1,500 yards and counting this season to go with 17 touchdowns during his senior year and 49 trips to the end-zone on the ground (50 total touchdowns scored) in his illustrious career.
Bock, despite missing time with injuries for the second time in his career, seems to be in line for another All-American nod and he plays behind a deep, veteran defensive line that Hauck said “just manhandle people.”
But perhaps the greatest elevating factor has been Gronowski. The Naperville, Illinois product had the luxury of winning over the team during the cancelled spring season in 2020. The following spring, SDSU lost Gronowski’s second start, falling 28-17 at North Dakota.
SDSU has not lost a game Gronowski started and finished against an FCS opponent since. During that time, the 6-foot-3, 225-pounder has thrown 7,415 yards and 69 touchdowns while rushing for 1,334 yards and 26 more scores.
His 35-1 record against FCS foes is the most impressive of his statistics. Gronowski hopes to earn his 36th win as a starter on Sunday.
“It’s been the talk all year, we’ve had the targets on our backs all season and last year as well,” Gronowski said. “It’s exactly where you want to be. You wouldn’t want to be anywhere else other than No. 1. Right now, there are just two teams left and we are going to try to be the team on top at the end.”
If it wasn’t for South Dakota State’s winning streak dominating the pre-game narratives, Montana’s 10-game winning streak would be getting more run. SDSU is between a 12.5 and 14.5-point favorite heading into Sunday’s showdown. Just like they have all year long, the Jackrabbits are refusing to buy into the scuttle.
“Ultimately, that’s why you play the game,” McCormick said. “There’s favorites, whatever, yada yada, yada. Any team can win on any given day, especially in a national championship. Montana is a really good team and they fly around. All that stuff goes out the window. It’s who’s the best team on that day and we have to be ready to play our best.”
