The South Dakota State Jackrabbits pride themselves on being a physical team. In the lead-up to the final weeks of the season, they’ve practiced in the cold. They’ve practiced in the rain. They’ve had competitive practices throughout the season and ground through 11 straight weeks thanks to an unorthodox schedule.
When the Jackrabbits arrived at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium for their FCS second-round game against the Delaware Blue Hens, they hadn’t played a game in three weeks, which begged the question. Would the Jackrabbits show any rust? Or would they be rested enough to unleash a new level of physicality?
The answer was neither. SDSU didn’t look rusty in their 42-6 win over Delaware but they didn’t spend the two weeks sitting around and watching the first round of the playoffs. They set the tone early averaging 9.1 yards per carry in the first half and six yards per carry overall to set the tone for a long afternoon.
“It was noticeable,” SDSU head coach John Stiegelmeier said of the effect the time off had on his team. “It wasn’t just noticeable in terms of the physical rest, it was the mental grind of [having] fall camp and then [playing for] 11 or 12 weeks straight.”
The difference was seen on the Jackrabbits’ first offensive drive of the game. Going against a Delaware defense that routinely worked with a six-man box, Gronowski took a read option and split the defense for his longest run of the season at 51 yards.
“I was kind of surprised,” Gronowski said of his run. “I was running the ball this year, but I hadn’t really run as much as I did previously. It was really great to get back in that running game a little bit and get some of those carries.”
Gronowski finished the afternoon with 73 yards and a touchdown on eight attempts, but the positives went outside of a flashy line on the boxscore. Gronowski looked fast and was able to take advantage of big holes on the offensive line.
Gronowski also said that it was exciting to see how big of a hole the offensive line had created and Mason McCormick agreed that there was another level to the game in the trenches thanks to the atmosphere created
“I think it took a play or two but once we were back out there, we were rolling,” McCormick said. “We did a lot of competing in our bye weeks and I think it really benefitted us not really having that rust.”
Stiegelmeier also joked that he doesn’t know how to spell the word rust because of the work ethic he saw in his players. He recalled the time before the 2021 spring season when players returned to Brookings and worked out on their own over Christmas vacation.
“They don’t take a break,” Stiegelmeier said. “They don’t know what to do with their bodies and they know when we practice, we practice hard.”
Another player that took that to heart is running back Isaiah Davis. Davis bullied the Blue Hens throughout the afternoon, fighting off several defenders that brought the Jackrabbits down to the one-yard line and finishing it off with an aggressive one-yard touchdown run to put SDSU on the board.
Like Gronowski’s run, it set the tone for the afternoon. Davis ran for 104 yards and two touchdowns, marking his sixth career 100-yard playoff game. It also was a testament of the work Davis puts in when the Jackrabbits aren’t on the field.
“If there’s a guy that’s a picture of the definition of taking care of their body, it’s Isaiah Davis,” Stiegelmeier said. “It’s all the time. It’s sleep. It’s as a true freshman in the spring season, he would go into the wellness center and do extra workouts. He’s a guy that football is very important to and he worked very hard to get to where he is.”
With the running game firing on all cylinders, the Jackrabbits raced out to a 21-6 lead at halftime and used a 14-play, 58-yard drive that put SDSU up 28-6. From that point, the Jackrabbits leaned on their defense which featured two sacks from Reece Winkelman and another from Caleb Sanders.
The Jackrabbits also held a Delaware offense that had racked up 283 rushing yards and 586 total yards in their win over St. Francis (Pa.) a week ago and held them to 64 rushing yards and 192 total yards on Saturday afternoon.
“It doesn’t really matter who they put out there,” Sanders said of the defense’s performance. “We’re just going to go out there and play physical football. We’re going to have to stuff the run and make them one-dimensional.”
Such is the trademark of a Jackrabbits team that has proven its toughness, not just on the field, but off of it. Whatever test has been thrown at them, they’ve passed it with flying colors. Now with a couple of weeks off to refine their craft, SDSU looks like a different team that could give Holy Cross a lot to think about next week even with their own lofty expectations as the top seed in the playoffs.
“I think they’re handling it very well,” Stiegelmeier said. “I think that after we beat North Dakota State and we were ranked No. 1, I thought there was an awkwardness or how do we deal with this? …If somebody’s going to call you the No. 1 team in America, then you have to play like the No. 1 team. Much is given. Much is expected and they’ve responded primarily in practice.”
