South Dakota State football: A program built on underdogs

Dec. 8—BROOKINGS — DyShawn Gales wasn't sure if he was going to play college football at all, let alone at the Division I level.

A star quarterback and point guard in Chicago, Gales didn't have many colleges paying attention to him, but Brian Eck, a coach and teacher at Gales' North Chicago High School, thought he had the potential.

So Eck reached out to his brother, Jason, who was the offensive line coach at South Dakota State after having previously been the offensive coordinator at Minnesota State-Mankato.

Brian apparently didn't know about Jason's new job yet, and thought Gales might be a good fit for the Division II Mavericks.

"We hit up (Jason) Eck, we thought he was still at Mankato," Gales laughs now. "He looked at my film and invited me on a visit. I liked it here right away and committed on the spot."

To be a walk-on, that is. The scholarship didn't come until later, after Gales proved to be the diamond-in-the-rough the Ecks suspected he might be.

Today, Gales is a three-year starter and two-time all-conference cornerback with a national championship ring, and he's on the radar of every NFL team.

It's a fairly incredible story, yet even more incredible is the fact that, for the FCS champions, it is not a remotely unique one.

Much has been made during the Jackrabbits' incredible run — they've won 26 games in a row, played in two of the last three national championship games and are a heavy favorite to repeat this season — of the decorated senior class the Jacks employ, and the bevy of talent that makes up their roster.

Of course the Jacks are dominating, the thinking goes. They're absolutely loaded with talent.

That isn't untrue, but in an age when college football recruiting is big business, with neverending analysis, hype, media coverage and social media engagement, the Jacks are playing a different game than most of their counterparts.

Virtually all of their starters and top contributors had no other Division I offers besides South Dakota State. For as much as the addition of Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium and other amenities and resources have made the Jacks a far more appealing destination for high school (and transfer) talent, SDSU is not out there consistently winning recruiting battles with the bluebloods of the FCS and Missouri Valley Football Conference, and certainly not taking talent away from the nearby power conference schools like Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa and Iowa State.

No, ask most of the Jacks best players who their offers came from and they'll either say, "I didn't have any other ones," or mention a nearby Division II school like Mankato, Augustana, Bemidji State or an academics focused Division III or Pioneer League college.

Quarterback Mark Gronowski, the two-time Valley offensive player of the year? No D1 scholarship offers besides SDSU. All-American guard Mason McCormick? Chose to walk on out of Roosevelt. NFL-bound running back Isaiah Davis? Had one other D1 offer, and it was to play linebacker at Southeast Missouri State. And it's not just the current team. Dallas Goedert, now one of the highest paid tight ends in the NFL, was a walk-on. So was Seattle Seahawks wideout Cade Johnson. Rams linebacker Christian Rozeboom accepted a partial scholarship to SDSU; his second choice was Augustana.

The list goes on and on and on.

"I think you've got to credit our coaches," said offensive tackle Garret Greenfield, who signed with SDSU soon after they made him his first Division I offer, and later shunned opportunities to visit other Valley schools. "They have a great eye for talent and a great understanding of who would fit here. I think the main thing they look for is a guy who fits the culture of what it takes to be successful here. A lot of those guys that didn't get a lot of attention coming out of high school, they show up and work their tails off. Most of our best players are our hardest workers, and there's something to be said for that."

With 12 straight playoff appearances, a national championship and more than a dozen recent NFL alumni, the Jacks have established themselves as the premier program in the state and a major destination for any recruit who isn't going to play at the power conference level. So it's not like attracting talent is difficult. But the Jacks didn't always have that cache, or the resources they do today. That forced them to dig deeper to find players that could win Division I football games. When the wins started piling up and the new facilities followed, SDSU staff found that it didn't mean they could or should change their recruiting strategies or the kind of players they pursued.

Jimmy Rogers, the Jacks' first-year coach, was one of those guys. A senior on the team that made SDSU's Division I playoff debut in 2009, Rogers was an undersized linebacker who was considering playing college baseball, until an SDSU team with no locker rooms and an aging Coughlin-Alumni Stadium recruited him.

"My highlight tape was on VHS," Rogers cracks today. "I saw Iowa State on (SDSU's) schedule, and to have a team like that believe in me meant the world to me. This was the first place where I didn't have to validate myself with my height or my 40-time. They took me off my film and getting to know me."

Fifteen years later, that's still pretty much the formula.

"We do a solid job at our camps of evaluating people for what they are," Rogers said. "Everyone else gets caught up in (what schools have offered scholarships to players). But I would say the majority of guys that come in here, now and in the past, had nothing but us. It's about them believing in themselves and believing in us. We find the right kids. Kids that committed because they want this opportunity and won't take it for granted. When you have guys like that it's easier for us as coaches because they're listening and want to do their jobs."

The camps SDSU hosts are where they do much of their evaluation. For just one example, Brookings product Gus Miller pushed around a future Big Ten defensive tackle in a drill at the Jackrabbit camp, prompting Eck to make Miller a preferred walk-on offer on the spot. He's now the Jacks' starting center and an all-conference selection.

Do the Jacks engage in recruiting wars with rival schools? Of course. They lost out on some of NDSU's top players over the years. Four-year starting quarterback Taryn Christion chose the Jacks over the Bison and to this day remains probably the best example of a high-profile recruit whom SDSU fought hard for and later watched become one of their best players. Tucker Kraft almost flipped to Wyoming at the last minute. Eddie Miller, Gus' older brother, gave USD a long look having grown up a Coyotes fan. Washington Warrior Seth Benson verbally committed to SDSU before flipping to Iowa, where he became an All-Big Ten linebacker.

But for the most part, the Jacks don't pay much attention to who else is in on the guys they want.

Evan Beerntsen, their starting right guard, chose the Jacks over Mankato and Bemidji State. Speedster Angel Johnson walked on over offers from Northern State and Dakota Wesleyan. Safety Tucker Large, who has become arguably the most exciting player on the nation's top defense, had four NSIC offers. Cornerback Steven Arrell had three NSIC offers. Defensive end Quinton Hicks says USD told him he wasn't ready for Division I, while Jadon Janke called the Coyotes out for not recruiting he or his twin brother after SDSU beat them this year.

Defensive end Cade Terveer's only offer was from the Jacks.

"You always use it as a chip on your shoulder," said Gronowski, who prepped in Illinois and dryly notes there are three Missouri Valley Football Conference schools from his home state who all decided against offering him a scholarship. "There were a bunch of schools in the Valley that didn't think I was good enough. And there's a ton of other guys, too. Our coaches invest their time in building relationships and getting high-character guys that become really disciplined players. Guys that want to learn the playbook, guys that fit into the culture and are more about team than self."

Gronowski's latter point is key. It's obvious the coaching staff, which has undergone tremendous turnover in the last decade due to promotions, is adept at finding talent. But they're also not just stealing good players out from under their opponent's noses. They're developing that talent. Teaching it, training it, conditioning it and cultivating it. That started under longtime coach John Stiegelmeier, who encouraged his coaches to trust their instincts in recruiting as well as their ability to develop the players they got.

"What we get is a raw product," Rogers says. "It's not FBS-ready. We've taken the time to develop these guys. We had to teach DyShawn how to backpedal. You know, the most basic thing for a cornerback. When Jordan Brown (a cornerback who later became an NFL draft pick) came here he was a slow wide receiver with no offers. He ran a 4.39 at his Pro Day and got drafted."

That developing comes through the weight room, of course, and players' diets have come under more scrutiny in recent years as well. Nearly 100 percent of SDSU's players stay in Brookings over the summer. Spring practices look no different than November practices. This has become a well-oiled machine. And the way the players buy into and perpetuate that M.O. also lends itself to under-recruited players turning into stars. Right now, Rogers says, some of the freshmen who have most impressed this season on scout team are the ones who were recruited with the least amount of fanfare.

"We're constantly competing with each other, and that matters," said Greenfield, the All-American left tackle. "Spring ball, fall camp — in each position room you want those young guys gunning for your spot. Everything we do — lifting, winter running — everything is a competition. That makes everyone better."

The proof, of course, is in the results. Since 2017, the year the Jacks reached their first semifinal, they've gone 74-18 with 15 playoff wins. Their methods are clearly working. That doesn't mean they won't recruit high-end players — defensive tackle Jarod DePriest, for one, had more than a dozen Division I offers, including to a few FBS programs.

But the Jacks will continue to target the Jimmy Rogers mold of football player.

"It's funny," says Hicks, a Wichita native whose brother, Marcus, recently announced he'll transfer to SDSU from Oklahoma. "When I was a freshman I thought about it a lot — I was mad that I didn't have any other offers. But now I'm glad I didn't. Coming here was the best decision I could've made. I'm happy it worked out the way it did."