South Dakota State football hits it out of the park in 70-7 win over Drake at Target Field
It was only fitting that after his first career reception and TD reception – both happened on the same play – tight end Kevin Brenner looked to the Target Field crowd and swung for the fences in celebration.
"That was just an awesome moment, I was not expecting to score a touchdown today, not going to lie to any of you," Brenner said after the game. "I think getting the homerun celebration was obvious. I thought I'd did hit it out of Wrigley before here, but I had to hit here."
The matchup between South Dakota State and Drake was only the third college football game to take place within Target Field’s walls after all, and the Jackrabbits enjoyed the stage on their way to a huge 70-7 win.
Before the game even started the whole Jackrabbits team emerged from the home dugout, many with phones in hand to record their first look at the at Target Field on a SDSU football game day. The yard line numbers were smaller than normal, not as white, and where the pitching mound normally is, was a flat patch of grass, lighter than the rest of the field.
After getting their videos and taking team photos, players lined up at home plate to take shadow swings. Some even pretended to pitch, field groundouts and throw out the "batters."
"It was an awesome experience," Jackrabbits quarterback Mark Gronowski said of what it was like playing in Target Field. "It was kind of surreal to be playing on a baseball field and how it looked. It's been one of my dreams as a kid ever since watching Northwestern play at Wrigley Field and getting this opportunity, I mean, it's once in a lifetime kind of thing."
Once the game started it felt like the game was set on a tee for the Jackrabbits, and they knocked it out of the park.
The Bulldogs opened the scoring with two big passes from quarterback Luke Bailey and Colin Howard. The first a 53-yard bomb that Howard nearly took all the way. Bailey closed out the drive with a 35-yard touchdown pass to Howard to give the Bulldogs the early 7-0 lead.
After that touchdown, it was all SDSU. The Jackrabbits responded with 70 unanswered points and multiple offensive records broken.
Drake football head coach Todd Stepsis said although the team was able to out-pass SDSU in the first quarter, their lack of success with the run ended up hurting their passing game.
"Defending the run like SDSU does you need to commit a lot of guys to it," Stepsis explained. "We thought if we get a little heavy here and hit some play action, we might be able to use (Howard) to take the top off and so we're able to hit a couple of those big throws, but when you don't have the threat to run because they were really stuffing us, it's just hard for the play action to be as good and so the coverage softened up. It was a little more umbrella than it was at the beginning where there was a lot of tight man-to-man and safeties in the box."
The Jackrabbits scored the most points in a single game since a 90-6 victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff in September of 2018. Their 618 yards amassed was also the most since they posted 656 against Southern Illinois on Nov. 10, 2018.
SDSU quarterback Mark Gronowski was masterful. He set a pair of career-highs in total touchdowns and completed 18 of his 25 pass attempts for 226 passing yards.
Jackrabbits head coach Jimmy Rogers fought back tears when speaking about how far the SDSU football program has come.
"I'm blessed to coach this football team because of who's on this team," Rogers said in his postgame press conference before becoming emotional. "This place has grown so much, you know. So, I'm blessed."
Here are three takeaways from SDSU's win over Drake.
Gronowski delivers once in a lifetime type performance
Gronowski was firing on all cylinders in this one and set some career-best marks. He finished with six touchdowns -- five passing and one on the ground -- a new personal best. His five passing touchdowns were also a new personal high.
After the game, Gronowski credited his teammates for his career performance.
"Individual accolades are great and all but I mean, it's all kudos to the entire team just for giving me the opportunities," Gronowski said. "I can't score without the wide receivers making plays, running good routes and the offensive line not blocking for me."
The special team's unit bounced back from a rough showing against Montana State
After missing a field, having a punt blocked and a few other blunders against Montana State last week, Rogers vowed that the special team's unit would clean things up, and that’s exactly what they did against Drake.
"Guys take pride in being on those units," Rogers said of the special team's performance. "They're not always starters in every single position, but they're starters on special teams and they need to know that their role matters."
They didn’t miss a single field goal and Tucker Large was in rare form. In four punt returns, Large averaged 24 yards per punt return but his best run of the game was for 61 yards, and on each run from Large the crowd at Target Field crescendoed to a peak.
"Statistically you'll probably see in the punt return average what Tucker Large is capable of and the prime width those guys had blocking for him," Rogers said of Large's performance.
The Jackrabbits defense against the run was dominant
Another area Rogers wanted SDSU to improve in after last week's performance against Montana State was their defense against the run, and with their performance against Drake, you could tell that was an emphasis this week.
The SDSU defense allowed only 10 rushing yards in the first half and only 47 yards in the whole game, and Rogers was pleased with his team's effort.
"47 yards rushing on 27 attempts is much better," Rogers said. "I think a lot of that came down to some tackles for loss and attacking them."
SDSU will take on North Dakota on Saturday, Sep. 30.
Jonathan Fernandez covers high school and college sports for the Argus Leader. Contact him at jfernandez@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JFERN31
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: South Dakota State football cruises to big 70-7 win over Drake
