Technically “conference season” started last weekend with the Battle of the ISUs, but this weekend is when the conference season kicks into high gear with all 10 teams facing each other. 10 teams, 5 games, 1 day of glorious Missouri Valley Football. Western is heading up to Brookings, SD to take on the South Dakota State Jackrabbits in the “late game” for the day (all other MVFC games start earlier, all starts spaced about an hour apart).
Date/Time: Saturday, October 1 at 6:00 PM
Location: SDSU’s beautiful new Dana J. Dykehouse Stadium
Weather Forecast (as of 9/29): 64 degrees at kickoff, 69% humidity, mostly/partly cloudy with minimal wind
TV: Like all MVFC matchups this season, available on ESPN3/WatchESPN.com
Links:
- My take on the entire MVFC slate this weekend: http://thefcswedge.com/mvfc/mvfc-week-5-preview/
- Stat Tracking for the game: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=136343
- SDSU’s Message Board (remember, don’t be a troll): http://sdsufans.com/board/forumdisplay. ... t-Football
- SDSU’s Football Website: http://www.gojacks.com/index.aspx?path=football
- SDSU’s Athletics Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoJacksSDSU
- SDSU’s Athletics Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoJacksSDSU
SDSU comes into this game at 1-2. They started the season by putting a bit of a scare into then FBS #13 TCU, being only 4 points down until nearly halfway through the 4th quarter. They then headed home to open their new stadium with a 56-28 win over a bad Drake team (honestly, a closer score than I was expecting), and then a home loss against Cal Poly, 38-31. The loss to Cal Poly was, at the time, somewhat surprising, although Cal Poly has since demonstrated that they are much better than initially thought with a win over Montana, so that loss hurts the Jackrabbits a bit less than it might have at first. SDSU had a bye last weekend to sit at home and watch the Leathernecks play NIU to see what they’d need to get ready for.
The History
Western has matched up with SDSU a total of 13 times and is 5-8 overall against them. The first four games were between 1976 and 1981; a span where Western went 3-1 against the Jackrabbits. We started back up again with them in 2007, shortly after they’d moved up to DI, but while they were still in the Great West Conference (although it was known at the time that they’d be joining us in the MVFC the next year). That first game was an exciting, 4-OT win at Hanson Field. Since then though, Western went through 7 straight losses to SDSU, before finally beating them again, this time in 2 OT (noticing a pattern)...on a cold snowy day in late November last season.
Team Stat Analysis
Here’s the full stat ranking list from the NCAA: http://on.ncaa.com/2cEdZWE
SDSU is very strong on the offensive front...with heavy emphasis on the passing game. They have the FCS’s 16th best passing offense so far, putting up an average of 290.3 yards per game. Their red zone offense is very good, being tied with 19 other FCS teams currently at #1 with a perfect record of 13/13 for scoring on trips to the red zone (1 rushing TD, 9 passing TDs, and 3 FGs made). The team’s passing efficiency is listed at 181.39, good for 5th in the FCS.
SDSU is in the FCS top ten for fewest penalties per game with 4.33, so we probably can’t count on them beating themselves with penalties too much, and they don’t turn the ball over often (only lost 2 so far this season), 5th in the FCS. Rushing the ball, they only put up 128.7 yards per game, 83rd in the FCS, so they will likely try to beat us with the pass...specifically some strategic long pass plays.
On the defensive side, SDSU has had some problems. Their defense gives up 524.3 yards per game (274.7 through the air, 249.7 on the ground), 41.7 points per game, and 24.5 yards per punt return. All of these stats are ranked 111th or worse in the FCS (out of 122 teams). Now, part of that could be because they’ve played a pretty tough schedule in their losses at TCU and against Cal Poly...both teams with pretty high-powered offenses. But they also gave up 28 points to Drake (who, just the next week, put up 28 against DII McKendree), whereas, according to most predictors, Drake would get to double-digits against Western.
In general, it seems like SDSU’s gameplan this season is something like “first team to 60 points wins”.
Key Opposition Players
The preseason All-MVFC WR Jake Wieneke is currently averaging 109.7 yards per game and has caught an FCS-high 8 TDs, which brings him to 35 career TD receptions and holds the SDSU record for that (and he’s only 3 games into his Junior year). Overall, he’s probably the 2nd best WR in all of FCS football behind EWU’s Cooper Kupp.
In addition, they have an extremely talented TE who was also a preseason all-conference selection, in Dallas Goedert, who currently has 83 yards per game and 3 receiving TDs.
The QB making those throws is primarily Taryn Christion, a sophomore who’s putting up 269.7 yards per game through the air and has thrown for 10 TDs and rushed for 2 more. Christion is currently 3rd in the FCS in points responsible for per game (that’s TDs he’s throwing + TDs he’s running for).
On the defensive side of the ball, SDSU has 3 players with 20 or more tackles: LB Jesse Bobbit with 29 and 1 interception, LB Cristian Rozenboom with 24 and ½ sack, and DB Nick Farina with 20.
The Game
Stellar offense….horrible defense...but then again, it’s still early in the season, so it may be a little hard to tell exactly how things will play out. I’m sure that Coach Fisher and his staff have really looked at how the teams SDSU has played have put up such big numbers, and will be ready with his take on a gameplan that will work. Overall, they have a better offense than we do, but not by a huge margin (their passing is better than ours, our rushing is better than theirs, they put up more points, but we put up more yards, etc.), but defensively, we have a much better defense than they do...not necessarily for yardage given up, but for scoring defense, we’re quite a bit better.
I wanted to point out a couple of interesting stats from the Western side of things that I noticed as well. Western is currently #1 in the country in red zone defense, with less than half of the trips to the red zone resulting in a score for the opponent (that stat was boosted quite a bit by NIU being forced to go for it on 4th down and being turned away twice last weekend...in a “regular” situation, they probably would have hit 4th down and just kicked a FG). This points to the strength of our front-line defense...the D-Linemen and LBs. Our DBs aren’t “bad”...but they are still young and can get burned on long passes. When you’ve only got like 20 yards to work with though, you can’t really throw a 50 yard TD pass. With the limited amount of space, passes have to be shorter and “tighter” and a team will rely on the run game more usually. This makes it easier for the LBs to cover a higher percentage of the space between the line of scrimmage and the end zone, as well as making it more likely that the D-linemen can get in there and make a stop against the run.
Every game predictor that I’ve seen (Massey, National Sports Rankings, Compughterratings.com) all point to a 2 point SDSU victory, which is essentially saying that we’d be right about even with them (or slightly better) on a neutral field. Like the NIU game, I originally had this penciled in as a loss for the Leathernecks (citing home field advantage and “revenge factor” for beating them at the end of the regular season last year to knock them out of a playoff seed), and like the NIU game, most predictors were listing them at roughly a FG advantage over us. So, like the NIU game, I’m going to go with my gut and say that the margin is right (3 points), but the direction is wrong. Western wins a high scoring game by a FG. I also think McShane, with SDSU’s REALLY BAD run defense, will have a big day. Not going to predict yardage, but I think he’ll break at least a couple of pretty big runs (30+ yards).
Miscellaneousness
By the looks of the voting, this game will probably be the AGS “Game of the Week” for this week, ahead of the “Battle for Piney Woods” rivalry game between Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston State: http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthr ... OTW-Week-5
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
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