Butler Beats Drake 33-21, Ends 11-Year Skid in Battle of the Bulldogs

Butler had not beaten Drake since 2015. It had not won in Des Moines since 1994. On Saturday, the Bulldogs from Indianapolis fixed both of those problems in one afternoon, and they did it by refusing to give the ball back.

Butler scored the final 16 points and shut out Drake in the second half to win the Battle of the Bulldogs 33-21 on Oct. 24. Drake led 21-17 at halftime and looked like the fresher team. Then Butler leaned on its running game, owned the clock and let the Drake offense watch from the sideline.

The win moved Butler to 6-2 overall and 3-1 in the Pioneer Football League, a week after a defensive slugfest loss to Dayton. It was only Butler's ninth win all time in the series. Drake fell to 2-6 and 2-3 in league play in its first season under head coach Matt Walker.

Drake lands the first punches

Drake came out like a team that had studied the tape. On the opening possession, Riley Warzynski hit Willis Nofsinger for 22 yards, then found Lincoln DeLaere for a 32-yard touchdown. Nine plays, 75 yards, 7-0 with 12:27 still on the first-quarter clock.

Butler answered with a 10-play drive that stalled and settled for Beck Janki's 37-yard field goal. Drake went right back down the field, another 75-yard march, and Kavaughn Clark punched in a 7-yard run for a 14-3 lead.

That could have been the start of a long day for the visitors. Instead, Gabe Passini went to work. He hit Drew Sullivan on a 44-yard strike, survived his own fumble at the Drake 6 by falling on it, and then flipped a 2-yard touchdown pass to Luke Snyder with five seconds left in the quarter. Just like that, it was 14-10.

The trick play and the response

Butler grabbed its first lead early in the second quarter with a little creativity. Michael Dellumo, who also carried 13 times on the day, pulled up and threw a 31-yard pass to Gage Goralski, Desmin Jackson ripped off a 23-yard run, and Dellumo finished the 80-yard drive himself on a 2-yard run. Butler led 17-14 with 8:14 left in the half.

The Butler defense then made the first of what would become a pattern. Drake went for it on fourth-and-1 at the Butler 27, and Dantu Gardner Jr. stuffed it. But Drake had one more push in it before the break. Warzynski led a 10-play, 66-yard two-minute drive, highlighted by a 30-yard throw to Kobe Lewis, and capped it with an 11-yard touchdown pass to Lucci Fidone with seven seconds left. Drake took a 21-17 lead into the locker room, and the home crowd had every reason to feel good.

The second half belonged to Butler

The third quarter started with a missed opportunity. Butler put together an 11-play, 69-yard drive, sparked by a 37-yard Passini run, but Nicholas Humphries picked off Passini in the end zone. Drake had dodged one.

It did not dodge the next one. On the very next Drake possession, Ashton Nawrocki got to Warzynski, knocked the ball loose, and Gardner recovered at the Drake 14. Butler could not punch it in, but Janki hit a 27-yard field goal with 3:34 left in the third, and the gap was down to 21-20.

The fourth quarter is where Drake's aggressiveness finally cost it. Facing fourth-and-1 at its own 35 midway through the period, Drake went for it again and came up short. Drake challenged the ruling, and the call stood. Butler needed three plays. Passini found Snyder for 28 yards, and Jackson scored from 2 yards out with 8:23 left. The two-point pass failed, so it was 26-21.

What came next ended the suspense. On Drake's first snap of the ensuing drive, with backup quarterback Braylon Wilson in the game, Kian Kelly intercepted a pass at the Drake 38 and returned it 36 yards to the 2. Passini ran it in on the second play of the drive. Janki's kick made it 33-21 with 7:16 to play.

Drake made one last push, driving 47 yards with help from a 23-yard Wilson completion to Nofsinger, but on fourth-and-3 at the Butler 28, Madden Beriault broke up the pass. Butler took over with 4:30 left, ran eight plays and never gave the ball back.

Passini, the backfield and a defense that closed

Passini's passing line will not jump off the page. He completed 6 of 16 for 118 yards with a touchdown and an interception. But he ran 19 times for 87 yards and a score, and his legs kept the chains moving all afternoon. Jackson led the team with 91 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries, and Dellumo added 68 yards and a score, plus that 31-yard completion. Between the three of them, Butler ran for more than 240 yards.

Defensively, Butler was the opposite of flashy until it absolutely had to be. Andrew Lieske led the team with eight tackles and Okemdi Eze had six. Luke Green had a sack and two tackles for loss, and Will Beesley, Payton Foley and Nawrocki each added a sack. Kelly's interception and Gardner's fumble recovery were the two plays that flipped the game, and both came after halftime.

For Drake, Warzynski was sharp when he had the ball, completing 21 of 27 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns. DeLaere caught four passes for 44 yards and a score, and Nofsinger had three for 51. Brody Shuss and Dax Wiskur each had eight tackles, with Shuss adding a sack, and Trenton Radloff had seven tackles and 1.5 for loss.

The numbers that tell the story

Start with the clock. Butler held the ball for 38:22. Drake had it for 21:38. That is a 17-minute gap, and in a game decided by 12 points, it is close to the whole explanation. The Drake offense that scored 21 points in the first half barely saw the field in the second.

Third down tells the same tale. Butler converted 7 of 15. Drake converted 3 of 13, which is why it kept ending up in fourth-down situations, where it went 2-for-5. Three failed fourth-down tries, two of them on fourth-and-1, handed Butler short fields and momentum. Butler, by contrast, went for it once and converted.

Drake ran for only 73 yards. When the run game cannot help on short yardage, every fourth down becomes a coin flip, and Drake lost too many of them. Butler finished with 393 total yards to Drake's 312, and Drake's three sacks of Passini were not enough to slow the run game. The full numbers are in the official box score (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Butler, this is a statement win in a rivalry that had gone sideways for a decade. At 3-1 in the Pioneer Football League, the Bulldogs are firmly in the conference race, and they bounced back from the Dayton loss without flinching. Next on the schedule was a trip to Presbyterian on Oct. 31.

For Drake, the season keeps finding new ways to sting. The Bulldogs played a strong first half and had a lead at the break, then failed to score again. In Walker's first year, the growing pains are real, and Saturday was a reminder of how thin the margins are in this league. Drake turns to Morehead State next. The home side's view is in Drake's recap (opens in a new tab), and The Butler Collegian (opens in a new tab) has more from the Butler side.

The last word

Butler did not win this game with fireworks. It won with patience. Run the ball, win the turnover battle, make the stop on fourth down and wait for the other team to blink. Drake blinked twice, and an 11-year drought in the series was over.

Sources: The Butler Collegian, ESPN box score and play-by-play, and Butler and Drake athletics game listings. More college football coverage on Undrafted.