No. 5 South Dakota State Holds Off South Dakota 31-21 After Coyotes Erase Most of a 28-0 Hole

For three quarters on Halloween in Brookings, South Dakota State played the kind of football that makes a rivalry game look like a scrimmage. Then South Dakota woke up, and the Interstate Series turned into a horror movie for the home crowd.

South Dakota State built a 28-0 lead on South Dakota at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium on Saturday, then had to survive a fourth quarter in which Austyn Modrzewski threw three touchdown passes and the Coyotes cut a four-touchdown deficit to one score. The No. 5 Jackrabbits held on to win 31-21, and the play that saved them was Josiah Johnson's 43-yard run in the final two minutes, which set up a Tristan Alvano field goal with 19 seconds left.

Three quarters of control

The Jackrabbits set the tone with the kind of drive that has defined their program for a decade. After Lofton O'Groske lost a fumble on the opening drive and Isaiah Wray recovered near midfield, the teams traded punts before the Jackrabbits went to work. Twelve plays, 87 yards, 6:28 off the clock, capped by James Basinger's 2-yard touchdown run with 58 seconds left in the first quarter.

The second quarter was more of the same. Chase Mason found Jack Smith for 35 yards to set up a 3-yard touchdown pass to Smith at the 10:07 mark, finishing an eight-play, 64-yard march. Four minutes later, Mason threw an 11-yard touchdown to Brayden Delahoyde to finish a six-play, 80-yard drive, and it was 21-0 at 5:47.

Modrzewski, the redshirt freshman who had beaten North Dakota with an overtime touchdown pass a week earlier, was sacked four times in the first half alone. Reis Kirschenman got there twice, including a strip sack in the final minute of the half that Modrzewski recovered himself. Cullen McShane and Logan Green also got home. Ford Hamilton's 58-yard field goal try on the final play of the half was no good, and the Coyotes went to the locker room with nothing.

The third quarter opened with another sack, a 12-yard loss that Blake Leiferman shared with Brody Targgart, and the Jackrabbits added to the lead late in the period. Josiah Johnson, the FCS's 10th-leading rusher coming in, punched in a 5-yard touchdown at 5:52 to finish a seven-play, 34-yard drive. It was 28-0.

The turning point: a flag on fourth down

The game changed on a single snap at the start of the fourth quarter. South Dakota faced fourth-and-4 at the SDSU 15, and Modrzewski's pass for Brayden White fell incomplete. Instead, Noah St-Juste was flagged for pass interference, and the Coyotes got a fresh set of downs at the 2.

Two plays later, Modrzewski found White for a 4-yard touchdown with 14:23 left, finishing an 11-play, 80-yard drive that ate 6:23. It was 28-7, and South Dakota finally had something to build on.

The Jackrabbits answered with a grinding drive built around Johnson, who converted a fourth-and-1 near midfield. But a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and a 7-yard sack by Crew Heier pushed SDSU back, and Alvano's 51-yard field goal attempt on fourth-and-23 was no good at 7:03.

South Dakota needed just two plays to make it hurt. Modrzewski hit Tysen Boze for 8 yards, then found Bryce Cohoon behind the defense for a 59-yard touchdown. In 33 seconds, the lead was down to 28-14.

Down to the wire

SDSU went three-and-out on its next possession, with Basinger carrying three times for 9 yards before Max Pelham punted from his own 31 on fourth-and-1 at 4:03. White returned it to the South Dakota 26, and Modrzewski went to work again.

He hit Reid Watkins for 4 yards, Jesse Miller for 10 and Watkins again for 19 to cross midfield. St-Juste broke up a deep shot for White, but a roughing-the-passer penalty on the next incompletion moved the ball to the SDSU 22. Modrzewski then found Chris Herrin for a 22-yard touchdown with 2:08 left, capping an eight-play, 71-yard drive. It was 28-21, and a game that had been over for three quarters was alive.

Johnson slams the door

South Dakota had all three of its timeouts and needed one stop. It never got it. Hamilton's kickoff went for a touchback, and Johnson took over. A 2-yard run, a 5-yard run, a 3-yard Mason keeper for a first down, and then the play of the night for the home side: Johnson burst through the middle for 43 yards to the South Dakota 22.

The Coyotes burned their timeouts as Johnson and Basinger chewed up the clock with short runs, and Basinger moved the chains one last time with a 4-yard carry to the 16. After a South Dakota State timeout with 22 seconds left, Alvano, who had missed from 51 earlier in the quarter, drilled a 34-yard field goal to make it 31-21. The Coyotes got the ball back at their own 25 with 19 seconds left, needing two scores. They tried two plays loaded with laterals, and the second ended with Sifore of South Dakota State falling on a loose ball.

The players who decided it

Johnson finished with 126 yards and a touchdown on 23 carries, and the 43-yarder was the run that ended the threat. Basinger added 84 yards and the opening touchdown on 17 carries. Mason completed 16 of 26 passes for 232 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. Jack Smith caught five passes for 84 yards and a score, and Goering added six catches for 84 yards.

For South Dakota, Modrzewski was outstanding once the protection held up, finishing 21 of 27 for 235 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, all three scores coming in the fourth quarter. He was also sacked five times, which is how a quarterback ends the day with negative rushing yards. White caught four passes for 45 yards and the first score, Herrin had three for 34 and the last one, and Cohoon's only catch went for 59 yards and a touchdown. Wray led the Coyotes with 10 tackles and recovered the only turnover of the game, and Wade Abrams added nine.

On the SDSU side, Chase Van Tol led the defense with 10 tackles. McShane had six tackles and a sack, and Kirschenman's two first-half sacks set the tone for a pass rush that lived in the South Dakota backfield for three quarters.

The stats that matter

South Dakota State outgained South Dakota 459 to 254 and won the first-down battle 26 to 13. The Jackrabbits ran for 227 yards on 49 carries, and the Coyotes managed just 19 rushing yards on 27 attempts. SDSU went 2 for 2 on fourth down and held the ball for 33:55.

And still, it came down to the final two minutes. South Dakota scored 21 points on three drives, two of them aided by SDSU penalties, a pass interference flag on fourth down and a roughing the passer call.

What it means

In the Missouri Valley Football Conference race, the Jackrabbits improved to 7-2 and 4-1, jumping past South Dakota, which fell to 7-3 and 4-2. Youngstown State, the other one-loss team entering the weekend, played North Dakota the same afternoon.

It also extends one of the more remarkable home streaks in this rivalry. Since the Division I restart in 2012, South Dakota State had won all six meetings in Brookings, and now it is seven. SDSU now leads the all-time series 59-53-7, a rivalry that dates to an 1889 tie in Sioux Falls, and the football win is worth two points in the year-long Interstate Series standings between the schools. South Dakota had won last year's meeting 24-17 in Vermillion, ending a three-game SDSU streak.

For South Dakota, a week after watching a 17-point lead nearly vanish against North Dakota, the Coyotes almost erased a 28-point hole on the road against a top-five team. That should travel.

Next up for South Dakota State is a trip to Northern Iowa on Nov. 7, followed by Southern Illinois on Nov. 14 and Indiana State at home on Nov. 21. For a full account of the Jackrabbits' last outing, see our recap of South Dakota State's Hobo Day win over Murray State, and for the Coyotes, our story on South Dakota's overtime win over North Dakota. The full numbers are in the ESPN box score (opens in a new tab).

The last word

For 45 minutes, this was the South Dakota State formula at its best: long drives and a defense that lived in the backfield. The final 15 were a reminder that South Dakota does not go away, and that the Jackrabbits have some closing to clean up before November gets serious.

But when it mattered, South Dakota State handed the ball to Josiah Johnson and let him finish it. In a rivalry this old, that is how you win on Halloween.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play (opens in a new tab), South Dakota State Athletics and South Dakota Athletics game previews, and both programs' official game-day posts. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: South Dakota State Athletics.