Two days after a down-to-the-wire 23-16 loss to rival and FCS Football’s 800-pound gorilla North Dakota State in another epic Dakota Marker Game in Brookings, South Dakota State head coach John Stiegelmeier was asked by KWSN about the difference between these two juggernauts.
The Jackrabbits, who fell two spots to No. 5 in the latest national poll and are inarguably a Top 5 FCS program for four consecutive years, dominate most of their opponents and were the last team to beat the top-ranked Bison, two years and 29 games ago.
But NDSU has won three consecutive games in the series, and 7 of the last 8 national championship trophies reside in Fargo while the Jackrabbits have yet to play in the title game. NDSU rolled SDSU by three touchdowns in the FCS playoff games twice in the last three seasons (2016 quarterfinals, 2018 semifinals).
A win Saturday would have been a major step to pinning down the gorilla — yes, even more than holding captive 2,000,000 eyeballs nationally for three hours on the famed “College Gameday” show. A win would have given SDSU an inside track to hosting the Bison — or avoiding them altogether — in this year’s playoffs before title championship in Frisco, Texas.
So what continues to keep NDSU on top of the sport, if only a slight notch above the Jacks, according Stiegelmeier, who at age 62 last season signed a five-year extension, partly because he wanted to be the coach who led the Jacks to their first national championship?
“Number One, one million dollars in the budget is one of the differences,” Stiegelmeier said. “That’s pretty objective, and that allows you to fly your recruits and fly to recruiting, feed your players when you need to and all those things. I think that’s part of it.”
To be clear, Stiegelmeier did not sight money as the only reason. He went on…
“I think that’s part of it, I think part of it is expectation. Once you’ve won, and you walk onto the field, everybody knows you’re going to win.
“What they’ve done is remarkable at any level of sport. We need to take that step. I tell our coaches all the time: We can talk all we want about budget or facilities or whatever. We got to beat them on the field, and that’s what we need to do — beat them on the field.”
But an extra million dollars would go a long way to doing that, Stiegelmeier said.
In the most recent numbers released to the public released by South Dakota’s Board of Regents, SDSU had a $3,845,582 budget for football expenses in 2018. NDSU’s football budget that year was $4,816,727.
How does this make a difference in recruiting? Kurtiss Riggs is the director of the Riggs Football Academy and tutoring some of the Sioux Falls area’s top high school football players. He has deep football connections with coaches on the staffs at SDSU and NDSU.
Riggs said the two schools recruit a lot of the same players, and a lot of them from the Twin Cities in Minnesota. For their gameday recruiting visits, NDSU flies some of those players directly into Fargo from Minneapolis, while those same prospects have to drive or find a ride to Brookings.
“There’s a perception there,” Riggs said. “If you’re flying in a recruit, you’re feeling that value and a sense of, you know, this is the top of (the FCS).
Does Stiegelmeier continue to ramp up his concerns to SDSU powers-that-be so the program can keep up with NDSU’s budget?
“Without a doubt,” Stiegelmeier said. “We get it done with what we have. But I question what I would do with a million more dollars. I sure would like to have a choice on making some decisions in terms of budget where you don’t have a choice.”
“But that doesn’t win you football games. You’ve got to be a great football program. You’ve got to have great coaches and great student-athletes. It’s not like they’re failing in any areas (at NDSU), and neither are we. We’re just not beating them on the field recently.”
