SIOUX FALLS — The game was no beauty pageant, but for Augustana, the sight of Vikings players gleefully zipping to the north goal post and snatching the Key to the City back from the University of Sioux Falls was a sight for Vikings’ sore eyes, and egos, nonetheless.
Despite just mustering 139 total yards, Augustana scored 17 points off three USF errors deep in Cougar territory and suffocated the Coo’s vaunted ground game to just 38 yards in a 20-13 win before 3,245 at USF’s Bob Young Field.
It was just the second Vikings win in eight games since the neighborhood rivalry between schools two blocks apart was rekindled in 2012 when USF joined the Northern Sun conference in Div. II.
The Cougars had won the previous three meetings, including a 51-13 decimation at Augustana last year, something Augie coach Jerry Olszewski admitted had stuck in his program’s craw ever since.
“The monkey is off the back,” said Olszewski after receiving joyful hugs, including a long embrace from his wife. He was 1-5 against USF coming in.
“I don’t think you can say we got out-physicalled this time.”
The Vikings held the Coo to just 38 rushing yards, or 210 below their season average coming in and 346 fewer than USF racked up at Southwest Minnesota State last week.
Augie sacked USF quarterback Caden Walters seven times and intercepted his pass to the goal line with 4:19 left in the game to secure the final score after the Cougars had spent over eight minutes driving from their own 10-yard-line, down by a touchdown.
When the Vikings weren’t harassing the Coo into miscues, USF gave Augie three early Christmas presents, fumbling inside their own 20 twice — which Augie cashed in for 10 total points — and falling on a high punt snap at the two-yard line in the fourth quarter, which the Vikings ran in for the game-winning touchdown on the next play for a 20-13 lead with 12:38 left.
“I’m so proud of how these kids gutted it out for four quarters,” Olszewski said. “From the time last week’s game was over, there was no doubt we were going to win this game.”
Augie players chased down the Key, which was resting against the north goal post, when the clock struck zero. Soon, most of the team and the Augie students who made the trek across town were in a jumping pandemoneum, which included chants of “Screw the Coo!”
It was a scene of classic college football revelry and rivalry, and it will soon disappear from Sioux Falls.
The Vikings intend to start playing Div. I football by 2021, less than a decade after the two schools started meeting each other while at the same competition level for the first time in the series.
USF spent its last decade in the NAIA dominating its conference and winning three national titles from 2006-09 before playing as a Div. II independent in ’11 and joining the NSIC in 2012, but didn’t play Augie during that time.
The perception from the USF camp was Augie fans and alumni looked down on the Cougars’ success at a lower level and were primed to initiate “Coo Falls” to D2.
Instead, USF played hammer to Augie’s nail for six of the first seven contests.
Not on Thursday, when Vikings fans also reversed their trend of sparsely attending the rivalry game at USF’s stadium.
Almost the entire visitors section was full and loud for three hours on a crisp autumn evening, and the bellows were palpable after Augie denied USF on fourth down with about 30 seconds left to seal the win.
“They were great,” Olszewski said of the Augie fans. “And I’m tired of hearing about it.”
Whether he meant USF’s dominance in the series or the Vikings’ traveling crowd — probably both — Olszewski won’t have to any longer. At least for a year.
