Coyotes claim win against William Penn
The University of South Dakota Coyotes claimed their first victory of the season after their efforts against William Penn Saturday in the DakotaDome.
After a rough start to the season last week, the Coyotes prevailed during their first home game against William Penn State, 41-16.
It was a different script for the Coyotes this week, hosting an NAIA school compared to traveling to Eugene, Ore. and facing the No. 3 ranked team in the nation. No matter the competition, head coach Joe Glenn said a win always feels good, especially when it’s the first one of the year.
“A rose is a rose, baby,” Glenn said. “It feels great to win and that’s the bottom line. I’m just tickled to death that we won a game, and I’m happy for our kids, coaches and fans.”
The storyline heading into the game was the question mark for quarterback for the Coyotes, as sophomore quarterback Ryan Saeger was making his first career start, replacing injured Kevin Earl.
Saeger finished 8-13 passing for 111 yards and one interception. He also contributed to the Coyotes successful ground game, racking up 79 yards and two touchdowns.
“It was a lot of fun,” Saeger said. “I was a little nervous coming into (the game), but I thought we did a good job all-around.”
Glenn said he was pleased with his quarterback’s performance in the victory.
“I give him an ‘A.’ I thought the guy did a great job. He showed he can run and I think he won the hearts of the Coyote fans over when he did the pinwheel and bounced right back up and got in the huddle,” said Glenn, referring to Seager’s run outside when he got flipped over — much to the delight of fans in red.
South Dakota ran for 357 yards and four touchdowns, picking up 6.6 yards per carry. Sophomore Trevor Bouma and senior Jasper Sanders each had over 100 yards, plus one touchdown apiece.
“We’ve run the ball well in our last two games now,” Glenn said. “All of our backs did a good job and what that really tells you is our offensive line is getting the job done.”
The most impressive start to the game was Statemen’s zero passing yards.
The Statesmen run an old-school type triple-option, relying on patience and fake handoffs. As a team, they finished 0-8 passing with two interceptions but ran the ball 64 times for 365 yards.
Junior linebacker Keyen Lage said that style of offense puts pressure on each defender to do their job. Lage said if just one defender doesn’t fill their lane, a big play is bound to happen.
“We game-planned for it all week and basically you just can’t fall asleep,” Lage said. “But they were able to run the ball well, so we have some stuff we’ll have to shore up.”
Glenn said the team just couldn’t crack the code of the triple-option and said that was one of the few things he was disappointed about.
“We didn’t understand leverage and angling tackling from the secondary. I didn’t think we did a good job with that,” he said. “The defense that was on the field was coached to stop that and we didn’t get them stopped, really.”
The Coyotes employed a bend but don’t break style of defense all afternoon, letting William Penn drive down the field in nearly all of their possessions before putting the clamps on once the Statesmen got closer to the Coyote end zone. USD forced three turnover on downs on the USD side of the field.
The Coyotes now have a more difficult task next week, taking on the University of Montana.
Montana went 8-2 last year and beat the Coyotes 31-27 after they returned a 98 yard kickoff return for touchdown with 1:36 remaining. Montana will host the matchup and kickoff is set for 8 p.m.
(Sophomore quarterback Ryan Saeger scrambles for a gain of yardage in Saturday’s home opener versus William Penn. Rebecca Kroeger | The Volante)
