Coyotes gear up for 100th Dakota Days game
For the third time this season, the University of South Dakota football team needs a win to get back to .500, and the pressure is heightened with the annual Dakota Days game Saturday in the DakotaDome.
The Coyotes continued their road struggles this past weekend, losing to Southern Illinois 41-10. The second half wasn’t pretty, as the Coyotes were outscored 31-0 in the final 25 minutes.
“For whatever reason, (Southern Illinois) has been a great second-half team,” Glenn said.
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“I take my hat off to them. They came out in the second half and established momentum. We couldn’t get anything going.”
Glenn said the concerning part was that his team lost some confidence. Fortunately, the Coyotes have two things on their side this weekend to get that confidence back. They’ll be playing in front of their biggest home crowd all season, and, most importantly, the team’s starting quarterback Kevin Earl will be back under center.
“He’s back to full strength and we’re very excited to be getting him back,” Glenn said.
Earl has sat out since he fractured the thumb on his throwing hand during the season-opener at Oregon Aug. 30. The original timetable for the injury was five to seven weeks. This Saturday will mark six weeks since the injury occurred.
Glenn said the team sent a picture of his thumb to his doctor in Chicago, and it was deemed ready to go. There isn’t believed to be any risk of any kind of setback.
Earl said he feels good and shouldn’t be limited at all on Saturday.
“It feels great to get back on the field. That was the longest I’ve gone without football in my career, but I’ve taken a lot of positives out of it,” Earl said. “But I feel great now. I can throw the ball as hard as I ever could and my thumb isn’t something I have to worry about anymore.”
Offensive coordinator Wesley Beschorner said the presence of Earl makes his job easier, not only because of his experience, but because having Earl allows him to open up the playbook.
“The playbook will open up more because Kevin has simply played more games and has run more plays,” Beschorner said. “The playbook is always going to be shrunk down for younger, inexperienced guys.”
At the same time, Beschorner said backup quarterback Ryan Saeger did as good of a job as he could have in relief of Earl.
“We went 2-2 with Ryan as a starter,” Beschorner said. “I think he did an admirable job.”
Earl has been seen throwing the football for the last couple of weeks in practice. But since he hadn’t touched the field in over a month, there is always the risk of knocking off some of that rust, Beschorner said.
“There’s always things that have to be shaken off when you miss that much time,” Beschorner said. “No matter what level you’re at — high school, college or the NFL — it takes time to knock the rust off. But (Earl) knows, and I know that it really doesn’t matter. He has to perform regardless.”
South Dakota will now have to forget about their rough loss from last week and turn their attention to Northern Iowa.
The Panthers come into Saturday’s matchup with a record of 2-3, but their record can be deceiving. Their three losses have been by a combined 12 points, while coming at the hands of FBS schools Iowa and Hawaii and top FCS school Indiana St., who is 4-1.
Their record may not look as good as it has in the past, but Glenn said the team still knows they are going up against a solid football team.
“We played against this football team last year, and we know how hard we had to fight to beat them,” Glenn said. “Our players know what a good football team they have and what a good tradition they have.”
The Coyotes and Panthers went to the wire last year with the Coyotes pulling out a dramatic 38-31 win in double overtime. Earl threw for a career-high 370 yards in the victory.
“I’m just hoping for the same result, and it doesn’t matter how it comes,” Earl said.
(Photo: Junior quarterback Kevin Earl sets the University of South Dakota offense into motion against the Yougstown State defense Nov. 2 2013 in the DakotaDome. File photo / The Volante)
