Jacks clinch MVFC title, automatic bid

Saturday, November 19

Cedar Falls, Iowa

4 p.m.

South Dakota State University

8-3 , 7-1

Northern Iowa

5-6 , 4-4

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

South Dakota State

UNI

Photo by: Inertia Sports Media/Dave Eggen

11/19/2016 7:59:00 PM | Football

Box Score

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — South Dakota State forced four turnovers, Taryn Christion accounted for four touchdown and the Jackrabbits claimed their first Missouri Valley Football Conference title in program history with a 45-24 victory over Northern Iowa Saturday at the UNI-Dome.

The Jackrabbits improved to 8-3 overall and 7-1 in league play to tie with North Dakota State atop the league standings. By virtue of its win over NDSU earlier this season, SDSU earns the MVFC's automatic bid to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. Pairings for the 24-team tournament will be announced at 10 a.m. Central Time on ESPNU and the Watch ESPN app.

UNI ended its season with a 5-6 overall record, 4-4 in league play.

The Jackrabbits wasted little time in cracking the scoring column. Two Brady Mengarelli runs for a total of 23 yards, plus a fortuitous bounce on a fumble that was recovered by Jake Wieneke, put the ball at the UNI 30 before Wieneke was on the receiving end of a 30-yard touchdown pass from Taryn Christion only 71 seconds into the game.

UNI answered on its opening drive with a 36-yard touchdown pass from Eli Dunne to Jalen Rima. The Panther drive covered 66 yards on seven plays, during which UNI converted twice on third and long.

SDSU went deep into its playbook for its next scoring play as Wieneke took a backward pass from Christion and lofted a throw back to the right to Christion, who weaved his way through the UNI defense for a 16-yard score.

The visitors' lead lasted all of 13 seconds as Rima returned the ensuing kickoff 99 yards down the left sideline for a touchdown to knot the game at 14-all.

After Chris Balster picked off an ill-advised pass from Dunne in the end zone, the Jackrabbits regained the lead early in the second quarter with an 11-play, 80-yard drive that ended on a 5-yard touchdown pass from Christion to Wieneke. It marked Wieneke's 13th multi-touchdown game of his career as he passed former UNI standout Dedric Ward (41 receiving touchdowns from 1993-96) with his 42nd and 43rd career touchdown catches for the all-time Missouri Valley Football Conference lead. Christion twice hooked up with Dallas Goedert on third-down pass plays to extend the drive.

The Panthers pulled to within 21-17 on a 20-yard field goal by Sam Drysdale with under two minutes to play in the half and regained possession at the Jackrabbit 22 moments later when Christion was stripped of the football. UNI drove as far as the Jackrabbit 2, but Dallas Brown came up with the second red-zone interception of the day for the Jackrabbits in the closing seconds to keep SDSU in the lead by four at halftime.

SDSU went up two scores for the first time in the game on its opening drive of the second half. Christion completed a 15-yard pass to Dallas Goedert on third-and-8 for a first down and finished off the nine-play, 78-yard drive with an 11-yard touchdown run up the middle.

Once again UNI stayed within striking distance, putting together a 10-play, 63-yard drive capped by a 1-yard run by J'Veyon Browning with 4 minutes, 22 seconds to play in the third quarter.

The fourth quarter belonged to the Jackrabbits, who built the lead back to 11 points at 34-24 after a pair of costly UNI miscues. Makiah Slade recovered a muffed punt at midfield and a 15-yard facemask penalty on a third-down play gave SDSU a fresh set of downs. SDSU cashed in as Kyle Paris bulled his way in from 3 yards out.

SDSU put together a time-consuming 12-play, 74-drive before pushing the margin to 38-24 on a 32-yard field goal by Chase Vinatieri with 5:27 to play.

The Jackrabbit defense came up with another takeaway in the waning moments as Brown hit Dunne as he was about to throw, jarring the ball loose and into the waiting arms of Kellen Soulek, who rambled 65 yards down the left sideline for the final score of the game.

SDSU finished with 422-351 advantage in total offense, including a 134-56 edge in rushing. Christion completed 21-of-27 passes for 272 yards in setting a new Jackrabbit single-season record for passing yards with 3,369. Wieneke ended the day with seven catches for 134 yards, with Goedert adding seven receptions for 74 yards. Brady Mengarelli carried 14 times for 60 yards.

For UNI, Dunne completed 28-of-44 attempts for 295 yards. Rima caught six passes for 66 yards, while Michael Malloy added six catches for 54 yards. Marcus Weymiller was the leading ground gainer with 39 yards on seven carries for the Panthers.

Nick Mears led the Jackrabbit defense with 10 tackles, followed by nine from Christian Rozeboom.

NOTES
• SDSU's last conference football title came in 2007, when the Jackrabbits won the Great West Football Conference
• The Jackrabbits matched their best record in MVFC play with a 7-1 record, was first set in 2009
• Wieneke posted the 23rd 100-yard game of his career and became the 14th player in FCS history to post 4,000 receiving yards in a career
• Wieneke tied his own MVFC and SDSU single-season records with 16 touchdown receptions
• Goedert ended the day tied with Jason Schneider (2013) for the SDSU single-season receptions record with 78
• Soulek's touchdown was the fourth defensive touchdown of the season by the Jackrabbits
• Christion surpassed Brad Nelson's total of 3,141 yards in 2003 for the SDSU single-season passing record
• Northern Iowa leads the all-time series, 29-20-2, but the Jackrabbits have won three of the last four meetings