ISU vs. SDSU

By Ariy-El Boynton
Sports Editor
The SDSU football team intended to travel to a Big 12-school in order to "measure" themselves in their opening game of the Jacks’ first year of play in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. What Jackrabbits head coach John Stiegelmeier and company learned that additional measures are needed.
Iowa State scored off their first possession and led wire-to-wire and beat the Jackrabbits 44-17 in front of 46,617 fans at newly upgraded Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, Iowa on August 28.
Physically, the Jackrabbits defense played strong, allowing the game to be a contest until the end of the third quarter while the Jackrabbits’ offense struggled.
The game film of the offense will show some bright spots, which can be taken away from the nationally broadcasted contest. The offensive line allowed senior quarterback Ryan Berry plenty of time in the pocket, allowing only one sack and made way for running back Kyle Minnett's 111 yards a rushing touchdown. In addition, sophomore Peter Reifenrath's made a 35-yard field goal while the SDSU punt team forced a fumble in the first quarter.
But the mistakes out weighed the let downs, big time.
"We came down here to measure ourselves," Stiegelmeier said, " I think we're tremendously disappointed in two ways. Number 1 the loss and it's hard to measure yourself when you play so poorly at times."
In his first career start, ISU’s sophomore quarterback Austen Arnaud threw for a touchdown pass and had a 1 yard sneak on the Cyclones’ first offensive drive. Fellow sophomore quarterback Phillip Bates had a touchdown pass of his own. Freshmen wide outs Sedrick Johnson and Darius Darks each caught touchdown passes for Iowa State with each touchdown being highly contested by an SDSU defender.
The Cyclone offense was blessed by good fortune as 20 points came off of SDSU turnovers with the Jacks committing six turnovers in all. Not taking care of the ball is no way for a Football Championship Subdivision team to hope to pull off an upset against a BCS school, and thus the Jacks were treated to a long ride home and 0-1 on the season.
The longest ride back to Brookings for anybody on the team may be the Jackrabbits signal caller, Berry whose day got worse as the night went on, he ended with a school-record five interceptions. To put that in perspective Berry only threw nine interceptions in the whole season, last year.
"It was just one of those games," Berry said. "We just kept turning it over, and that's not how to win these games."
Cyclones’ defensive linemen, Kurtis Taylor and Austin Alburtis who weigh 530 pounds together both caught a Berry pass along with a “pick-six” from cornerback Derec Schmidgall whose 37-yard return put the game way out of the reach for the Jacks at 34-3 with less than 3 minutes in the third quarter. Berry ended up with 170 yards along with a extra point completion at the end of the game.
Stiegelmeier observed that the ISU players were faster than SDSU was used to playing. He was also quick to give the credit to the home team for their performance.
In a game, which showcased unique plays, including five turnovers in the first quarter got a little stranger in the fourth quarter. With more than six minutes left to go in the game, Minett took one of his game high-22 carries up the middle and fumbled the ball. Jacks wide-out JaRon Harris who was at the right place, at the right time scooped up the ball and got to showcase his “wheels,” to give at least one SDSU receiver a touchdown on the young season.
“Expect the unexpected in college football,” said ISU’s lineman Taylor who ended up with four tackles in the game.
Next up for the Jackrabbits are the Penguins of Youngstown State at Coughlin-Alumni Stadium at 6 p.m. on Sept. 6 The Jacks will look to avenge a 23-17 Penguin victory which took place last year in the second week of the season.