Unusual title game: South Dakota St vs Sam Houston
There are more twists to this FCS championship game than just being played in mid-May to wrap up a unique spring season.
Top-seeded South Dakota State takes on No. 2 seed Sam Houston on Sunday, guaranteeing that one of the Football Championship Subdivision playoff regulars will become a first-time champion. This is the 43rd title game in the division formerly known as I-AA.
A different Dakota is in Frisco with eight-time champion North Dakota State not there from Fargo for only the second time in 10 seasons. Sam Houston (9-0) has a shot at a perfect season while K.C. Keeler can become the winningest coach in FCS playoff history and the first to win titles at multiple schools.
Delaware grad Keeler won a championship in 2003 at his alma mater, which is what South Dakota State alumnus John Stiegel
meier is now attempting in his 24th season coaching the Jackrabbits (8-1).
For anyone who thinks an asterisk should be attached to the champion of this shortened and most unusual season for FCS, consider all it took to get to this point since the last title game in January 2020. There were constant COVID-19 tests, the uncertainty if they would play at all and now a finale only 3 ½ months before kicking off another season.
“This season’s been more draining mentally and physically than any other season in the past,” South Dakota State linebacker Logan Backhaus said.
Fellow senior linebacker Preston Tetzlaff said anyone questioning the legitimacy of this season “probably aren’t the ones playing this weekend. If they’re playing this week, they wouldn’t be saying that.”
The Jackrabbits, in their ninth consecutive playoffs, are in their first championship game. Sam Houston is in its 12th FCS playoff, and twice lost in the title game played about 200 miles from its campus in Huntsville, Texas.
Sam Houston beat North Dakota State in the quarterfinals, then the Bearkats overcame a 21-point halftime deficit in their 38-35 semifinal win over No. 3 seed James Madison, the only team other than the Bison to win an FCS title since 2011. Sam Schmid had a 69-yard TD pass and two scoring runs as they scored 28 points in a 5 ½-minute span.
“I don’t think putting North Dakota State and James Madison in the same bracket as us is an asterisk at all,” defensive lineman Jahari Key said. “So putting an asterisk by this championship is hilarious, and also ridiculous to even say such a thing.”