Bison Turn the Ball Over Five times in Loss

NDSU hosts South Dakota next Saturday at the FargoDome.

BROOKINGS, S.D. — The Dakota Marker is staying in Brookings, South Dakota. The 8th-ranked Jackrabbits handed the 2nd-ranked Bison their first loss of the season, which means South Dakota state gets to hang on to the hardware for another year. NDSU says it wasn’t energy or effort that was the issue in this game, rather it came down to all the little things like time of possession, turnovers, and execution.

“They played better than we did. That’s the bottom line,” Quarterback Easton Stick said. “They had a good plan and that’s a good football team. They executed better than us and you can’t come on the road against a good team and turn the football over. It’s not a good recipe.”

NDSU head coach Chris Klieman was not thrilled about the team’s five turnover day.

“We didn’t play very well today. I give South Dakota State credit,” Klieman said. “I told the guys, I don’t question our effort. Our efforts as good as there is in college football. We didn’t execute today. We had some opportunities where we couldn’t get off the field on defense and had some opportunities where obviously, when you have the turn over bug and you turn it over  in this special and short fields with that good of an offense, bad things are going to happen.”

On the other side, SDSU head coach John Stiegelmeier is happy to have the Dakota Marker for another year.

“I thought they went to their quarterback a little bit more in the second half and we had talked about that, so we keyed that up a little bit,” Stiegelmeier said. “Then we you get a point differential, North Dakota State’s got to throw the ball more. I thought we defended their two tight end, two back offense really well. Credit to our guys. I really think a couple coverages confused Easton a little bit, but he’s a great quarterback and we’re just lucky to get our hands on a couple of his balls.”