Oct. 14—BROOKINGS — For the second consecutive game, South Dakota State is facing a team that got knocked out of the FCS top five by Northern Iowa.
The Jacks went to Illinois State and routed the Redbirds 31-14 following their loss to the Panthers, now top-ranked SDSU will travel to Grand Forks to take on a North Dakota team that was ranked fourth until last week's 24-17 loss to UNI.
It was the latest game in what's been an eventful stretch for the Fighting Hawks. UND (5-2, 2-1) began the season with three non-conference wins over opponents they were fully expected to beat.
Then came a 34-7 loss to Nebraska that wasn't exactly surprising, but perhaps not as competitive as the Hawks had hoped.
Then it got weird.
UND opened Valley play on the road against Indiana State, led 28-21 after three quarters, and after scoring twice in the fourth to seemingly put the game away at 42-21, had to hang on for a 42-35 win as the Sycamores got within a score late.
Perhaps that carried over into the next week, as the Hawks found themselves trailing Murray State 21-0 at home early in the second quarter. While that potential upset didn't come close to materializing, as UND responded with 55 straight points on their way to a 55-28 win over the Racers, their start to the game was somewhat alarming, and sure enough they came out flat again the next week, and a litany of early mistakes allowed UNI to take a 24-7 less than two minutes into the second quarter. UND significantly outplayed the Panthers at the line of scrimmage, but turnovers and special teams gaffes allowed UNI to escape with a 24-17 win.
"We gave up 144 yards of offense and 27 points," lamented UND coach Eric Schmidt. "That's hard to do. It means you're putting the ball on the ground and giving up explosive plays on special teams."
And now the Hawks welcome the No. 1 team in the country to the Alerus Center. And while SDSU is expecting to have starting quarterback Chase Mason back behind center for this one, Hawks QB1 Jerry Kaminski is questionable after suffering an injury last week against UNI. If Kaminski, a senior who threw 26 touchdown passes and rushed for 607 yards last year and already had 19 TD passes this year can't go, the starting nod will go to another senior, 6-foot-4, 215-pound San Diego State transfer Javance Tupou'ata-Johnson.
Certainly not having Kaminski would be a blow to UND's chances, but after the slow starts and mistakes of the last few weeks, playing a cleaner game in all three phases is of greater concern.
"It just comes back to preparation and how we practice this week," said UND wideout Sam Strandell. "We look forward to it, especially after a game like that. We're motivated to take our fundamentals and improve them into the game on Saturday, because fundamentals were a big part of the execution errors we had out there. It's not like one thing is gonna flip the switch for us. We've practiced pretty well, so it just comes down to execution on Saturday."
The Hawks are scoring 38.9 points per game with former Jackrabbit offensive coordinator Danny Freund back at the controls of the UND offense. They're rushing for 213 yards per game, so certainly they weren't asking Kaminsky to carry the offense by himself, but without him the Jacks would likely double down on stopping the run and dare the Hawks to throw on them.
Tupou'ata-Johnson has completed just 5-of-17 passes with two interceptions in limited duty this year, though he is a running threat, having rushed for 107 yards and two touchdowns last year for UND.
"Javance is a very mature individual and he won't be overwhelmed by the moment," Freund said of Tupou'ata-Johnson, crediting him for staying at UND this year after losing the battle for the QB1 job to Kaminski in 2025. "The guys are gonna rally behind him. I think it says a lot about his character that he was here and stayed here and has been a great teammate and continued to develop as a football player. I feel like he's gotten better. From spring ball to fall camp, I mean, if you saw some of our fall camp practices he made some 'wow' throws. It's just the consistency of being able to do that play-in and play-out and make the right decisions."
From SDSU's perspective, coach Dan Jackson said he hopes Kaminski can go because of the respect he has for him as a player, but he acknowledged the Jacks expect it to be Tupou'ata-Johnson, who followed Schmidt to UND from San Diego State where the UND coach had been defensive coordinator.
"We need to study their backup and see what he does well and where he struggles," Jackson said. "And there's not a lot of film to be able to do that. There's some, but he's there for a reason. I mean, he came from San Diego State and, you know, you don't become a head coach and bring a quarterback with you if you don't expect him to be able to be your starter, or compete for that. So I know their coaching staff is gonna believe in him."
Certainly UND would make the Jacks' job easier if they continued their recent trend of starting slow and shooting themselves in the foot. Jackson isn't counting on that, though. SDSU (5-1, 2-0) has a good track record in the Alerus Center, most recently their win in last year's regular season finale in which they overcame a 14-point deficit and won on Jack Henry's overtime heave to Grahm Goering, which marked SDSU's third straight win in Grand Forks.
"We have too many of our own problems for me to figure out the reason for (UND's issues)," Jackson said. "But certainly I know that an emphasis for their coaching staff is gonna be to start fast and get creative on ways to do that. And so conversely that needs to be a focus for ours as well, because there's gonna be an attempt by North Dakota to start quickly on offense and score some points and get some explosive plays, and then their defense is very aggressive and very good. I think Coach Schmidt will do a good job having those guys ready to play."