Oklahoma State treating South Dakota State as 'Power Four' opponent. 'They don't know how to lose.'
- Aug 15, 2024 Updated 18 hrs ago
Tyler Waldrep
OSU Sports WriterSTILLWATER — Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy has visited all 50 states, but his only memories of South Dakota involve passing through. Once to go pheasant hunting and another time driving through to fish in Canada.
Unlike the state they live in, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits are anything but a fleeting thought to the Oklahoma State coach.
Gundy has warned his guys about this team, which opens the season in Stillwater on Aug. 31, since the end of last season.
“I started telling them in January and then told them again in the spring and then told them again before we started practice,” Gundy said. “They are very aware of who this team is, and they are very aware of the success they’ve had, and they’ve watched tape on them.”
South Dakota State claimed back-to-back FCS national championships and went 29-1 over the last two seasons with the lone defeat, a 7-3 loss at Iowa in 2022.
The Jackrabbits haven’t played an FBS opponent since then, but that doesn’t matter to Gundy.
“They’re very capable of playing a Power Four conference schedule, I’ll put it that way,” Gundy said. “And as I said earlier, teams who haven’t lost a game in a long time are difficult to play because they don’t know how to lose. All they’ve ever done is won. So you have to take the game away from them. They are not going to give you the game.”
During their 29-game winning streak, the Jackrabbits have beaten opponents by an average of 24.1 points. They were even more dominant in 2023, beating six opponents by at least 34 points while only allowing three teams to finish within 10 points.
It’s not like South Dakota State just beats up on regular-season opponents. The Jackrabbits have beaten their last eight playoff opponents by 28.9 points on average and won both championship games by at least 20 points.
“The good news for us and me as coaches is when they watch them on video, they can see that yeah, coach Gundy is not BS-ing us,” Gundy said. “This feels legit. They have enough players, they are physical enough in the box to play at this level, okay. They have a very experienced quarterback as a playmaker. So that is a dangerous challenge for us.”
Senior SDST quarterback Mark Gronowski is 37-3 as a starter. Last season he completed 68.1% of his 307 attempts to finish with 3,058 yards, 29 touchdowns and only five interceptions.
He also averaged 4.3 yards per carry and finished with 402 rushing yards and eight rushing scores.
Oklahoma State receiver De’Zhaun Stribling said the players talk about the opener every single day both because they look forward to starting the season and as they prepare a specific game plan for the Jackrabbits.
“We talk about how some routes will hit on this, some routes will hit on that,” Stribling said. “What if we run this formation on them. Just stuff like that inside of our team.”
Oklahoma State center Joe Michalski has also been impressed with South Dakota State.
“They just don’t make a lot of mistakes… They’re really good at what they do,” Michalski said. “They know their job. They’re high-effort, there’s no lazy guys on that team, and they’re just really good at knowing their assignment. That’s what they’re good at and that’s how they beat people. They don’t make mistakes. They wait for other people to make mistakes.”
