South Dakota Answers Early Deficit, Beats Northern Colorado 38-23
Northern Colorado led for exactly 64 seconds. Kenny Lueth hit Trey Olsen for a 54-yard touchdown with 3:46 left in the first quarter, and South Dakota tied it at 7-7 on a 46-yard Tennel Bryant run with 2:42 left. The Coyotes never trailed again, and they won 38-23.
Charles Pierre Jr. did the steady work, with touchdown runs of 11 and 10 yards. Austyn Modrzewski threw scoring passes to Brayden White (10 yards, with 40 seconds left in the first half) and Bryce Cohoon (22 yards, early in the fourth). That put South Dakota up 21-7, though Northern Colorado trimmed it to 21-10 with a 39-yard Landon Richardson field goal as time ran out in the second quarter. A 7-yard Justin Guin run in the third made it 21-17, the closest the Bears got after the first quarter. Pierre answered with his second score, and it was 28-17 entering the fourth.
The yardage looks closer than the score. Northern Colorado had 377 total yards to South Dakota's 394, and threw for 266 against 178. Neither team turned the ball over. The gap was on the ground, 216 yards on 32 carries for South Dakota against 111 on 34 for the Bears, which is nearly seven yards a rush against a little over three. Bohdie Ing added a 25-yard field goal with 4:19 to go, and Jordan Herron's 22-yard catch with 2:01 left (the two-point try failed) only made the final look more respectable.
South Dakota moves to 2-0, and Northern Colorado falls to 0-2. On the fantasy side, both quarterbacks landed within a fifth of a point of each other, with Lueth getting there by running 13 times.