VERMILLION — The FCS playoffs have arrived and are in full swing.
The first round concluded and South Dakota football learned 13th-seeded Tarleton State will be its opponent in the second round of the playoffs with a quarterfinal berth at stake on Saturday in the DakotaDome.
Tarleton State made fairly easy work of Drake, their first-round opponent on Nov. 30. The Texans defeated the Bulldogs 43-29. That victory happened despite Tarleton State falling behind 14-3 in the first quarter. But the Texans were clearly the better team through the final three quarters, outscoring the Bulldogs 40-15 through those final 45 minutes.
The matchup will provide USD with some interesting aspects to look at when it comes to the way Tarleton State plays. Head coach Bob Nielson had nothing but praise for the way the Texans cause opposing teams stress on both sides of the ball.
“You can tell they're well coached. They do things the right way,” Nielson said. “They take care of the football, they cause you stress offensively with their balance, being able to run the football, having really good players on the perimeter and a good quarterback. They're going to stretch you from sideline to sideline … [They are] defensively aggressive. They're not afraid to pressure and come at you with multiple looks, similar to some of the teams that we face in the Valley.”
That last phrase is key. Nielson pointed out how Tarleton State shares similarities when it comes to defensive pressure with other Valley teams. He specifically pointed toward another Dakota school that reminded him of Tarleton State in that regard.
“There are some of the pressure things, I wouldn't say they're necessarily comparable, but some of the same pressure looks that you see from like a North Dakota,” Nielson said. “They're not afraid to move people around. They're not afraid to play man-to-man coverage. They're going to show you multiple looks and from a game-planning standpoint, there'll be pieces that we can carry over from different programs during the week.”
But it’s not just the defensive pressures where Tarleton State resembles Valley teams. In fact, there are multiple areas where the Texans share similarities with some of the best teams in the conference.
Turnovers are critical for success. Tarleton State is one of the best teams in the country when it comes to forcing turnovers. The Texans have the second-highest turnover margin in the country at plus-16 and have forced the third-most turnovers in the country (29). The only team that has a better turnover margin is a Valley team in North Dakota State.
For as much praise as Nielson had for the way Tarleton State has forced teams into mistakes, he had just as much for the way the Texans have taken care of the ball almost just as efficiently.
“They've generated a fair number of turnovers, but they've also done a really good job of taking care of the football themselves,” Nielson said. “That's key to being a plus turnover margin team is you have to do both. We've got to keep doing that ourselves, keep taking care of the football. When we have opportunities to force some turnovers, see if we can do that and generate some field position for our offense.”
If there is one other aspect that the most successful Valley teams possess, it’s a superior running game. The Texans have just that thanks to one of the best running backs in the entire country, Kayvon Britten.
The 5-foot-7, 195-pound Britten has been nearly unstoppable this season. He is second in the FCS in rushing yards (1,896), rushing touchdowns (18) and yards per game (145.8). He’s accounted for 73.5% of the Texans’ total rushing yardage on the year. He was named one of 35 finalists for the prestigious Walter Payton Award and he started his playoff career with a bang by rushing for 146 yards and two touchdowns in Tarleton’s victory over Drake last Saturday.
USD has already faced plenty of top-tier running backs this season, but Nielson said Britten will be a unique challenge and one that won’t be easy for the Coyotes to slow down.
“He's an interesting style of runner,” Nielson said. “He's not very tall, really strong runner, he'll break tackles, but he's really good at finding a seam. In their run game with the long mesh RPOs and things he's doing, they're getting him the ball and having him read and find that seam in the defense. You’ve got to do a good job of gap control, do a good job of rallying into the football. You’ve got to do a good job of keeping the leverage tackling because he'll bounce the ball outside and take what should be a short gain and make it a long one.”
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