Mar. 31—BROOKINGS — When South Dakota State made the jump from playoff team to national championship contender at the top of the decade, the rise of their defensive line was one of the biggest factors in getting them there.
Under John Stiegelmeier, Jimmy Rogers and defensive line coaches Christian Smith (now at Penn State after three seasons at Northwestern) and Jalon Bibbs (now at Iowa State with Rogers), the Jacks developed a plan in which they regularly rotated anywhere from 8-10 players in their front four, resulting in a consistently fresh and productive unit.
The results were tremendous, as SDSU won the FCS title in 2022 and 2023, with defenses that gave up barely 10 points per game.
Last year, under new coach Dan Jackson, the SDSU defense wasn't quite able to play to that standard. They weren't bad by any means — SDSU allowed 21.9 points and 319 yards per game in a 9-5 season, certainly showing flashes of the units that had dominated under Rogers. But with Jackson and his new staff having to build a new team on the fly, the depth wasn't there, and when injuries impacted the D-line as well, it got harder and harder to stem the tide. By late in the year, the Jacks were playing a much smaller rotation on the D-line than they had in their heyday, mostly out of necessity.
Eventually it caught up to them, culminating in a 50-29 playoff loss to Montana in which the Jacks gave up 552 yards, 32 first downs and 215 rushing yards.
"I think that loss exposed some things, and I think one of the main things it exposed is we have to be better with the whole depth of the defense," said defensive coordinator Brian Bergstrom. "Meaning just because one guy gets hurt that's not an excuse. The next guy needs to be just as good and next man up, and by the end of the year we weren't able to do that, and ultimately that's on all of us. It's on me. But I can tell you that we're super motivated to not let that happen, because when we play to our standard here, we are much better than we finished the year."
All-conference tackle Kobe Clayborne has graduated and joined the coaching staff, but starters Logan Green , Dawson Ripperda and Reis Kirschenman (who missed all but two games to injury last year) are all back, as is senior tackle Jace Sifore and ends Nick Wells and Blake Leiferman, all of whom saw significant action last year.
To that group the Jacks added a pair of potential impact transfers from Division II in Wayne State edge rusher Carter Sitzman (a two-time first-team All-NSIC pick) and MSU-Moorhead nose tackle Ashton Sayre, while a handful of youngsters looking to carve out a role this spring give the coaching staff hope that they can get back to building the kind of deep front four that dominated opponents earlier this decade.
"I feel like last year we had a lot of younger guys that weren't ready for the roles yet," said Sifore, who had 20 tackles and three sacks in 10 games in 2025. "So we kind of had to stick with the vets and didn't have very many. A lot of injuries kind of set us back. But I think this year a lot of these guys are stepping up into the roles. So I think the depth is there now. And we still have some of the older D-linemen. We have guys coming back from injury. We'll have new freshmen coming in too, so that'll be nice to get them going."
Green and Ripperda are established players who will be counted on for a big year. Green had a team-high 5.5 sacks last year while Ripperda had five sacks and 43 tackles. Leadership is also key from those two. Green is a returning captain, and both of them have national championship rings.
They're heavily motivated to not just get back to playing for championships in January, but to make sure it's the "Chain Gang" that leads the way.
"Our standard is to be the best unit on the defense," Ripperda said. "It starts up there. Last year, we fell short of a lot of our marks, in terms of just sacks, whatever, production. We played well in a lot of games. Some games we didn't, but this year we got a lot of our guys back, a lot more confidence in us. And a lot of it was just inexperience, too. Last year, a lot of us were getting reps for the first time in our careers, and just that learning curve, I'd say, was the biggest thing. I'd say this year is going to be — we're ready to go. We've got higher standards for ourselves, and as a defense in general."
Green, in particular, is clearly taking last year personally. He redshirted for the 2022 title team and played in all 15 games as a reserve in 2023, and clearly feels a deep responsibility to the players who came before him to get the Jacks back to where they were. Nobody on the team knows better than Green what that takes.
"As a Jackrabbit, you expect the absolute best," Green said. "What we had — the best defense in the country. The expectations can be one thing but what you put on in the weight room, and then practice, and your preparation, that's another thing. That's where that is built. I don't want to be the class that lets the older guys down, the JFPA down. We have an expectation here — it's national champs or bust, basically."
Kirschenmann returning from injury should be a big boost. Green spoke highly of sophomore tackles Mac Muller and Rhett Schaefer, while Reggie Kloehn, Luke Krempges, Maverick LeBrun, Danny Bradley and Liam Shaw are redshirt freshmen fighting for reps. Sam Christensen, Sam Watts and Brody Taggart will also be in the mix.
Second-year defensive line coach Logan McCormick has a better idea of what he's working with this year, and the coaches and players are all much more in lockstep with the scheme and their assignments. That's made this spring visibly smoother and more productive.
"I think now everyone has a great understanding of the coaches," Sifore said. "They have (the scheme) down well. They have the confidence to really get into it and dive deep and fix some things. And all the players coming back, we know it all now. So now it's just relearning it again in the spring, adding on, making tweaks to everything. So I think it's going to be a great step for us."
