Story by
The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D.
SDSU football: Jacks ready for another showdown with Beau Brungard
- Story byThe Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D.
- SDSU football: Jacks ready for another showdown with Beau Brungard
Sep. 16—BROOKINGS — Beau Brungard 's first start against South Dakota State came at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium in 2024, and resulted in a 63-13 loss. He had a pedestrian game, completing 16-of-27 passes for 169 yards with an interception while rushing for 59 net yards and a score.
A year later his Youngstown State Penguins hosted the Jacks at Stambaugh Stadium in Ohio , and Brungard helped his team jump out to a 14-0 lead. It didn't last. Though Brungard threw for 275 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for 130 yards and a score, SDSU rallied for a 35-30 win. Both teams made the playoffs, with YSU falling in the first round and SDSU in the second. Brungard won the Walter Payton Award as the top offensive player in the FCS.
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Saturday, Brungard and the Penguins come to Brookings for a top-10 showdown, as 9th-ranked Youngstown challenges 2nd-ranked SDSU in the first Missouri Valley Football Conference game of the season.
It represents Brungard's last chance to take down the Jackrabbits, and SDSU players and coaches are expecting nothing less than the best from one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in college football.
Through three games, Brungard has already thrown for 765 yards and 10 touchdown passes while rushing for 259 yards and four scores. Last year in his Payton Award-winning campaign, he rushed for 1,468 yards and 27 touchdowns while throwing for 3,234 yards and 26 touchdowns.
"He's an elite talent," said SDSU senior linebacker Bryce Johnson. "He extends plays, makes plays with his feet, good decision maker — a super talented player who's a challenge for everyone every week."
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Certainly running quarterbacks are not unfamiliar for SDSU, and they've had mixed results trying to slow them down. The Jacks have fared pretty well against quarterbacks who run the ball by design, but those who take off and create when pass plays break down are generally harder to account for.
If the secondary does its job covering receivers they usually have their backs turned when the QB takes off, and adding a man in the box or as a spy sacrifices coverage.
Conventional wisdom says that a running quarterback essentially gives the offense an extra man, but Jacks coach Dan Jackson said that can be neutralized by winning battles up front.
"We need to get some guys to beat blocks so we have extra people," Jackson said. "The more we beat blocks the more people we'll have to the ball. You can't just stay blocked. Our D-line needs to stand up and show who they are. It's not OK to just be in your gap, you need to get rid of the (blocker) and add yourself into the run game."
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Brungard has good speed but his lateral quickness and agility are what separates him from other running quarterbacks. Obviously with the experience he's garnered in three years as a starter (he also saw action as a runner as a freshman) he's learned to read defenses and is adept at running behind his blockers on designed runs.
And when he gets loose as a scrambler he has an uncanny knack for getting down or getting out of bounds without taking a hit. Brungard rushed the ball a whopping 242 times last year.
How does a QB carry the ball that many times and stay upright? By not letting the defense ever get a hit on him.
What does that mean for SDSU? While Jackson stressed the importance of the D-line winning battles so they can get involved in pursuit, the second and third levels need to be assignment sound.
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Safety Tank Farr said the Jacks have to have good leverage and be able to read Brungard's eyes and movement. Johnson said being physical and playing together as a unit are important.
"I think the biggest thing is playing 11 hats to the ball all the time," Johnson said. "It's got to be 100 percent pursuit. Flying around, taking great angles and tackling well in space."
