Recap | Final Stats

Head Coach Terry Allen
Opening statement
"Tough one to digest. Great comeback by the Jackrabbits got to give them a lot of credit. [South Dakota State head coach] John [Stiegelmeier] is a very, very good friend of mine and I'm happy for him, but also understand that his guys persevered for him, they certainly came through for him."

How big was the touchdown right before the half for SDSU's momentum?
"Very big, no question about it. We really had control of the game, but that touchdown cut the deficit and we weren't able to get any first downs in the third quarter. That hurt us - we kept our defense out there way too long."

On offense in the second half ...
"We weren't prolific offensively in the first half. We had a nice 80-yard drive and then we got two golden field positions, and I think the Jackrabbits got the momentum and made some plays there in the third quarter that kept our defense on the field, and they wore us out and their quarterback did a heck of a job. I think we sacked him five times, but we probably could have sacked him eight or nine, but he was elusive enough to get out of the sacks and ended up with an 88-yard touchdown when we lost coverage. Give that young man a lot of credit, and those big receivers did a good job for him."

Was it disappointing to not run the ball better than earlier in the season?
"We had to resort a little bit to the quarterback run. We got some good ones out of it, but would have liked to have been able to rush the football better, especially in a game like this where you knew you were going to get the ball in the third quarter. After they got the score before the half, it would have been nice to grind out a couple first downs there, but we were not able to."

What do you tell the players to get back on track?
"We come back, fortunately, for homecoming. We play South Dakota, a team that beat us up here in South Dakota last year. But it's tough, it is. We lost one at home last week and then to come up here and have a nice lead in the first half and have the Jackrabbits come back and beat you, it's hard. We'll have to regroup, but our kids have shown resiliency. Last year after we were able to beat the Jackrabbits at our place, we strung about three or four together and we need to try a find a way to do that this year."

Senior Quarterback Kierra Harris
What happened to the offense in the second half?
"Just lack of execution. Our defense played great the whole game, we just can't sit on our defense's shoulders. We have to gout there and put pressure on their offense to try to score."

Were you too much on your heels on offense in the second half?
"We took our chances, we tried to catch them off guard a couple of times. They caught us off guard a couple of times, and we just didn't execute when we had our chances."

Sophomore Linebacker Dylan Cole
On slowing down SDSU offense after it got going ... "I think it was big plays were the story of our defense. We gave up too many big plays and they scored off of those big plays. There are holes in our defense that we have to fix up."

On the touchdown before the half ...
"That was big. I was trying to tell our guys, `this is a huge series,' so it kind of hurt, but you've got to make adjustments at halftime and hopefully come out in the second half. We've been a better second-half team the past few weeks, but they had us in this second half."

How hard is it to lose when you were up so significantly?
"That hurts, but give credit to them. They didn't give up. They just outplayed us in the second half. Like I said earlier, they had a bunch of big plays that they scored off of."