Football preps for playoff showdown at No. 2 seed North Dakota State

CARBONDALE, Ill. — With the FCS Playoffs field whittled down to 16 teams, Southern Illinois travels to North Dakota State on Saturday for a showdown between Missouri Valley Football Conference powerhouses. The game will be televised on ESPN+ and kicks off at 2:30 p.m.

The Salukis (8-4) are coming off a 22-10 first-round win at South Dakota, in which they forced four turnovers. The Bison (10-1) are well rested, after earning the No. 2 seed in the bracket and a first-round bye.

The teams met earlier this year, with Southern claiming a 38-14 victory during the spring season. The Bison were ranked No. 1 at the time and sporting a 39-game winning streak, but the Salukis dominated the action for 60 minutes, jumping out to a 17-0 lead, and held a 41-19 edge in time of possession.

Making his first-career start at quarterback, Nic Baker was in command for Southern, connecting on 17-of-23 passes for 254 yards and a touchdown, and guiding the Saluki offense to a 443-268 total yardage advantage.

In the last four seasons, the only teams to beat North Dakota State have been SIU, arch-rival South Dakota State and eventual 2021 spring National Champion Sam Houston State.

The MFVC began the playoffs with six teams and is down to three, with SIU, NDSU and SDSU still alive. The Jackrabbits play at Sacramento State on Saturday night.

The winner of SIU at NDSU will play the winner of East Tennessee State and Kennesaw State in the Elite Eight on either Dec. 10 or 11.

Head Coach Nick Hill's Weekly Press Conference – 11/29/21

Opening Statement:
"Excited to be in this position with a great opportunity this week. I'm proud of our guys last week, like I said at the game, when you end your season with a hard loss and a season full of highs and lows, being able to reset and believe in ourselves – that talks to a lot of the character in the locker room with guys who are experienced. We did a great job with a great week of practice, that's just the start, you still have to go out and play well in those 60 minutes. On the road and in a playoff environment, they did all the things necessary to win. They controlled the line of scrimmage, we won the turnover margin, and we were solid in the kicking game and ultimately got a win and now we're on to a huge challenge this week.

I have tons of respect for North Dakota State, that's really all I can say. Coach [Matt] Entz, their coaching staff, their players, their tradition, their development – just a ton of respect for those guys and the way they go about it. When you look at the film, they play hard, they're gritty, this is a pretty typical North Dakota State team, as far as getting back to physically getting after you in the running game. They have some explosiveness on the edge with maybe one of the best wide receivers in the country. They are doing a good job with getting those touches, reverses, and run game. And they have settled in on a quarterback, who's playing at a good level. Defensively, it's always a challenge. They consistently have always one of the top-five defenses in the country year after year.

We're excited, everyone always talks about the spring and how we were able to beat them. So this team will come in with confidence, I know that they'll use that to their advantage, too. It was probably a game they didn't want to lose in the spring, now we get another opportunity to play them. They haven't been on our schedule in the last two years, fate had it the way it worked out with the spring schedule, now we earn the right to have a shot at them in the playoffs."

On Fargo atmosphere:
"The fan base is just unbelievable. The passion that they have, you can feel that consistently when that place is filled up and I wouldn't expect anything different now a playoff atmosphere. We didn't do much in that game in 2018, we went up there, returned the opening kick, we scored, then there was about three minutes then they rattled off about 60 points on us. So, Nic [Baker] actually got into that game and played in that game as a true freshman – he redshirted that year. He played in the game, got a few series in, drove us down the field at the end of the game. So I'm sure he has a recollection of the place, but won't have to do with anything to this game."

On takeaways from spring game:
"There's a lot of carry over. That's what I have tons of respect for: those guys line up and play fundamental football. They're not trying to trick you on either side of the ball. They've always got their wrinkles and some things down and distance, and pressures they may bring, but they're going to line up and out-execute you. Usually, in most games, they have better players than you. We feel confident in our guys. Last year, I felt like we got going in moving the football, we were getting stops. What you can revert back to is that there are a lot of the same players out there on the field. Defensively, offensive line, those type of things – a different quarterback – but when we look back, it's a lot of the same people and we need to execute the same.

Last game, we played pretty mistake-free football, not many turnovers, penalties, putting ourselves in tough downs and distances. I think teams really struggle, especially being on the road up there, when you see the false starts and it's second-and-15 then it's third-and-13 and the place is going crazy, then it's a sack and you're punting it on fourth-and-22 with a big run and the game gets out of control. Last year, we controlled those situations. For us to be successful again, we're going to have to do that.

On playing 23 games in calendar year:
"We're handling it as good as we can. Obviously, there's a few teams – North Dakota State being one of them, South Dakota State, us, James Madison, any team that made a run at the playoffs last year, 6-8 of us, that have played just as many games. I think we've handled it pretty good. These guys are pretty resilient and they've played and stayed committed to taking care of their bodies and you have to see whoever is still playing with that many games has proven to recruit at a level with some sustained depth. We're playing without our leading tackler from the spring, Bryson Strong. We're playing without our First Team All-American corner, James Ceasar, who got hurt at Kansas State. For two games we played without the same linebacker, Branson Combs came back last week which has been a huge boost to our team.

All these teams have (injuries), too. North Dakota State has them, but if you haven't recruited to the level that the next guy can't come up and still get these wins, then you probably aren't still playing."

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