Salukis fall in semifinals, 31-26, to No. 1-seeded South Dakota State

BROOKINGS, S.D. — Just as it has all season, Southern Illinois stared into the face of adversity and never flinched.

In front of a national television audience on ESPN2 on Sunday night, the underdog Salukis battled to the final whistle before falling to No. 1-seed South Dakota State in the quarterfinals of the FCS Playoffs, 31-26.

They had a chance to win it on the final drive, but quarterback Stone Labanowitz, the engine behind the team's playoff run, was picked off, deep in SDSU territory, with just 13 seconds remaining.

The Jackrabbits (7-1), who beat Southern earlier this year, 44-3, rallied from a two touchdown deficit to escape SIU this time.

The season started nine months ago for the Salukis and was filled with starts, stops and re-starts. COVID wiped out all but one game in the fall, but the season resumed in early January and has been a four-month roller coaster ever since.

There was a blizzard that froze the stadium turf a week before the season opener. There were injuries to the top two quarterbacks. There were opponents who threw in the towel, rather than play out the season.

Leading a relentless charge to reverse the fortunes of a program that hadn't been to the playoffs since 2009 was fifth-year Saluki head coach Nick Hill. He molded a group of young warriors into a team that simply wouldn't give in or give up, a worldwide pandemic notwithstanding.

Of the team's 10 opponents this season, all but one of them were either ranked at the time Southern played them, or ended the season ranked. At various points in the season, the Salukis beat the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 ranked teams.

Ironically, tonight, they lost to the No. 2-ranked Jackrabbits.

The Salukis trailed early, 7-0, but reeled of 20-straight points behind a bold gameplan that featured a mix of Labanowitz short passes with some razzle-dazzle.

The first TD was set up by a 33-yard pass from Wildcat QB Javon Williams Jr. to Landon Lenoir, who stepped out at the SDSU 1. Two plays later, 330-pound left guard ZeVeyon Furcron barreled into the end zone for his first career score.

Southern kept on rolling with an 11-yard double reverse to Avante Cox for a TD, and a pair of Nico Gualdoni field goals to go up, 20-7.

It was South Dakota State's turn to go on a run in the second half. Three-straight touchdowns made it 31-20, and Southern was turned away on 4th-and-goal at the SDSU 1. It looked like the Salukis were out of answers.

That feeling didn't last long, as Labanowitz guided a 5-play, 65-yard touchdown drive, capped by a sensational 31-yard scoring strike to Lenoir, making the score 31-26 with 5:37 remaining.

SIU's defense rose up with a crucial stop, as Jordan Berner and Bryce Notree sandwiched SDSU QB Mark Gronowski for a sack to force the Jackrabbits to punt, giving the Salukis the ball back with one timeout and 2:19 to play.

Completions to Justin Strong, Branson Combs, Lenoir and Avante Cox set SIU up with a 3rd-and-1 at the SDSU 36 with 19 seconds to play. Labanowitz needed to make a desperation play and found Lenoir at the SDSU 9, but defensive back Michael Griffith stepped in front of the pass for the interception, ending Southern's storybook season.

Postgame Quotes

Nick Hill
Opening Statement: "There's no moral victories and there's not one person with dry eyes in that locker room. They came up here to win, honestly. It's been our message all week – the rest of the country cannot believe, but those guys believed that they were going to come up here and win. We know that the first game – three minutes to go in the first half, we had the lead and we turned it over four times in about a period of six plays and just honestly never gave ourselves a shot. These guys believed they were going to come up here and win. I'm so proud to be their coach. They have been so resilient. I think that they've set a standard across the country that these guys wanted to play. If it wasn't for their vision and a phone call to ZeVeyon (Furcron) saying, 'What do you guys want to do?', when we were 4-and-3 and everybody quit on us to end the season and he said, 'Go find us a game.' That's what we did and here we are – with 30-yards to go to get to the Final Four. They're resilient and they're tough. I think that they proved that they're a top team in the country. We've still got a long way to go to make sure we sustain that, but I couldn't be more proud. We've played 10 games, nine of them against ranked teams. We've played five top-five teams. We played the number-one team twice – North Dakota State and South Dakota State. Weber State was ranked number-one at times and unbeaten. These guys don't flinch, and I just couldn't be more proud. We've been on the road, we've been in the hotel – when you go to Weber you have to go 48 hours before, so four out of the last however many days we've been in the hotel. We've been in Salt Lake City; we've been out here in South Dakota. They just want to play, and they've been tough. I'm proud of this staff. Since January 3^rd, they haven't had a day off. It's seven days a week since January 3^rd – we haven't had a day off as a staff and that's a big thank you to their families. We're playing in the middle of a pandemic where we can't go to dinner. Even when things open up, we can't go out to eat, we can't do those things. Every single day since January 3^rd, we've been in the office as a staff. There hasn't been a day off. I just couldn't be more proud. It's a collective thing to be the leader of these guys because I can't do it without them (the staff)."

On the red zone issues:
"Well, number one we're playing the best team that they've had here in a long time. It's a defense that doesn't give up much, so getting down there is tough in its own right. Ultimately, I'm the play-caller and we've got to have a couple that we've got to get in. Ultimately, we threw a couple in. We scored 26, with 20 in the first half. I don't even know if we punted in the second half. We were down there the whole time, but we're playing a really good football team. We're playing the No. 1 defense, an offense that has the player of the year, number one 'back in the country – two of them. Big plays are going to probably happen at some point in four quarters playing these guys. I felt like our guys were resilient and gave us the chance to win and at the end we had a chance just like last week and we came up short."

On what it means to almost beat the No. 1-seeded playoff team in one of the best seasons of football at SIU:
"I think it proves that this was the team. On the road in back-to-back weeks, this was the real Saluki team. We didn't shy away from it; they whooped our tails the first time. We didn't play good football. You don't turn the ball over four times and beat anybody. The turnovers - they returned them, and we just didn't have a shot. I remember being here as a player the last time SIU kind of got going. When the elite eight started not being good enough, then you have to play home games. Going on the road every single week in the playoffs becomes tough. You want to play home games. They (SDSU) earned the right throughout the season to play all of their games at home. That'll be a big focus and goal going into next season."

On if the Salukis are nationally relevant:
"I don't think there's any question. I tell those guys all the time that you don't do it talking, you don't' do it on social media and you don't do it proclaiming anything. You do it by lining up against the coaching staffs and the players and when they walk off the field, they say, 'That's a really good football team.' I would say that every team we played said that about us. Even the teams that beat us, if you look at our losses, it's twice to South Dakota St. - two losses to number one, North Dakota – number five and Missouri State, who had a great season. We haven't played lower-level opponents since I've been here. We've played a gauntlet of a schedule. I believe that we are (nationally relevant). Are we where we ultimately want to be? No. The vision is to win a Missouri Valley Conference championship and go win a national championship. The thing in this game is that you have to start all over. You're back to zero and zero in the win column. You can use them to your advantage and get something out of it, but you have to go earn it each and every year. I feel like we've got the right guys in the locker room. We've got a full locker room that wants to come back and play. We'll add a lot of guys. Right now, we're down to 66 players. I think I heard Coach (John) Stegelmeier say they had 100 players at practice – we had 66 practice-eligible players here the last two weeks. It'll be good to get this crop of freshmen in here. We've signed a few transfers and we get these guys rested up and go at it again."

On the difficulty of stopping South Dakota State's running game:
"Yeah, it's tough. The tough thing is that when you look up and you think you're in position, it's still like second and five. It's second and six, second and four and you feel like you fitted things up. Those 'backs fall forward. They run through tackles, and so does the quarterback. When we could get them into second and nine or second and 10, that's where we could get some stops and we did. We got enough stops. We controlled the ball. I don't know what he time of possession was, but we had every opportunity to win this football game. Our defense definitely gave us a shot to win the game."

On Stone Labanowitz:
"Yeah, I'm proud of Stone. I love Stone. I really do, man. Shoot, he's like a little brother. I know I'm his coach, but we have an unbelievable relationship. I say this all the time to media, but it's hard not to like Stone. It's hard not to love his attitude. He believed like nobody else that he was going to go down and lead us in the two-minute drill. He's like (Ryan) Fitzpatrick in the NFL. That's who he's like in the locker room. Everybody loves him, he's a competitor, he's tough, he's taken shots like he did, and he gets up smiling. When we look back on a string of games in Saluki football history – I played that position. My stats weren't like that. We were running the ball and doing some stuff. He had some unbelievable games, plays and he willed us. Him taking off and running – I haven't seen any stats, but we wouldn't be here without Stone Labanowitz."

On the short turnaround this offseason before fall football:
"It'll definitely be different. I wanted to make sure that I've looked and projected some things. My full focus was to play in Frisco, honestly; everybody was. We were putting our heart and soul into that, but these guys need a break. They definitely do. Their mental health, their physical health, all of that will be in the forefront of what we do. It'll look different then before – almost like when we have two different teams. We've kept track of reps throughout the season and who's taking what reps. Are you a young guy that didn't play much? Then your summer will probably be a lot like it normally would. We have a ton of fifth-year seniors that are coming back. We'll probably have the most sixth-year seniors out of probably – I don't know who would have more. We're going to have 12 or 13 sixth-year seniors coming back to play next year. Those guys need to take a break. It's going to be rest, rest your mind and training camp will look different for them. Younger and newer guys will get some more reps. That's up for us coaches, we've got to do a good job with the schedule. The staff needs a break. You start doing this long enough, there's kids. I can't wait to go home and turn my phone off for three or four days. My daughters and my wife, they deserve that and so do all the other coaches who have younger kids. Just tell them to get lost with their families and go because they've put it on the line for SIU, too. That'll be the focus for the offseason."

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Team Stats

Stone Labanowitz

Javon Williams Jr.

Players Mentioned

Jordan Berner

Branson Combs

Avante Cox

ZeVeyon Furcron

Nico Gualdoni

Stone Labanowitz

Landon Lenoir

Bryce Notree

Justin Strong

Javon Williams Jr.