Saturday’s 38-17 win for the USD Coyotes football team over the Augustana Vikings was important for more than winning the North Central Conference title or making the Division II playoffs.
While those are both very good important factors for this football team, a win over Augie in Sioux Falls is important because of the large alumni base and donors in South Dakota’s largest city.
I found this quote from USD head coach Ed Meierkort to be interesting.
“There was a lot of anxiety before this game,” Meierkort said. “I didn’t sleep at all this week.”
One wouldn’t think Meierkort and his staff would have a lot of worries facing an Augustana team in which they beaten by three touchdowns or more in the three previous meetings.
But, considering Meierkort is in Sioux Falls every Monday during the football season at C.J. Callaway’s and this is the only South Dakota team the Coyotes play, they have to win this game or else they don’t get a lot of respect from the alumni, donors and even the media.
Meierkort has the show at C.J. Callaway’s so that the public in Sioux Falls and the people in the smaller towns surrounding the city can come see the head coach. I’m sure Meierkort probably catches a few questions from people in Sioux Falls about playing Augustana and even if moving to Division I is the right thing to do.
The Coyotes’ record coming into Saturday’s game (4-3) is not impressive if you don’t know who they’ve played this year. Augie’s record coming in (3-5) is obviously much worse because the Coyotes would be undefeated if they played the same non-conference opponents Augie has faced.
The people that pump the money into Coyote athletics want to see USD beat up on Augie, among other teams. When you are in Sioux Falls, the Coyotes have to show them why they need to keep pumping money down I-29 to Vermillion.
It’ll be interesting to see if Augie will decide to continue to play the Coyotes because USD is looking for games and I know the Coyotes would play at Howard Wood as the visitor because that will be a relatively close road game in what could be a travel heavy football schedule next fall.
– Vance Janak
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