Zimmer: Football playoffs, a buzzer beater and the Britton Bomber makes a big weekend for SDSU

VILLANOVA, Penn. – Saturday was a pretty good day for a South Dakota State fan.

The Jackrabbit football team was in suburban Philadelphia where they used a dominant second half to turn an entertaining dogfight of an FCS playoff quarterfinal into a convincing road victory over Villanova. And around the same time the Jacks were taking control of the action on the gridiron, the men’s basketball team defeated Washington State 77-74 in Spokane on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Baylor Scheierman.

More: Semifinal bound: South Dakota State knocks off Villanova to advance in FCS playoffs

Back in Brookings, the women’s basketball team overcame a dreadful start to fight back against Kansas State, and while they ended up losing, it was an encouraging performance for a team still recovering from some off-court adversity. Not to mention, just getting a Big 12 program to come to Brookings in the first place is significant.

Because while the move to Division I is ancient history at this point (it’s been almost 20 years since South Dakota State left Division II and the beloved North Central Conference), on days like Saturday, it’s useful to take a step back and look at where the Jackrabbits have taken sports in their home state.

The football team just advanced to the Division I FCS semifinals for the fourth time in the last five seasons, only a few months removed from their trip to the national championship in Frisco, where they lost on the final play to Sam Houston in a game that was televised on ABC. They’re one win away from going back. This from a program that made one – 1! – playoff appearance in their entire stint in Division II.

On the sidelines for the game was Dallas Goedert, a former Britton-Hecla standout who chose to walk on at SDSU, blossomed into perhaps the best player in school history, and is now one of the best and highest-paid tight ends in the NFL for the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles were on their bye this week – Goedert could easily have made plans to take off and go anywhere, but there he was just before kickoff, walking onto the Jackrabbit sideline in a blue SDSU hoodie, hugging former teammates. He stayed for the whole game. And minutes after it ended with SDSU victorious by a 35-21 score, ESPN cameras caught Goedert giving an impassioned speech to the Jacks players, no doubt offering words of encouragement he hopes will help them continue their impressive road playoff run.

So to sum up:

A men’s basketball win (on a buzzer-beater) to beat a PAC-12 school.

An FCS playoff win against a school big enough to have won March Madness twice in the last decade, with an NFL veteran on the sidelines supporting the colors.

A home women’s basketball game against a Big 12 school.

If, when they were making the case for South Dakota State to jump to Division I back in the early 2000s, Peggy Miller and Fred Oien had offered these up as possibilities for the program’s future, they would have been drug-tested.

But now, after 15 NCAA tournament appearances by their basketball team, 10 straight trips to the I-AA/FCS playoffs for the football team, a handful of major league alums and, potentially, another trip to Frisco for a second shot at their first national football championship, it was simply another pretty good little Saturday for the Jacks and their fans.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Playoffs, buzzer beaters make a great weekend for South Dakota State