Jackrabbits

A second, older grudge runs against the South Dakota Coyotes, contested as the South Dakota Showdown. Both matter more some years than others, but neither explains what the Jackrabbits have become since 2022.

Football at Brookings goes back to 1889, when the team opened with a 6-6 tie against South Dakota and then disappeared from the schedule until 1897. The nickname followed later, picked up from newspaper writers around 1905-1907 describing the team's speed afield, and it stuck through more than a century of Division I FCS football under Navy Blue and Gold.

None of that early history carries the weight of the last two seasons. South Dakota State beat North Dakota State 45-21 for the 2022 national title, then beat Montana 23-3 to defend it in 2023, back-to-back FCS championships that no team in the Missouri Valley Football Conference had managed before. A run to the semifinals in 2024 kept the program in the conversation without adding a third ring. The conference championships collected along the way, in 2016, 2020, 2022 and 2023, read now as the buildup to that pair of titles rather than separate achievements.

The program's NFL production has grown alongside the winning: Adam Vinatieri remains its most famous alumnus, a Hall of Fame kicker, while more recent draftees such as Dallas Goedert and Tucker Kraft have kept Brookings on scouts' radar. Games now run through Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium, which holds 19,340 and has been sold out often enough since 2022.