Sept. 22, 2012

Final Stats |

EVANSTON, Ill.--Venric Mark ran for 117 yards and three touchdowns to lead Northwestern to a 38-7 win against South Dakota Saturday at Ryan Field. It was the final tune-up for both teams before heading into conference play.

Mark led a Wildcat ground game that managed 277 yards and accounted for all five scores. All but two of his 16 carries came in the first half. Northwestern (4-0) scored on four of its six first-half possessions and led 28-0 at halftime.

South Dakota (1-2) got on the scoreboard with a 4-yard touchdown run by quarterback Josh Vander Maten that made it 35-7 with 4:10 remaining in the third quarter. Vander Maten finished 17-of-33 for 189 yards passing. He accounted for 38 of the Coyotes' 51 yards rushing.

South Dakota had more penalty yards (62) than rushing yards in the first half and committed the game's only turnover right before the break. An unexpected snap from center bounced off Vander Maten and Brian Arnfelt fell on the ball for Northwestern with 1:35 remaining. Mark was in the end zone four plays later for the Wildcats' fourth score.

The Coyotes took on a Big Ten foe for the third consecutive year, but fell to 2-26 all-time against the conference. South Dakota opens Missouri Valley Football Conference Play at home next Saturday against Illinois State. Game time from the DakotaDome is set for 2 p.m.

South Dakota Player Quotes

Josh Vander Maten - QB

On the start of the game...
"It's important in the first series to not have any turnovers, and we came into the first series of the game and had two. There were a lot of plays we should have completed and you can't start a game out like that against a team like Northwestern."

On success in the passing game...
"The success from me evading the pocket came from me making the one-to-two read and reacting to the defense. If they crashed the pocket, I would go outside. Their D-line was very good."

On the fumbled center-quarterback exchange...
"I think the problems with the snap came from us having some butterflies, some jitters, out there and that can't happen in games like this. It can't happen in any game and it did. We need to learn from that."

On Northwestern's defensive pressure...
"The struggle on longer routes didn't come from pass rush, they're passes I make every day in practice and I need to make them in games. It'll come."

On preparing for the game...
"We watched a lot of tape, especially from the Syracuse game and tried to take all we could from that. We did as much as we could."

Quentin McMarlin - FB

On what the team learned...
"The thing we can take away the most from this game is that we can't shoot ourselves in the foot. We went backwards the whole first half way more often than we went forwards. That won't work against anyone...in the Big Ten, Missouri Valley or anyone."

On the second half...
"We were moving the ball more in the second half and we didn't get as many penalties. [We were] just playing football."

Charlie Goro - DB

On returning to Chicago...
"It was fun being in my hometown. I had a lot of family and friends come in so it was a lot of fun to play in front of them."

South Dakota Head Coach Joe Glenn

Opening statement...
"First of all, I give a lot of credit to Northwestern. They're a good football team and they did what they had to in the first half and put us away. [Venric] Mark had seven yards a carry. They all averaged five yards a carry. After I give them praise then, I want to tell you how sick I was, knowing that we didn't have to help them. We made way too many mistakes that just had nothing to do with Northwestern. They could have beaten us on their own. We had penalties, we hiked the ball wrong, we had guys that jumped offside, we dropped three balls in the first half. We just didn't play a clean first half and allowed them to get out 28-0 and we were dead in the water.

"The only thing it did to them was put them to sleep at halftime. They didn't come out with the eye of the tiger when they were so far ahead and allowed us to play a cleaner game in the second half. When the game's on the line, we have to play better than that. If there is anything to take from the game, we did come out and compete in the second half and didn't make so many penalties and mistakes. I'm really concerned about that because if we don't get that changed, we won't do very well this year at all. You can't play like that. I understand getting beat by Northwestern, but I don't understand beating ourselves. We fought hard in the second half. We came out and had a touchdown drive and did some things where we looked like a football team. I thought we played the run better, but we have to start. We haven't really been a very good first-half team yet this year, so I am a little concerned about that. I felt like every game we were ready to play. Our emotion was good and the locker room felt good, but we're just not getting it done in the first half."

On the several botched snaps...
"We have a senior center, so I don't know. I asked him at halftime if we should put our quarterback under center and was he having trouble hearing and he said, `No, I'll get it done.' That's our only starter back on the offensive line. He has to come through for us. He is a great kid and he's very concerned. He has to lead by example right now because we have a lot of guys behind him who are trying to follow his leadership. I think it all starts with the offensive center. He is the guy who points out the defense and sets the front and controls the line of scrimmage with his snapping. I believe he can do it. Three games into the season this isn't the first time it has happened. He's having trouble with it already and now I'm concerned about it. We don't have another guy right now at center. Tim has to come through for us. He's our senior guy and pivot man. It wasn't just him. We took ourselves out of the game."

On making adjustments to the passing game...
"That's what we do. Their strength is their pass rush. Their front four is the strength of their team. For us to drop back and throw it 60 to 75 times would have been horrible. It's not really us. We didn't do a very good job running against them either. The score could have even been worse had we dropped back and let them sack us. We just have to get ready for the teams that are in our league, which are a little bit more like us, and teams that have the same amount of scholarships that we do and maybe we'll have better success."

On the first offensive series...
"I can't hardly talk about it without getting sick. Just, what? We're ready to play. We go through our openers. Our kids know what plays we're going to run. We go through walkthroughs. That was a letdown by our offense. Our defense wasn't much better. We let them go down and score and then we lay an egg like that. I don't know why. You can say it's youth, but we are three games into the season. It was pathetic. That's the best thing I can tell you about it. We got over it and got better, but if we start like that we are going to lose a lot of games. It's just that pure and simple."

On the positives to take away from the game...
"We hit their rush a little bit better in the second half, but I know it's 28-0. I've been down like that and you don't have the same eye of the tiger. But you have to say, at least we stopped them better. I think they called the dogs off a little bit. They ran and ran and ran. Pretty soon you have to figure it out they are going to run it up the middle, so I have to thank their coach for that. The offensive coordinator is my buddy. Micky [McCall] helped me out there a little bit. We did get some things going on offense."