South Dakota and Southern Illinois face pass-rush concerns ahead of 2026 cycle

The hidden playoff tax is pass rush

Winning teams can survive a lot. They can miss a few tackles, run hot and cold on offense, even absorb the occasional coverage bust. What they cannot keep doing is letting quarterbacks get comfortable. That is the thread running through Timothy Rosario’s latest “Get In The Lab” breakdown, and it is why South Dakota and Southern Illinois belong in the same conversation even though their seasons looked different on the surface.

South Dakota finished 2025 at 10-5, went 6-2 in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, and reached the FCS quarterfinals before falling 52-22 at Montana on December 13, 2025. Southern Illinois finished 7-5, flashed enough on defense to beat Northern Iowa 31-17 on homecoming and hold the Panthers to 247 total yards, yet still entered the offseason with the same question hanging over the front seven. In Rosario’s framing, both teams were good enough to matter and not disruptive enough to scare the top of the bracket.

South Dakota’s numbers say good defense, not finished product

The Coyotes’ pass-rush issue is hard to ignore because the rest of the profile says contender. South Dakota’s 2024 team went 11-3, scored 501 points, and allowed 247. In 2025, the Coyotes still posted a strong 10-5 mark and finished second in the MVFC, but the sack production lagged badly enough to stand out against that run of success.

Among winning teams, South Dakota sat at just 1.20 sacks per game, the lowest rate in Rosario’s group by a clear margin. That is the kind of number that tells you a defense can get off the field but is not forcing the issue. A team can win on structure and discipline for a while, but once the opponent has time to diagnose coverages and extend drives, the margin shrinks fast.

Travis Johansen is the right coach to own the fix because he is not walking into the problem cold. He was named South Dakota’s head coach on January 16, 2025 after six seasons on staff, including a stretch as defensive coordinator. That continuity matters. He knows the personnel, knows what the front has been asked to do, and cannot treat the pass rush like a one-off offseason talking point.

What South Dakota has to change

South Dakota does not need a total teardown. It needs more consistent disruption from the structure it already trusts. That means the front four has to win earlier in the down and the pressure menu has to create cleaner one-on-ones instead of asking coverage to hold forever.

The most actionable fix is simple: make the edge rush count on passing downs. If the Coyotes are living in straight four-man pressure and still finishing at 1.20 sacks per game, then the answer is not more hope. It is better alignment, more movement before the snap, and a few more interior twists that force protection to declare early. The goal is not just sacks. It is hurry rate, strip chances, and third-and-long snaps that do not feel safe for the offense.

South Dakota also has proof that elite defensive talent has been in the building. Brock Mogensen was a Buck Buchanan Award finalist in 2023 and finished 11th in the voting, while defensive lineman Mi’Quise Grace was a Buck Buchanan finalist in 2024. That matters because it shows the program has already produced high-end defenders at multiple levels. The next step is turning that individual talent into a unit that wrecks game plans instead of merely containing them.

If Johansen gets that right, South Dakota stays in the title tier. If he does not, the Coyotes remain the kind of team that can win a lot of games in October and still get exposed in December against a quarterback who gets a clean pocket.

Southern Illinois has the same issue, just with a different shape

Southern Illinois does not look identical to South Dakota on paper, but the pressure problem is just as real. Rosario had the Salukis at 1.50 sacks per game among winning teams, and that number sits in the same danger zone: good enough to keep a defense respectable, not good enough to turn it into a playoff weapon.

The 2025 stats show a team that could throw the ball and still left too much on the table defensively. SIU finished 7-5, threw for 2,874 yards and 23 passing touchdowns, and faced 336 opponent pass attempts. Opponents still produced 2,412 passing yards, and while the Salukis picked off 12 passes, the low sack rate suggests the pressure was not arriving consistently enough to make those throws harder than they needed to be.

First-year defensive coordinator Lee Pronschinske had flashes to build on. The defense was described as dominant in Week 1 against Thomas More, and the Northern Iowa win was another reminder that the ceiling is there when the front is active. Holding UNI to 247 total yards in a 31-17 homecoming win on October 25, 2025 was not a fluke. It was evidence that the pieces can work when the scheme and execution line up.

What Southern Illinois has to tighten

The Salukis need pressure packages that travel. The issue is not whether the defense can play one good Saturday. It is whether the pressure plan can survive the grind of MVFC play and still matter against the best offenses. If the sacks are only coming in fragments, then Pronschinske has to be more aggressive with simulated pressure, creepers, and interior run-throughs that create confusion without sacrificing coverage integrity.

That is especially important because SIU already showed it can win with competent offense and timely defense. What it has not yet shown is a pass rush that changes the math for opposing quarterbacks. In playoff football, that math is everything. If the quarterback knows the ball comes out on time every time, your margin in the secondary disappears. If he has to rush reads because an A-gap pressure is coming or an edge defender is winning fast, suddenly those 12 interceptions start to look like a floor, not a ceiling.

Southern Illinois does not need to chase chaos for its own sake. It needs a pressure identity that fits its personnel and gives Pronschinske enough answers to keep offenses off balance from September through November.

Why this matters for the 2026 bracket

Rosario gets the bigger point right: pass rush is not a vanity stat. It is the separator between good teams and true title threats. Sacks shorten drives, force turnovers, and buy the secondary time to survive in coverage. Without them, every explosive offense becomes a weekly coin flip.

That is why South Dakota and Southern Illinois matter together. They are not warning signs that everything is broken. They are warning signs that winning alone is not enough. South Dakota has the recent resume, the coaching continuity, and the defensive pedigree to turn this into a championship push. Southern Illinois has enough flashes to believe the front can improve quickly if the pressure menu gets sharper. Jackson State and Alabama State showing up in the bottom-five category only reinforces the broader point: this is not just an MVFC problem. It is a playoff problem.

The 2026 cycle will reward the teams that can rush without gambling, pressure without panicking, and make quarterbacks feel the play before it develops. Right now, South Dakota and Southern Illinois are close enough to matter. The next step is making opposing passers feel it too.