Pierre Strong emerging as South Dakota State's newest offensive weapon

BROOKINGS – The projected high temperature for Saturday’s Showdown Series football game between South Dakota State and South Dakota is 22 degrees.

Many of the players on both sides of the rivalry are used to that. Pierre Strong isn’t.

The latest Jackrabbit to emerge as an offensive playmaker, Strong hails from Little Rock, Ark., a state that SDSU hasn’t mined often for players in its history. When asked this week if it was ever as cold in Little Rock as it is this week in Brookings, Strong chuckled and said, “No. Not close.”

But the redshirt freshman running back got his first taste of cold weather football last week at Southern Illinois, and Strong delivered a monster performance.

On a mere 14 carries Strong rushed for 188 yards, scoring on touchdown runs of 72, 43 and 24 yards. He’s now leading the Jacks and ranked ninth in the Valley with 524 yards this season – on just 50 carries. That’s a whopping average of 10.5 yards per carry.

More:For South Dakota Coyotes, there's never been a better time for first win over South Dakota State

That Strong has produced isn’t a huge surprise – he was a highly regarded recruit out of McClellan High School, where he rushed for 4,268 yards and 57 touchdowns in his last two seasons, earning 5A offensive player of the year as a senior. But when the season began Strong was fourth on the depth chart, behind a senior (Isaac Wallace), a junior (Mikey Daniel) and another freshman – exciting speedster C.J. Wilson.

Then came a 36-7 win over Youngstown State in which Wallace, Wilson and Strong all got hurt. Wallace’s injury was season-ending, while Wilson still hasn’t returned from his (though he still hopes to). Strong stayed active but was used sparingly as he healed, rushing for a combined 23 yards on 13 carries against Northern Iowa and Illinois State.

But in the last two weeks, the 5-foot-11, 210-pounder has shown why the man who recruited him, former running backs coach John Johnson, predicted when Strong arrived in Brookings that he “would be a special back down the road.”

More:SDSU football notebook: Running game overcomes injuries with depth, balance

Strong ran for 136 yards with touchdowns of 55 and 54 yards in a 59-7 win over Missouri State, then combined with Daniel (who had 97 yards and two touchdowns) to put the Jacks over 300 team rushing yards in Saturday’s 57-38 win over the Salukis.

“It’s been a lot of fun to see him step up,” said Jacks quarterback Taryn Christion. “Pierre’s a fun guy to be around. We give him a lot of crap as a freshman but he throws it right back at us. He’s worked his tail off and embraced his opportunity. It’s great to see a guy like him step up and just give us another threat. He’s the proof that you have to be ready when your number is called and if you are good things can happen.”

The Jacks have employed a running back committee ever since Zach Zenner graduated in 2014, and it looks like they’ll continue that into the future. Why wouldn’t they? Daniel is maybe the toughest runner in the league, always able to come through in short yardage, while Wilson’s elusiveness makes him a perfect compliment.

In Strong, however, the Jacks have something close to a total package. He’s a hard runner who isn’t afraid of contact, but he has breakaway speed as evidenced by his multiple long touchdown runs. His one-cut, run-behind-the-pads style and instinct in finding holes have led to comparisons to Zenner.

“He’s had some runs where he makes it look easy,” said coach John Stiegelmeier. “But that’s the kind of runner he is. When he sees an opening he can go.”

Like many of the Jackrabbits of the Division I era to come to SDSU from far away, Strong didn’t exactly have Brookings on his radar as a prepster. But Johnson, who left his position before this season to take a job in the fledgling AAF, was a good salesmen.

“Coach Johnson was on me hard, but I was kind of blowing him off – I wasn’t texting him back,” Strong remembers. “I’d heard of (South Dakota State) but I wasn’t really into it. It just sounded really cold. But he came for an in-home visit and got me up here for a campus visit. I met some of the players, got out in the community and researched it with my parents and we decided it was the right place for me.”

While Strong made an immediate impression, there was more than enough depth for him to redshirt last year, where Strong said he became a college football player.

More:Color the map: Show support for SDSU or USD

“I got all the laziness out,” he said. “Being on the scout team, going against (linebackers) coach (Jimmy) Rogers – that wasn’t fun. But it made me better.”

Still, there was a long line in front of Strong this year. Had Wallace and Wilson never been injured, Strong might still be seeing most of his action in practice. But his readiness when the time came has been integral to the Jacks’ late-season playoff push.

“I just tried to make the best of it,” Strong said. “It’s sad those guys got hurt – I wish they were still playing. But you know what they say, next man up. I was ready and I made the most of it. Once I got some carries I was like, hey, I can fit in here. I can be a big part of this offense.”

Strong will be a major focus of the USD defense this week in the season-ending rivalry game - the Coyotes allow an average of 200 rushing yards per contest, but are coming off their best effort of the season, having held Western Illinois to 21 yards on 22 attempts last week.

"I've heard it'll be wild," Strong said of the rivalry game. "But I'm not gonna try to do anything special. That's how you cause problems. I'm ready to just play my game."