OUR VIEW: Saturday football game a success

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OUR VIEW

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Saturday’s football game between Dakota Wesleyan and Dakota State was a rousing success.

The teams were bitter rivals for generations until the old South Dakota Intercollegiate Conference broke up. In the decade since, they have hardly played, much to the disappointment and dismay of local college football fans.

Saturday, they met at Mitchell’s Joe Quintal Field in a night game, and the long line waiting to get into the game was an indicator that this rivalry absolutely must continue in the long-term.

It was a beautiful night, highlighted by the rise of a gorgeous full moon. The final score — DWU 40, DSU 14 – only added to the atmosphere for Wesleyan fans.

Good job to these two schools for rekindling this great rivalry.

Here are a few thoughts on the game:

• Wesleyan’s decision to host a series of night games this season is a stroke of genius. Saturday, there was a true college football feel to the game, and the number of tailgating spots outside the stadium showed that fans were taking advantage of the atmosphere.

We haven’t yet heard attendance figures from Saturday, but it was a great crowd.

• Why aren’t there more local and area players on the rosters of these two teams?

Dakota Wesleyan has 71 players on its roster, of which 44 are from South Dakota. That’s not a bad mix, but we notice only 14 players from The Daily Republic’s 16-county coverage area and only one player from Mitchell.

We wish that number were higher, but we also must note that Wesleyan’s new coach, Wagner native Ross Cimpl, wasn’t given the job until well into the recruiting season.

Dakota State has 73 on its roster, but only 20 players from South Dakota. Meanwhile, the Trojans have 19 players from Arizona and eight players from Forney, Texas, alone.

Come on, DSU. That’s embarrassing.

• Play a wider selection of music and, most of all, get the sound system fixed.

Whoever was in charge of the music — including the maddening repeat of ACDC’s “Back in Black” — needs to remember that people of all ages attend these games, and also that the music should stop during actual game play.

And the constant cracking of the PA system was obviously a technical problem, but one that drove fans nuts.

Even with these issues, we consider Saturday’s game a great success. Cheers to Dakota Wesleyan for providing Mitchell with night-time college football, which we hope continues and which we hope brings a new legion of fans to Tiger games in the future.

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