September 14, 2024
BOX SCORE
MITCHELL, S.D. – While leaning upon the legs of Mark Arp and Carlos Collazo and the dominance of its veteran offensive line, the Concordia University Football team piled up more yardage than any other Bulldog edition ever has during the GPAC era (2000-present). The 641 total yards jumped off the page in what amounted to a 42-7 thumping of Dakota Wesleyan in Mitchell, S.D. Arp racked up more than 200 yards rushing and scored three touchdowns while Collazo passed the century mark and found the end zone twice.
Head Coach Patrick Daberkow’s squad moved to 2-1 on the season in acing its first road test of the 2024 season. In this outing, the Bulldogs scored 3:19 into the contest and owned the lead the rest of the way.
“Any time you can get a win on the road, you’ll take it,” Daberkow said. “I was proud of how we started – we started fast. We had a little lull in the middle of the first quarter and then turned it on. In the postgame locker room, we always nominate someone who had an obvious good game. Today our o-line did a great job. That’s where this game was decided – in the trenches. Any time you rush for 340, it’s a cumulative effort. I thought DJ (McGarvie) made good decisions, the o-line was blocking really well and Mark and Carlos did a great job.”
While taking ownership of the line of scrimmage, Concordia put together respective scoring drives that covered 75, 80, 87, 87, 80, 75 and 94 yards. The game’s opening possession was polished off when McGarvie fired a 12-yard touchdown strike to tight end Daylan Russell, who made a nifty grab on the sideline. The Bulldogs then turned to the ground game and got touchdown runs of 51 and four yards from Collazo to make it a comfortable 21-0 lead by halftime.
Concordia put its foot on the gas with three second-half touchdown totes from Arp, who totaled a career high 210 rushing yards. He carried the ball 32 times in a workhorse performance that also saw him catch two passes for 15 yards. The McCook, Neb., native Arp surpassed 1,000 rushing yards for his collegiate career. Meanwhile, Collazo needed only eight carries to churn out 116 yards. The Marquette, Neb., native has found the end zone in all three games this season. The Bulldogs are averaging 231.7 rushing yards per game behind an offensive line featuring Cohen Carpenter and Blake Schlegel at the tackles, Tyler Walford and Christian Schlepp at the guard spots and Jackson Anderson at center.
McGarvie enjoyed an efficient passing day as he completed 26-of-35 attempts for 309 yards and a touchdown (60th career touchdown pass). His favorite target was the All-American Austin Jablonski, who made nine grabs for 142 yards. In addition, Adam Van Cleave notched five catches for 77 yards and tight end John Goodwin plucked three receptions for 45 yards. Concordia achieved a nice balance with 332 rushing yards and 309 passing yards.
Defensively, the Bulldogs surrendered 370 yards but buckled down when it counted. Dakota Wesleyan (0-3, 0-2 GPAC) scored on only one of its three red zone trips. Tiger quarterback Carter Johnson finished 21-for-33 for 234 yards and a touchdown toss to Cole Holden. Grant Huss led the Concordia defense with nine tackles. Both Kyle Sterup and Devon Polley (strip sack) registered a sack and Luke Penrod made two stops in the backfield. The fumble forced by Polley was recovered by Stephen Hughes and ended a red zone drive.
Said Daberkow, “I think the defense really held when they needed to today. On special teams, we gave them a couple of short fields that we probably shouldn’t have, and our defense really responded well in those moments. I was really proud of the defense. They bent, but they didn’t break.”
From a special teams perspective, Peyton Atwood nailed all six of his PATs and Braxtyn Koch punted twice for an average of 45.5 yards per attempt. One of Koch’s punts went 52 yards and settled out of bounds at the Dakota Wesleyan 6.
The contest marked the 25th all-time meeting between Concordia and Dakota Wesleyan. The Bulldogs have the edge, 14-11, after avenging last season’s 16-12 nail-biter of a loss in Seward. The Tigers have a first-year head coach in Alex Kretzschmar, who replaced Ross Cimpl (now the DWU AD). DWU was coming off a heartbreaker of a 24-17 loss to in-state foe Mount Marty.
Next Saturday will bring another road trip as the Bulldogs look forward to taking on Briar Cliff (1-2, 1-1 GPAC) in Sioux City, Iowa. Kickoff from Memorial Field is slated for 1 p.m. CT. Concordia has won five-straight matchups with the Chargers and leads the all-time series, 18-3. Briar Cliff fell at Hastings, 44-35, in its week three outing.
