South Dakota Coyotes 2026 Season Preview

Vitzthum's Program on Solid Ground

A 10-5 mark with a 6-2 league record and a top-12 power rating is the profile of a program running exactly how Matt Vitzthum wants it. South Dakota did not scrape into that record, it played like one of the better teams in the country at this level, and that kind of results-based footing is what 2026 is built on. Nothing about last fall points to instability, just a coach whose team backed up its numbers on the field.

Vitzthum's Margin Runs Out

South Dakota won six of seven one-score games and still ran the table at plus-5 in turnovers, the kind of double luck that rarely repeats. The offense was legitimately good, 17th in rushing yards per game and 20th in yards per play, but the defense gave up 5.75 yards per play and let 94th-ranked opponents stay on schedule at will. Strip out the close-game breaks and Matt Vitzthum's group was a solid MVFC entrant last year, not the 10-5 team the record shows, and 2026 is where that gap gets exposed.

South Dakota's ground game did the heavy lifting a year ago, with the offense running for 193 yards per game (17th nationally) while the passing attack sat a modest 74th, so the quarterback job was never asked to carry the show. That changes the calculus for Patrick Greisen, the incoming West De Pere product who steps into a system that finished 20th in yards per play and 22nd in success rate largely on the strength of its rushing attack. With Aidan Bouman gone, Greisen does not need to become a high-volume passer to keep this offense humming, he needs to protect the efficiency Matt Vitzthum's staff already built and let the run game dictate terms again in 2026.

L.J. Phillips Jr. is gone after a 1,860-yard, 19-touchdown season that anchored a rushing attack ranked 17th nationally in yards per game, and nobody on the current roster has replicated that kind of workload. South Dakota didn't add a proven ball-carrier to replace it directly, instead bringing in Courtney Rivers from Christian Brothers College and Jahan Abubakar from Lincoln Way West, both unproven at this level. Matt Vitzthum's offense ran at 6.39 yards per play and built its identity on the ground game, so the drop-off from Phillips to an unproven backfield is the single biggest swing factor for whether that efficiency holds in 2026.

Larenzo Fenner's 15 touchdowns and Jack Martens' 33 catches walk out the door together, gutting the group that helped South Dakota post 391 yards a game and rank 33rd nationally in total offense last fall. That passing attack was already just 74th in yards per game, so the loss of Fenner's big-play production stings more than the raw numbers suggest, and Kansas transfer Bryce Cohoon arrives with just 1 tackle on his resume rather than any receiving track record. Matt Vitzthum's offense leaned on a 193-yard rushing attack (17th nationally) last season, and unless someone in an experienced receiving corps steps into the vacated targets, South Dakota's ground game will have to carry an even heavier load in 2026.

Zach Witte's 18 catches and 3 touchdowns walk out the door, along with Dallas Holmes' 8 grabs, stripping the position of all of its production from a South Dakota offense that ran the ball at a 193-yard clip and cracked the top 20 nationally in yards per play. That ground-first identity means whoever settles in at tight end will lean on blocking assignments as much as targets, with the passing game (74th in yards per game) still living through its backs and receivers rather than the seams. The bigger swing factor is quarterback play, not this room, given how efficient the offense was overall at 45.2% success rate even with a middling explosiveness number.

South Dakota ran for 193 yards a game and churned out 6.39 yards per play behind a line that is losing eight bodies up front, including Sam Kohls, Almarion Crim, Caden Ellingson, Adrian Hawkins and Wyatt Lawson. Matt Vitzthum is turning to a high school haul to restock the room, signing tackle Dustin Cochran and interior lineman Deongelo Williams out of Wichita Northwest along with tackles Jake Gau and Parker Maloney and interior lineman Caleb Offner. None of them have a snap of college tape yet, so the run game that ranked 17th nationally in rushing yards per game is being handed to a rebuilt front rather than a proven one, and that gap between last year's production and this year's inexperience is the real story for 2026.

South Dakota's front last season let opponents stay on schedule at a 44.6% clip, a soft spot that shows up more than the middling 26.3 points allowed per game suggests. Every piece of last year's line production is gone, with Caden Crawford, Mosai Newsom, Jeff Bowie, Carter Hooper and Bradley McGannon all departed, so Matt Vitzthum is turning to the portal to reset the edge. Neeo Avery arrives from Maryland off a 3-tackle, 1-TFL season, and Samuel Same joins from Iowa State, and how quickly that pair and Van Meter addition Keaton Mennen can push the pass rush will decide whether South Dakota's yards-per-play number climbs above 65th nationally.

South Dakota's front seven gave up 152 yards a game on the ground and let 5.75 yards per play last fall, numbers that put the linebacker corps squarely in the crosshairs this offseason after Nate Ewell and Nyle Dickel, the group's tackle and disruption producers, are both gone. None of the incoming names, Joey Hardy, Max Clark or Mason Claus, carry a prior stat line, so this reads as a rebuild built on unproven newcomers rather than a like-for-like swap. Matt Vitzthum's defense already ranked just 94th in keeping opponents off schedule, and until one of those new linebackers forces negative plays consistently, that number is more likely to slide than improve.

South Dakota's secondary gave up 215 passing yards a game a year ago, a 64th-ranked number that Matt Vitzthum is patching with outside help rather than standing pat. Kael Kolarik arrives from Iowa after racking up 8 tackles, and Harrison Brun and Ethan Carrier both come in from Minnesota to reinforce the safety spots, while JaMichael Hill joins as a high school signee out of Evans. That group has to cover for the exits of DeJuan Lewis and Matt Walsh, who combined for the bulk of last year's tackle production among the departed backs, and an experienced secondary around the newcomers gives Vitzthum a base to try to push that pass defense number down.

Will Leyland's departure leaves a real void after he made 14 of 16 field goals and piled up 88 points, and Zeke Mata's exit alongside him wipes out the entire kicking operation from a 10-5 team. Punter Tyler Ebel, who averaged 46.4 yards on 47 punts, is gone too, so Matt Vitzthum has to identify new specialists at every phase of the kicking game rather than simply plugging one hole. With that much scoring and field-position value walking out the door, whoever wins the placekicking job carries real weight in a program that went 6-2 in the MVFC.

Replacing L.J. Phillips Jr.

South Dakota won 10 games last year with L.J. Phillips Jr. shredding people for 1,860 yards and 19 touchdowns, and none of that production is walking back through the door. Whoever inherits that workload has to answer for nearly two thousand yards on the ground, and with 10 portal departures against just 6 arrivals, the Coyotes don't have the bodies to simply platoon their way out of the problem. If a lead back doesn't emerge from what's left in that room, this offense stops being the identity that carried 2025.

Vitzthum's Home-Road Divide

South Dakota went 10-5 straight up but the betting market has this team pegged as a different squad depending on the venue. At home, Matt Vitzthum's group covered 60% of the time and won outright six of seven; on the road, backers got burned repeatedly, covering just 14% with a 1-6 mark against the number despite going 4-4 straight up away from Vermillion. The market clearly overcorrects for their road stumbles, since this team also covered 60% against ranked opponents, meaning the number to watch in 2026 is not the record but where South Dakota is kicking off.