Saturday, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits take on the Montana State Bobcats in the FCS Playoff semifinal to see who will face North Dakota State Bison for the national championship. However, if you were casually watching ESPN on Friday night, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking the San Diego State Aztecs are the ones gunning for that spot in the title game.
At halftime of the game between North Dakota State and Incarnate Word, studio host Zubin Mehenti and analyst Trevor Matich were discussing SD State’s strong run defense. However, the video package playing on the screen included the wrong SD State.
Love watching South Dakota State's run defense pic.twitter.com/9X9n28C3oX
— RedditFCS (@Reddit_FCS) December 17, 2022
The most obvious answer here is that someone typed “SD State” into ESPN’s graphics archives and didn’t think about it while they started putting clips together. Of course, the extremely different color schemes and seemingly warm weather conditions probably should have tipped them off.
Unfortunately, it’s not the first time that ESPN inadvertently slighted the Jackrabbits by making a mistake. On Tuesday night’s Bad Beats segment on SportsCenter, Scott Van Pelt referred to South Dakota State quarterback Mark Gronowski as “Mark Gronkowski.”
Bad Beats
Part 2
FCS Playoffs in Brookings, South Dakota pic.twitter.com/uYB5S5aK8R— Stanford Steve (@StanfordSteve82) December 13, 2022
Van Pelt also infamously referred to the school as the “San Diego State Jackrabbits” in 2016.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.