SDSU football: year 2 of I-AA

South Dakota State gears up for the 2005 football kickoff[*1] :

South Dakota State will open its 108th football season by hosting Wisconsin-La Crosse in the 40th Annual Shrine Game Saturday (Sept. 3).

Game time is 7 p.m. at Coughlin-Alumni Stadium.

SDSU faces a team it hasn’t played since 1955, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. SDSU and La Crosse met three times in the early 1950s: SDSU winning 35-7 in 1951 (SDSU was 8-1-1) and 20-0 in 1955 (SDSU was 6-2-1), and La Crosse winning 13-6 in 1952.

While SDSU in its second year of transition to NCAA Division I-AA, Wisconsin-La Crosse is one of the top teams in NCAA Division III, favored to win its fourthstraight Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship this fall. UWL returns 39 lettermen from last year’s 7-4 team which finished 5-2 in the WIAC.