BSU Football Gets Big Shutout Victory Over Southwest Minnesota State

Bemidji State football returned home to Chet Anderson Stadium this past Saturday. Coming into Senior Day 1-1, they wanting nothing more than to forget the last-second heartbreaking loss to Minnesota State the week prior.

That meant someone was going to have to pay, and unfortunately for Southwest Minnesota State, they were the next team. The Beavers had won the previous six meetings with the Mustangs and 19 of the last 21.

Bemidji State got a big 33-0 win over Southwest Minnesota State. Cade Barrett had two sacks and Marcus Hansen and Marco Cavallaro each had one in BSU’s shutout effort.

After the game, senior DB and captain Jamel Stone talked to Lakeland News about how the defense turned things around from the previous week’s loss to last week’s win.

“We talked about communication all week … especially in the secondary,” explained Stone. “And you know, the guys up front, they always tell us, ‘y’all worry about what y’all got going on back there. We’re going to handle it up front.’ So we trust them. I think it shows how good we can be. You know, we could take that next step. Now it’s ‘stack this win,’ now it’s ‘go dominate the other opponent,’ you know, just holding ourself to that standard and knowing how good we can be. So we’re almost there.”

It was quite the turnaround on defense, where the Beavs went from forcing zero turnovers in Games 1 and 2 to three takeaways this Saturday. There was also improvement in red zone defense, number of sacks, and passing yards allowed.

On the other side of the ball was the Sam McGath/Bubba Peters connection. Through three games, McGath has found Peters 17 times downfield for 308 yards and until Saturday’s game. The pair had accounted for all eight of the Beavers’ touchdowns, with seven through the air and one rushing by McGath.

The two aren’t just connected on the field – they’re also roommates off of it, so after the game, we asked if that was the secret to their success early on this season.

“It makes it easier because after practice … [McGath will] come knock on my room, he’ll correct me on something, we’ll get on the same page that way, but I definitely think that that adds to it,” said senior captain and WR Peters. “And the repetitions, we’ve had a lot of practice together. Obviously we’ve been together for the last five years, so we’ve had a lot of time to get on the same page together.

“I think I might be a little on the same wavelength right now, but we just got a lot of trust in each other,” added senior captain and QB McGath. “I know what type of routes he’s going to run and just happened to connect on multiple of them so far. Just getting him the ball and let him work, but yeah, some of it just happens to be where we’re at on the field. And he’s the guy that’s on the big one.”

You can’t argue with the stats through their first three games, where Peters accounts for over half of McGath’s passing yards on roughly a third of the receptions. And as of right now, about half the pass yards per game are going Peters’ way as well.