Key to the City game return Saturday in Sioux Falls

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — USF and Augustana first met on the football field in 1916. Now, the Cougars and Vikings play for the Key to the City, a rivalry matchup that has been played each season since 2012.

The two will cross paths on Saturday and you can watch the game on KELOXTRA (TV), KELOLAND+ and KELOLAND.com. The video player will update with the story at the top of the story.

Augustana is 5-0 on the season, following a 34-26 win over Winona State last Saturday.

“We’re a growing football team. We lost 22 in the two deep last year and 13 starters. There’s a lot of new faces and with that comes new experiences,” Augustana head coach Jerry Olszewski said.

The Vikings saw a couple players get banged up last week, giving them an opportunity to showcase their depth.

“We play pretty deep already as a football team. We play deep defensively, we’ve been playing deep offensively,” Olszewski said. “I’m excited for what that has to be.”

USF is on the tail end of their toughest stretch of the season. The Cougars have lost to back-to-back ranked opponents in Minnesota Duluth and Minnesota State.

“If I look at the last two games, there’s probably three quarters where I really felt like the game got away from us. The first half against Duluth and then the third quarter against Mankato,” USF head coach Jim Glogowski said. “But our kids played really hard. I think our kids came out focused last week and I think we’re making progress as a football team.”

Now, the Cougars are looking to get back to their strength of controlling the clock.

“After those first three games, I think we were one of the top teams in the country at time of possession, running the ball at a high level,” Glogowski said. “We’re still running the ball fairly well. I think we had close to 150 yards against Mankato on Saturday.”

The two teams are now preparing for another installment of the Key to the City game… one of the top rivalries in all of Division II football.

“We’d love to have it back again and make sure that we play a quality game that earns that,” Olszewski.

“The last two haven’t felt very good. You don’t feel very good at the end of the year if you don’t have that key in your office in the offseason,” Glogowski said. “It matters in recruiting, it matters in a lot of things and that key signifies a rivalry. Winning the football game becomes the utmost important every year.”

Augustana and USF will play for the Key to the City on Saturday at 1 p.m. You can watch the game live on KELOXTRA (TV), KELOLAND+ and KELOLAND.com.

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