Savage Words: Easy to be a proud South Dakotan on Friday night

Even if you’re not a football fan, you had every right to be a proud South Dakotan on Friday night.

The Pac12 conference played its final championship football game from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The Pac12 began in 1916 as the Pacific Coast Conference. Over the past 109 years, the conference has become one of the top athletic conference’s in the country.

Friday night, they crowned their final football champion as the conference is dissolving following the 2023-24 school year. Amongst the throngs of players, fans, media and confetti, University of Washington head coach and Milbank, S.D., native Kalen DeBoer raised the Pac12 trophy.

As it was for likely every sports fan in South Dakota, there was a true sense of pride seeing DeBoer raise the trophy knowing his humble beginnings in Milbank. He played his college football at the University of Sioux Falls. At the time, I was the Sports Information Director at USF, and even I could tell he was headed for greatness. As a wide receiver on those teams, he had some amazing catches.

Not surprisingly, he went on to become USF’s head coach after legendary coach Bob Young retired. Also not surprisingly, he led the Cougars to three NAIA national championships in 2006, 2008 and 2009.

That run at USF was impressive, so when he bounced around as an offensive coordinator at Southern Illinois, Eastern Michigan, Fresno State and Indiana, I wasn’t surprised to see that progression.

In 2020, he was named the head coach at Fresno State at just 46 years of age. He was clearly on the fast-track to big-time coaching, but when he was named head coach at Pac12 Washington, that was about as big as it gets.

When he got to Washington, he brought fellow South Dakotan and former USF teammate Chuck Morrell to his coaching staff as a defensive coordinator. The Bon Homme native was a safety for the Cougars and was the leading tackler on the 1996 NAIA national championship team. He went on to be the defensive coordinator at USF from 1998-2009.

In two years at Washington, DeBoer has gone 24-2 and the Huskies are now headed to the College Football Playoff where they’ll face Texas on New Year’s Day with the winner to play for a national championship against the winner of Michigan and Alabama.

But until then, DeBoer, Morrell and the rest of the Huskies can bask in winning the final Pac12 championship game.

The ABC broadcast of the ending of Friday’s game was actually kind of heavy. The broadcasters were reminiscing about the Pac12 and how they were saddened that it was coming to an end.

The game was a thriller as DeBoer’s Huskies hung on for a 34-31 win over Oregon. With the win, Washington finished the regular season at 13-0, its best finish since the Huskies began playing football 134 years ago.

“This is the end. This the end of an era,” said ABC color announcer Kirk Herbstreit. “You and I both watched the Pac12 growing up. It’s kind of mixed emotions. It’s tough to see this. This is a surreal night. We’ll never forget this one.”

Play-by-play announcer Chris Fowler followed up that sentiment.

“We will not,” he said. “If it has to go out, it goes out in style.”

Go out in style it did, thanks to a kid from Milbank.

Ironically, Washington won the first Pacific Coast Conference championship in 1916 under head coach Gil Dobie. Dobie began his coaching career at North Dakota Agriculture, which is now part of North Dakota State.

Although primarily on the west coast, the Dakotas had, and still do, have a direct connection to the Pac12 Conference as it slowly fades away.