ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (0-2) dropped its home opener to Northern State (1-1) on Saturday evening at Sea Foam Stadium as four turnovers including a fourth quarter interception return for touchdown led to NSU's 28-21 win over the Golden Bears.

Concordia returns to the road next Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D. This marks the first time in head coach Ryan Williams' four seasons that the club has started off 0-2, although both losses have been by one touchdown.

Concordia led 21-20 with under six and a half minutes to play and driving into Northern State territory. On 2nd and 8 from the NSU 41, quarterback Jared Russo sat back in the pocket with plenty of time to scan the field. He unloaded a laser over the middle that was intercepted by Joe Parsley at the 20 yard line. From there, he evaded Golden Bears while the Northern State defenders paved the way down the sideline for the score to put NSU ahead.

Northern State added the two point conversion to make it a seven point lead.

Concordia's offense regained possession on its own 29 yard line with 6:15 to play and methodically drove down field, converting three third downs in the process. But the Russo had his pass to the back of the end zone batted down by Northern State's secondary on 4th and 3 from the NSU 9-yard line with 53 seconds remaining. With just one timeout left, Northern State was able to kneel down to end the contest.


CU Football vs. Northern State 9.13.2014 - Images by Justin Oakman

It was a tough loss for the home faithful to swallow as the Golden Bears dominated statistically with a wide margin in first downs (26-18), rushing (223-76), passing (208-157), total offense (431-233), time of possession (35:35 to 24:25) and third down efficiency (10-17 to 4-13).

The overwhelming key to Northern State's victory came down to turnovers, not only forcing four Golden Bear miscues but only giving away one. Additionally, the turnovers came at key times for the Wolves defense. The first interception was in Concordia territory on the third play of the game, setting up a 38-yard scoring drive to put the Wolves on top just over five minutes into the game. The two fumbles happened on back-to-back drives for Concordia, deep in NSU territory on the 10 and 27 yard line, the first stopping a 14-play, 68-yard drive that sapped 8:17 off the clock but came away with no points. The fourth turnover, the 80-yard interception resulted in six points on the play giving NSU two touchdowns on the two interceptions while preventing two Concordia scores on the two second quarter fumbles.

Another key turning point in the contest was losing starting quarterback Corey Cole to an injury midway through the second quarter. Prior to going down, Cole had completed 6-9 passes for 44 yards and rushed four times for 11 yards but the Wolves seemed so intent to stop his dynamic playmaking that Tre Spears gashed them for 84 combined yards when Cole left the game.

Spears continued to have a solid day after Cole left the contest, finishing with 194 combined rushing and receiving yards including 150 on the ground on 29 attempts while hauling in five catches for 44 yards. He went over 2,000 career rushing yards in the contest.

Darius Chapes also gashed Northern State's run defense with seven carries for 51 yards and a 16-yard rushing score in the first quarter.

Russo got the passing game going in relief of Cole, complete 16-29 for 164 yards and two touchdowns including a six yard touchdown strike to himself on a batted ball at the line of scrimmage, catching it and plowing through the stunned Wolves defense for the score. The Russo to Russo touchdown put Concordia ahead 21-17 late in the third quarter, his second go-ahead touchdown pass in as many quarters as he put Concordia ahead 14-10 on a four yard fade to the corner of the end zone to Cordell Smith.

Smith finished with seven catches for 97 yards in the contest for a long of 33.

Defensively, the Golden Bears had a solid effort by holding the Wolves to 76 rushing yards and 157 passing yards and under 250 in total offense along with a solid third down success rate, but were haunted by the short fields as the Wolves longest scoring drives were 54 and 53 yards, with the other two being 38 yard drives.

Josh Trifunov turned in a solid effort leading the team in tackles for the second straight week with 11 (23 on the year), also snaring an interception and adding a half tackle for loss. Jordan Halverson was in on 10 tackles (half for loss) and Jordan Nieuwsma had four tackles, two for loss and a sack.

Jared Jacobson engineered the win under center for NSU, completing 20-30 for 157 yards and a touchdown while rushing 10 times for 21 yards. Nicholas Truen rushed 15 times for 58 yards and Zach Barber hurt the Golden Bears with nine receptions for 60 yards on swing passes in the flat.

Matt Thorson led Northern State's defense with 15 tackles, one for loss and a fumble recovery while Devin Olson had 10 tackles and an interception.