Ferris State football moves on to the super region three championship game behind a school playoff record 78 points.
The No. 1 seeded Bulldogs took down the No. 4 seeded Central Oklahoma Bronchos by a score of 78-17 on Saturday, Nov. 30.
Finishing the first fifteen minutes tied at seven, Ferris was able to control the second quarter. The Bulldogs forced turnovers on three straight Central Oklahoma possessions by picking them off twice and recovering a fumble off of a strip sack.
Junior running back Kannon Katzer, who has been producing big plays for the Bulldogs all season, took a handoff 38 yards to the house to give the Bulldogs a 14-7 lead early in the frame.
Katzer exploded in the second with 176 yards and three long touchdown runs in that span. The Bulldogs finished the game with 485 total yards rushing.
Head Coach Tony Annese was ecstatic with how his offensive line controlled the game.
“When we have been good on offense it is because our offensive line dominates,” Annese said. “And today, I felt like they dominated.”
Ferris was able to score touchdowns following each of the turnovers and found the end zone on five out of the seven possessions they had in the second quarter.
Junior linebacker Sefa Saipaia knows how big the three turnovers were for the Bulldogs.
“In our minds, we always have the momentum,” Saipaia said. “We love to force those turnovers, our mentality and our mindset is to swarm the field and play our best ball so those turnovers definitely affect the other team.”
The scoring onslaught didn’t stop in the second half as Ferris put up 37 unanswered points in the latter half of the game to close it out and advance to the next round of the playoffs.
The victory earned Ferris its first playoff win since 2022 when they took home the DII National Championship. The Bulldogs were eliminated in the first-round last season at the hands of rival Grand Valley State but find themselves back atop the bracket.
The Bulldogs will take on No. 5 Harding at home on Saturday, Dec. 7 with a chance to advance to the DII national semifinals.