Editor's note: This is the second of a three-story series examining the South Dakota Mines 2022 football season in which the Hardrockers had several milestones to celebrate. This story examines the 11 games of the season and the improvements individually and as a team. The third story will feature alumni and institutional help and a look to the future of the program and will come out on Monday, Dec. 19. 

RAPID CITY, S.D. --- The Hardrockers never lost two games in a row during the 2022 football season and that enabled South Dakota Mines to stay in the upper echelon of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference for the first time in school history.

To stay in the hunt, the Hardrockers needed some momentum after its two non-conference games against Missouri S&T and Truman State, both out of the Great Lakes Valley Conference. They got a split and went on to finish 6-3 in league play, good for fourth place behind Colorado Mines (9-0), Colorado State-Pueblo (7-2), and Western Colorado (7-2).

Mines opened the season in Rolla, Mo., against Missouri S&T, another engineering school.

Mines dominated from the start for the 43-20 win.

Redshirt-sophomore quarterback Jayden Johannsen opened on fire as he and redshirt-sophomore receiver/kick returner Isaiah Eastman both earned RMAC weekly honors -- Johannsen as Offensive Player of the Week and Eastman as Special Teams Player of the Week.

Johannsen was 20-of-28 passing for 433 yards and four touchdowns, while Eastman had an 85-yard punt return for a score, as well as two receiving touchdowns.

Mines head coach Charlie Flohr said he knew the Missouri S&T game would be a tough place to open the season as he had coached against the Miners while he was at Northwest Missouri State.

 "The way our kids were able to come out and play for a full 60 minutes in that first football game just said a lot about the leadership, the amount of work they did over the course of the summer," he said. "They put in a lot of time in the summer and wanted to make themselves better. We had a good fall camp, and when you're starting off on the road with that big of a road trip, it can be difficult. But I was really happy with how they handled themselves. For us to go out and play the way we did in week one on the road made me feel a lot better about what direction we were moving as a program."

Truman State finished 9-2 on the season recently winning the America's Crossover Bowl on Dec. 3 against Tiffin University, 28-27. The Bulldogs came to Rapid City and held on for a 27-20 win. In that game, Mines scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns to close the gap after a slow start.

In their RMAC opener, the 'Rockers bounced back to stop Colorado Mesa 31-17 in Grand Junction, Colo., scoring 17 points in the fourth quarter, highlighted by two long Johannsen-to-senior Jeremiah Bridges touchdown passes of 63 and 60 yards.

Bridges was named the RMAC Offensive Player of the Week with eight catches for 174 yards and three TDs. He also had 37 yards rushing on two carries.



Mines opened the conference season at 2-0 for the first time in its RMAC history with a tough 41-27 win over New Mexico Highlands, leading 41-14 going into the fourth quarter. Johannsen had 452 yards of total offense (333 through the air and 119 rushing) for another RMAC Offensive Player of the Week award.

The Hardrockers, however, couldn't find the end zone enough in their big Black Hills Brawl rivalry game with Black Hills State University, falling 24-17 at O'Harra Stadium. Mines nearly doubled the Yellow Jackets in total offense, 447-243, but turned the ball over four times.

The 'Rockers then split a pair of games, upsetting last year's co-league champion Western Colorado 38-10 in Gunnison, but fell to 2022 eventual league champion Colorado Mines at home 48-20.

"I don't think people expected us to do as well as we did this year, especially at the Western game. I don't think people expected us to go out there and play as well as we did," Mines senior offensive tackle Connor Smith said. "I think that definitely opened up some eyes."

The Hardrockers rebounded again for a pair of wins, 65-20 over winless Fort Lewis in Durango, Colo., and 23-20 over a scrappy Adams State team at O'Harra Stadium.

Against Fort Lewis, Johannsen was just 18-of-29 passing but threw six touchdown passes in earning his third RMAC Offensive Player of the Week honor of the season - the most in program history for one individual in a single season.



The 'Rockers struggled for the first time on the road, falling to Colorado State-Pueblo 45-20, but finished off the season with a 28-7 home win over Chadron State College on Senior Day.
Wins against Missouri S&T, Western Colorado, and Chadron State were signature victories for the 'Rockers.

Flohr called the Hardrockers battle ready in the win over Western Colorado, which tied for the 2021 RMAC title with Colorado Mines and also earned an NCAA playoff bid that season.

"Did I think the outcome (score) would have been the way it was? No, I thought it would be a little bit closer football game than it was, so I was just proud of our kids," he said of the Western Colorado victory. "That was probably, of all of the wins that we had during the course of the year, kind of the one that really established where we're at within the league. We kind of opened some eyes that our program is at present and we're maybe not the old South Dakota Mines of the past."

Looking back at their four losses to Truman State, Black Hills State, Colorado Mines, and Colorado State-Pueblo – two were against NCAA playoff teams (Mines and Pueblo), one was against a Truman State team that finished just outside of the playoffs and another was against a rival team -- Black Hills State -- that finished 7-4 as well.

"Obviously you want a few of them back, but knowing how close we were, that should continue to motivate our kids and the program, that we're not that far off," Flohr said. "If we continue to make strides, we can continue to stay consistent as an upper tier team in the RMAC."

The win over Chadron State was a strong psychological one for the program as the Eagles have had a long, rich tradition of football going back to the early 2000s. South Dakota Mines was 0-8 against them since joining the RMAC in the Division II era, so for the first time, they were able to hoist the Eagle Rock Trophy which goes to the winner of each year's rivalry game.

In his post-game speech to the team, Flohr did just that to a loud roar from his players.

"To come away with a 28-7 win against a rival on Senior Day to finish out the year, again that just goes to show the toughness, the grit and the resiliency that our kids had," he said. "That was the one game they had marked on their calendars for a long time. It was big from the psychological standpoint that we can do it; we can compete with the upper tier teams in the conference. It really is going to continue to motivate us in this off-season."



Improvement on the offensive and defensive ends
At times this season, the Mines offense, led by Johannsen, Eastman, Bridges, and a consistent offensive line, was among the best in the country.

Maybe the difference between the 2022 team and some other teams from the past few years was that the offense didn't necessarily have to put up 40-50 points a game to win.

The Mines' defense, under the leadership of defensive coordinator Vance Winter, showed marked improvement over the last couple of years, especially this season.

The Hardrockers improved from 428 yards given up defensively a game in 2019 to 351.6 this season and 30.09 points to 24.09 points. In their seven wins, Mines gave up just 121 points (17.3 ppg.)

Flohr said that statistically the coaches sat down and looked at some of the major factors of what made the defense improve. That improvement started up front.

"We had one of the best front sevens that South Dakota Mines has had in a long time. That's where it all starts," he said. "We were able to get a lot better against the run, which is something that's going to be big for us. We're trying to make a team a little bit more one-dimensional during the course of a football game. It's such a pass-happy league where our numbers aren't maybe where we want them to be, but we know it's a tough league from a passing standpoint. We've continued to make great strides on the defensive side of the football. Coach Winter and his staff have done a really good job of getting our kids to believe in a new scheme that we continued to use."

Senior linebackers Kyante Christian and Gavin Chaddock were both named First-Team All-RMAC for the second straight season and Christian also were named D2CCA Super Region 4 second team. Previously, no South Dakota Mines football players had earned this accomplishment. Christian said they can credit the leadership from the preparation the coaches set out for them.

"The defensive coaches put in a lot of time within the film room, on the whiteboards, things like that, on prepping us to be in the best situations. The guys did the same thing," he said. "That personal responsibility, that accountability part was huge, especially on the defense where we saw that tremendous growth where we're able to win those close games like Adam State, where the defense can go on field and everybody's confident we'll get the job done. That was one of the things that we're really proud of and just making those small steps and improving on. The 2019 season we were giving up 200 yards a game rushing. The season after that we were giving up 140 and this past season only 110. The constant growth and working to better ourselves and better our craft shows in the numbers and it shows on film."

Offensively, the Hardrockers made some strides as well in the last two full seasons under Flohr and offensive coordinator Ryan Gent.

Mines averaged 31.45 points a game, up from 28.0 per game in 2021 and 24.1 points a game in 2019.

Johannsen, one of 48 players in the country nominated for the Harlon Hill Trophy, given to the top offensive player in Division II, finished the season completing 249-of-394 passes for 3,199 yards and 28 touchdowns. He also ran for 526 yards and eight scores. His 338.6 yards off total offense per game is second in the country.

Johannsen had two outstanding weapons to throw to in Bridges and Eastman, who likely formed the top receiving duo in the conference. Eastman, who was Second-Team All-Conference, led the team in receptions with 86 (fifth in the country) and second in yards at 1,104 (100.36 yards per game, ninth in the country). He caught 10 TD passes.

Bridges, a First Team All-RMAC player and second team D2CCA Super Region 4 performer, caught 79 passes (ninth in the country) for a team-leading 1,233 yards (112.09 per game, seventh in the country) and 12 touchdowns.

"The offense knew that we had to step it up from last year because we knew our defense would be pretty good this year," Smith said. "We had player meetings all over the summer because the coaches couldn't be involved, so we took it upon ourselves that, 'hey, we want to be good, so we had to do that stuff.'"

As a team, the 'Rockers had 1,397 yards rushing and 3,470 yards passing for 4,867 yards (442.5 yards per game). In 2019 they averaged 334 yards per game and 376 yards per game in 2021.

"A lot of the strides we made are just the kids having the understanding of what our offensive scheme is, having another year under their belt with what we are doing," Flohr said. "It's also having that comradery. They have spent a lot of time together as an offensive unit in the off-season and you were able to see some of those connections during the course of the season. I was very proud of how we continued to show improvement, not only from last year to this year, but from week one to week 11 this season."

Part 1: The Improvement

About South Dakota Mines
The South Dakota School of Mines & Technology is a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) and NCAA Division II offering 10 men's and women's varsity intercollegiate athletic programs. The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference is a premier NCAA Division II conference with 15 members, as well as four associate members, located in the states of California, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.