Republished in the True Dakotan with permission from the author.
BROOKINGS — Quinten Christensen might be the only Jackrabbit football player ever to miss a practice to sell cows.
The South Dakota State offensive tackle grew up on a farm in Wessington Springs, where the family runs a cattle ranch, in addition to co-owning and operating the Kimball Livestock Exchange sale barn. It remains a major part of his life today.
Those family ties played a significant role in Christensen’s decision to recommit to South Dakota State after coach Jimmy Rogers left for Washington State in January, as well as Christensen’s efforts to recruit his own teammates to stay when many were offered the chance to join Rogers in Pullman.
And when FBS schools came calling in the spring, offering six and seven-figure sums of NIL money to get Christensen to leave, his farm roots once again kept him firmly planted on South Dakota soil.
But it wasn’t just the family farm that inspired Christensen to spurn the opportunity to cash in at a higher level. His love for the Jackrabbits is about as strong. Some players chose South Dakota State because of Rogers or one of their position coaches, and most of them are now Washington State Cougars.
But for Christensen, a junior and team captain, SDSU is home. The Jackrabbits are the only team. And in short order he’s become not only one of their best players but most important and respected leaders.
“The way he stepped up during the coaching change, I don’t know where this team would be without that,” said defensive tackle Kobe Clayborne, another of the team’s six captains. “I think it was big for a lot of the younger guys that just didn’t know what to do. But they saw his commitment to this program and his belief in the new staff and they bought in because of it.”
Added offensive linemate and fellow captain Sam Hagen: “(Christensen’s) a vocal guy. He’s not going to be afraid to tell you if you’re doing something wrong. He’ll call you out, doesn’t matter how old you are. Every day at workouts, he’ll be standing there on the end of the line watching, making sure everyone’s finishing through the line, doing everything they can. He holds everyone to the standard I think they need to be at.”
The Jacks have tons of new faces in camp this year and new starters all over the field on both sides of the ball. For them to have any chance of competing for a third national championship they need all of these new players to get along and figure out how to play together, and if they’re successful, it will almost surely be because Christensen helped to make it happen.
He might not seem like the most likely leader, an authentic cowboy who’d barely been outside Jerauld County until going off to college, now leading a locker room full of Division I athletes from all over the country, but Christensen has taken to the role effortlessly.
“I’d say I came here pretty uncultured, pretty raw,” he says. “Coming here and just, like, the diversity and how everyone’s brought up differently and how everyone is from different parts, just getting to know guys — you realize everyone’s different, but everyone’s the same. I think the best part about SDSU is the guys that come here are really good people. I can’t say there’s a person in the locker room that I don’t like. The ‘brotherhood’ thing that people hear us talk about — I know it sounds cliche. But it’s real.” Home on the range
Christensen’s father, Wade, graduated from South Dakota State in 1999 with a range science degree, and worked as a range conservationist for 14 years. He and his wife, Christi, took over the family ranch in 2007 and bought the sale barn in 2017.
For Quinten and younger brothers Landen and Hayes, growing up on the farm was rewarding, if challenging. Installing and fixing fences, feeding cattle and other chores were a way of life for the boys, and when the family bought the sale barn Wade and Christi were often away from home, leaving Quinten and his younger brothers to take on more ranching responsibilities.
“There was so much to do,” Quinten says, “I could talk about it all day. But I loved it. Growing up that way is a big reason why I’m here.”
Christensen was an all-state offensive and defensive lineman in high school, as well as a state champion heavyweight wrestler, going 43-0 as a senior.
On the day he was to show up at SDSU for his official visit, Christensen had to wake up early to feed the cows and ended up being late. That didn’t stop then-coach John Stiegelmeier from offering a scholarship, and Wade wanted his son to sign on the spot. There was interest from North Dakota State, Kansas State and USD, but Christensen was never really serious about any place other than Brookings.
He redshirted in 2022 as the Jacks won their first national championship, and in his second year immediately began impressing new coach Jimmy Rogers and then-offensive line coach Ryan Olson.
Breaking in
Within weeks, coaches felt like they had a future starter on their hands with Christensen. SDSU had the most dominant offensive line in the nation, with Garret Greenfield and Mason McCormick on the left side, Gus Miller at center and Evan Beerntsen and John O’Brian on the right, but even being behind that group, Christensen stood out. Eventually coaches hatched the idea to create a package where Christensen came on the field as a sixth offensive lineman (technically a tight end). He made his debut in that role in the conference opener against UND and the Jacks rushed for 266 yards in a win. He ended up appearing in 14 of SDSU’s 15 games on their way to another national championship.
But Greenfield, McCormick and O’Brian all graduated, taking with them NFL talent and, in McCormick and Greenfield, two of the most important leaders in the locker room.
Though Beerntsen and Miller returned, it would be Christensen who stepped into that leadership role, as well as replacing Greenfield as quarterback Mark Gronowski’s backside protector. Miller and Beerntsen were named first team allconference, Christensen seamlessly stepped into Greenfield’s shoes and the Jacks won 12 games and went back to the FCS semifinals, falling just short of a return trip to Frisco when they lost at North Dakota State.
Transition troubles
As the Jacks walked off the Fargodome turf after their 28-21 loss to the Bison, thoughts turned to 2025, and there was reason for optimism. Though Gronowski would be moving on, the Jacks expected to bring back countless weapons on both sides of the ball, with arguably their most decorated recruiting class ever set to join them.
Then Rogers was announced as the new coach at Washington State. He brought his entire staff with him, and made it known he wanted to bring his best players, too. Plenty of players jumped at the chance to play at the FBS level, but Christensen and quarterback Chase Mason, two of the team’s most prominent South Dakotans, had no intention of leaving.
So they soon set about keeping as much of the Jackrabbit brotherhood together as they could.
Before they could fully dive into that process, though, Christensen had to get to know new coach Dan Jackson. As a former Stiegelmeier assistant Jackson was a familiar face to fans and recent SDSU alums, but he had been gone just long enough (leaving after the 2019 season) that none of the current players knew him. Christensen heard good things, but he wanted to find out for himself.
“He called me before I’d even been offered the job, the day before I was coming up to interview,” Jackson said. “I had no idea who he was. I still don’t know how he got my number. But he was like, ‘Look man, are you taking this job or not?’ I said well, I’m going up there tomorrow and he said, well, if you take it, we’re gonna get people to stay.”
That initial conversation was productive for both sides. “I didn’t really know what I was going to do,” Christensen said. “I probably wasn’t going to go to Washington State, but I was like, well, I might have to go somewhere. I was really considering leaving. Me and (Jackson) talked for, I bet an hour and a half. I got off the phone and I told my buddies, I’m like, dude, this guy is awesome. It wasn’t bullsh*t either. You can usually tell, or you can catch someone in a lie a little bit, when they’re just trying to tell you what you want to hear. This guy is being honest. He’s being genuine, and I can tell he cared about SDSU just as much as I do. So then I basically just relayed the message to the other guys. Once I got off the phone, I was like, oh, holy sh*t. We’re good, we’re good.”
Soon Christensen and Mason were working their phones day and night, working to persuade teammates on the fence to stay in Brookings. Ultimately 16 players followed Rogers to Pullman, but at least a dozen more could have gone, too, if it weren’t for Christensen and Mason.
“My appreciation for him and Chase....I mean we better sell out all of our games this year just because of those two,” Jackson said. “What they did for South Dakota State and its future will never be forgotten. It’s a huge reason I expect to win this year and not three years from now.”
Staying true blue
But the temptations for Christensen to leave SDSU had not ended. Flush with NIL cash, power four schools at the FBS level began hunting for FCS stars to fill out holes in their lineups and add depth over the winter and early spring. Offensive line, in particular, became a primary target of big school poachers. Christensen, with his 6-foot-5, 300-pound size and national championship pedigree, was an obvious target.
The offers, always through third-party agents, came quickly. They were in the high six-figures and pushing towards seven. Christensen had not yet met his new coach in person, and wanted to as he sought guidance through a process previous SDSU stars have found a little uncomfortable.
“He called me and said, ‘I need to see your face’,” Jackson remembers. “’I’m not in the portal and I’ve got all these agents calling me.’ So I met him in Salem and we went to the End Zone bar and had a patty melt and facetimed Mason (McCormick). We talked everything over and it was like, OK, we’re good.”
Christensen was staying. The Jacks believe Christensen is an NFL prospect, but that’s far from guaranteed. Why turn down that kind of money?
“It sounds dumb, it sounds cliche, but what we have here, you can’t put a price on it,” Christensen says. “There are very, very few programs where you see actual, true culture, true brotherhood. I’ve dreamed of being an SDSU athlete since I was a kid. You can make it to the NFL. It’s not about the money. I’m confident in myself enough to say I believe I’m going to be a leader in the NFL. So I don’t need to be worried about it. I’m going to take that chance. If I don’t make the NFL, I can look back and say I’m satisfied with my decision. Yeah, it’s life-changing money, but I’m not a kid that starves for money. I don’t even know what I’d probably do with it. Probably buy land and some cows.”
His dad took a risk when he quit his job to buy the sale barn, Quinten says, and that left an impression. Do what you love, but work hard for it.
“I love it here,” he says. “I want to be involved on the farm. If I go to any of those places (that offer NIL money), I’m not going to be home for a long period of time. Really, in life you don’t get that many opportunities to do something you love at a place with people that you actually love. I’m not willing to risk that.”
What Christensen had in Brookings really hit home in early April. The Jacks had a spring scrimmage scheduled the same weekend as the annual bull sale at the Livestock Exchange, a crucial weekend for the family business. Rogers had pre-approved an excused absence for Christensen to attend, and Jackson honored it.
“That’s not happening if he’s in the SEC,” Jackson quipped. “And then he was the first person to call me after the scrimmage to ask how it went, and he called me again later after he’d watched the film of it.”
Leading the charge
Once Christensen was all-in, he knew it was time to step up his game, both as a tackle and as a captain. Slowed by some nagging injuries, Christensen was limited in spring practice, but made physical strides with his side work and served as a conduit between the coaching staff and the players.
New offensive line coach Mike Bangtson was immediately impressed.
“He’s very athletic, and he made some big jumps in his strength this spring with all the time he had in the weight room,” Bangtson said. “He’s very knowledgeable, so I told him going into the spring I wanted him to be an extension of the coaching staff, and he really was. He was chasing guys downfield, coaching them back to the huddle. We’d go over schemes and look at plays and different looks. It was really valuable. Sometimes I might say something 10 times and it just takes hearing it from one of their peers for it to stick, and he does that. He holds guys accountable and pushes them to be great.”
That’s something Christensen learned from McCormick, who’s now a starter in the NFL for the Pittsburgh Steelers. McCormick also led with tough love and demanding accountability, and Christensen acknowledges the influence McCormick had on him.
“I was real lucky,” Christensen said. “Coming in here, I was scrawny and little. But I think Mason maybe saw something in me. Like, I wasn’t afraid to work hard. I was tough. I was scrappy. But I didn’t really know him. He really took me under his wing and mentored me. And he was on my ass. He got after me, held me accountable for everything I did, on the field, off the field. And I think him paying a lot of extra interest in me at the time was frustrating, but I knew it was for the best. And now, looking back, I’m, like, super grateful. So now I’m basically trying to be that for the guys that were in my position.”
According to teammates, he’s pulling it off. “Mason (McCormick) was probably the best leader I’ve ever been around, and Q is well on his way,” said Chase Mason. “(McCormick) really pushed him, and when Rogers left he kind of got pushed into this new role and it really brought out the best in him.”
But it isn’t just tough love that Christensen is dishing out. He was one of the first to open up to late running back Nate White, who had transferred to SDSU from Wisconsin. He hosts meals and team gatherings and goes out of his way to get to know new teammates, especially the ones who would seem to have the least in common with him. That makes Christensen, much like McCormick was with Rogers, a reliable go-between with Jackson and the players.
“He teaches guys what it’s supposed to be like here and he comes into my office and keeps me posted on the temperature of the locker room,” Jackson said. “He’s helped us accelerate the transition and not lose what it means to be a Jackrabbit.”
Win in the end
The goals for Christensen going forward are the same as most of the team’s top-end players: Win a national championship, get to the NFL. Jackson and Bangtson both believe it’s realistic for Christensen, but it’ll take continued improvement. Greenfield, the Jacks’ previous left tackle, was an All-American but couldn’t crack an NFL 53-man roster (in part due to injuries) before recently retiring.
Christensen admits to thinking about the NFL, but is much more focused on getting the Jacks back into national championship contention. And that means now, this year, not down the road.
“I have full intentions of winning a national championship,” Christensen said. “If you don’t believe you can win a national championship with this team then get out. That’s how I look at it. And if we win the other stuff will take care of itself. Winning titles gets you there, and that’s what we plan to do.”
Editor’s note: The South Dakota State Jackrabbits defeated the Sacramento State Hornets 20-3 in the seasonopener at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium on Saturday, August 30, 2025.