VERMILLION, S.D. (KELO) — The USD football team enters its bye week on a two-game winning streak. The Yotes are led by their defense as they have yet to give up a touchdown at home.

Though a slated win, USD got off to a slow start last week against Lamar. A fumbled interception by USD would return the ball back to the Cardinals on back-to-back drives. Mistakes that only fueled the Yotes defense for the second half.

“Crazy football game when you don’t have the ball for the first 11 minutes of the game. Our coverage was good and we were able to put consistent pressure on the quarterback with four man rush,” USD head coach Bob Nielson

Lamar’s defense kept USD from scoring early as South Dakota’s first trip on offense lasted less than three minutes. But a late score in the first half would turn it around for the Yotes as they would rack up 305 yards on the ground and scored touchdowns on five of their next six possessions.

“Lamar did a good job, they were slowing the game down just like St. Thomas did the week before, trying to really keep it a very limited possession game. The one thing that we did in the second half is we took advantage of every possession that we had and we scored on four straight possessions in the second half, ” coach said.

As USD enters their bye week, coach Nielson has only seen his team get better from the start of the season.

“We’ve improved immensely from Missouri offensively. The big priority was this week to establish more consistency in the ground game, we got that going. We’ve been played two weeks now without allowing a touchdown, which defensively is good,” coach Nielson said.

The Coyotes are less than two weeks from the beginning of conference play and they’re hoping to improve their younger players prior to next week’s game.

“You want to keep building depth, we got some freshmen that have really come along. Over the last two weeks, they don’t get as many repetitions and so it’s an opportunity for them to to get some some reps both fundamentally and also schematically,” Nielson said.

USD returns to action September 30, when they play at NDSU.