ST. GEORGE — When opportunity knocked, Dixie State's Glenn Milner opened the door and ran through.
The Rebel freshman running back romped for 182 yards and three touchdowns to help eighth-ranked Dixie State crush No. 4 Snow College 48-21 Saturday afternoon in the Rebels' Homecoming Game at Hansen Stadium.
Milner, a speedy scatback from Seattle, stepped in to fill the shoes of preseason All-America J.T. Diederichs, who was injured on a helmet-to-helmet hit early in the second quarter and carted off in an ambulance.
"I don't know how I feel," Milner said. "It's weird. I never really thought J.T. would get hurt. He has really helped to guide me along the way. I hope he's OK. But I always wondered what would happen if I was in his shoes."
Milner had just 17 carries for 213 yards on the season going into the match-up with the Badgers. He nearly doubled his numbers while scoring on second-half runs of 2, 34 and 64 yards.
"I'm not sure how many yards he had, but you can already have them engrave his name on the player of the week trophy," Dixie State coach Greg Croshaw said. "This was a special win, because it's probably the last time we'll face Snow. I'll always keep this one with me."
The Rebels are moving to NCAA Division II status next season.
Early on, it looked like Snow would win the battle of junior-college heavyweights. The Badgers opened with an impressive 89-yard drive to start the game and led 7-0 when Matt Asiata ran it in from 25 yards out.
Just 28 seconds later, former Dixie State player Ryan Neely caught a 21-yard pass from James Pritchard to give Snow a 14-0 lead less than four minutes into the game.
The Rebels didn't panic and struck to within 14-6 when Cory Slater QB-sneaked it in from the one in the first minute of the second quarter. Dixie State tied the game midway through the second when Slater found Andre Young on a diving catch in the end zone. Slater hit Quinton Lopez for the two-point conversion for the tie.
It stayed that way until midway through the third quarter, when the Rebels capped a 16-play, 75-yard drive with a 1-yard TD run by Ronaldo Diederichs.
On the drive, Milner carried five times for 25 yards. As it turns out, he was just warming up. He sprinted in early in the fourth quarter from the two-yard line to put the Rebels ahead 28-14 with 12 minutes to play.
After a Snow interception, Dixie State took over at the Badgers 35 and Milner took just two plays to sprint home to make it 34-14 with 10:21 left.
The Badgers responded with a 5-yard Pritchard run that made it 34-21 with 9:01 to play, but Milner's final TD romp from 64 yards iced the game.
"I don't think Snow believed Dixie had any other backs besides J.T.," Milner said. "We have a bunch of good backs here."
DSC's Gene Fakatoumafi scored the game's final TD by returning an interception 35 yards with 31 seconds left.
"I think we lost a lot of our intensity when we got ahead so quickly," said Pritchard, who was just 6-of-22 for 120 yards for the Badgers. "They didn't do anything we didn't expect. We just kept shooting ourselves in the foot."
The Rebels, 6-1 overall and 4-1 in the Western States Football League, travel to Eastern Arizona next week. The Badgers, also 6-1 and 4-1, play at Scottsdale.
Besides the Diederichs injury, the game was also marred by 32 penalties (each team had 16) for nearly 300 yards. X-rays on Diederichs were negative and the star running back may be available next week.