St. Thomas edges San Diego to move closer to Pioneer championship

St. Thomas took a large stride toward winning the Pioneer Football League in its second season as a participant by defeating San Diego 49-42 on Saturday at O'Shaughnessy Stadium.

The Tommies did this by surviving an astounding exchange of huge, back-and-forth plays that were explosive and/or strange.

"I thought it might be something of a shootout, with their offense, but nothing like this,'' St. Thomas coach Glenn Caruso said. "It was 21-21 at halftime and I went in and praised our defense, because all of the crazy things that were happening.''

Here's how it started:

Andrew McElroy, St. Thomas' sophomore from Bollingbrook, Ill., muffed a punt at the Tommies 3 to present San Diego with the game's first touchdown. Two plays and 16 seconds later, McElroy was completing a 75-yard touchdown play after catching a quick pass on the outside from quarterback Cade Sexauer.

Before it was over, McElroy's redemption for the dropped punt was fantastic, with two more long TDs:

A 95-yard kickoff immediately after San Diego's Re-al Mitchell, a transfer from both Iowa State and Temple with terrific skills, went 73 yards with a pass from quarterback Judd Erickson.

Five minutes after that, McElroy went 57 yards with a pass from Sexauer.

The quarterback from South St. Paul was pinpoint most of the day, completing 13 of 19 for 286 yards and three TDs on a windy day.

None of those throws was his play of the day. That came when San Diego's Eric Haney picked up a punt inside his 10 and started bouncing off friend and foe alike.

He was tackled after 74 yards at the Tommies 17 — by Sexauer. The tackle saved points when San Diego missed a field goal.

"I made that tackle,'' Sexauer said. "I had him lined up from about the 40, but it took another 20 yards and get through the mess.''

From the punt to Haney being tackled, the play took 28 seconds on the clock.

San Diego had been the dominant force in the non-scholarship FCS league with eight of nine conference titles in the 2010s. The pandemic wiped out 2020, and Davidson won the title last season.

St. Thomas is now 5-0 in the PFL, with victories over powers Davidson and San Diego. Davidson, Dayton and Butler have one loss. The Tommies have three games left – at Valparaiso and Butler, home with Stetson.

Run the table and they will get a championship trophy, but not the playoff berth. The Tommies' historic move from NCAA Division III to Division I came with the stipulation its athletes can't compete in NCAA postseason competition for five years.

Asked about that before Saturday's game, Caruso said: "If you would have told me when this all started 27 months ago that we could win a league championship but would not be allowed to go to the playoffs, I would've taken that deal in a minute.''

When Caruso came to St. Thomas in 2008, it took him until the third season to get a win over St. John's John Gagliardi, the legend of the MIAC.

The legend walking the sidelines for San Diego for the last decade has been Dale Lindsey, now 79, long-time NFL and major college assistant.

Caruso got him in Year 2 – after a 27-24 loss in San Diego in 2021 – in as wild a game as a college football fan could hope to enjoy on a beautiful fall Saturday.

The only element missing was a sizable crowd. This was the fall mid-term break at St. Thomas, with most students choosing the spend the weekend elsewhere.