St. Thomas coach Glenn Caruso laments late mishap, praises growth after 17-10 loss to Northern Iowa

St. Thomas football coach Glenn Caruso has seen a lot in his 17 seasons there, and more than another decade before that.

Until the last two weeks, he hasn’t seen his team’s defense twice punch the ball free near their own goal line only to watch the opponent scoop up the bounding ball and run into the end zone for the touchdown.

Division II Sioux Falls did it last week in its season-opening 34-13 victory over the Tommies, a performance Caruso on Saturday called “gross” in retrospect.

A Northern Iowa team that trounced the transitioning Division I Tommies 44-3 three years ago scored that way Saturday, too. This time, the Panthers, who are playing at Nebraska and Hawaii the next two weeks, scored the winning touchdown that way with fewer than three minutes left in their 17-10 comeback victory at O’Shaughnessy Stadium.

“I’ve been doing this 29 seasons now, and I’ve been here for a lot,” Caruso said. “Those are the odds. It’s happened to us once in the last 16 years and now twice in two weeks. Our goal-line defense, we get 11 guys to the football. If we catch the bad side of this, it is what it is. The process is right: the way we play defense, the way we stop the ball, punching it the way out. Those are things we can control. I’m not going to spend time on things we can’t control, like how it bounces.

“The commitment to grow between Week 1 and 2 was immense. If we’re willing to do that the next 11, 12 weeks, we have a shot to be a pretty decent team.”

The Tommies followed last week’s loss by playing aggressively from start to finish. They went for a first down on fourth at the Northern Iowa 34-yard line and were stopped. They pulled out some trickery for plays that made a long gain or a score. They blocked a punt — and had one blocked themselves.

They also missed two field goals from within 30 yards and then made a 50-yarder for a 10-7 lead late in the third quarter after Caruso showed a little faith in kicker Stephen Shagen.

“There’s a difference between proud and being happy,” Caruso said. “I won’t sit here and say I’m happy about the outcome. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m tremendously proud of the effort the guys put in. That’s a program [Northern Iowa] that three years ago we played them to a 45-point game, and honestly it wasn’t even that close.”

A week before, his team was soundly beaten at home by Sioux Falls. On Saturday, they led 7-0 and 10-7 before the Panthers’ big, graduate-year running back Tye Edwards busted a 56-yard run in the 90-yard scoring drive that won the game.

On second down at the St. Thomas 15, Edwards ran five yards, fumbled and backfield mate Amauri Pesek-Hickson picked the ball up and went the remaining 10 yards with 2:57 left.

It stood as the winning score, even after the Tommies desperately threatened to come back at game’s end.

“I’ve never been part of that in a game,” Tommies junior defensive back Joseph Obeto said. “It’s just crazy how it happened two weeks in a row. It’s just so unfortunate.”

Caruso came to tears when discussing junior defensive back Braden Smith, who was carted off the field with his right leg wrapped in the second quarter and didn’t return. Smith sustained a season-ending injury last year and Caruso’s reaction indicated he feared something serious again.

“We’ll have to see what medical says,” Caruso said. “He’s such a tough kid. He’s everything you work so hard to recruit and develop. Now my heart breaks for him.”