The 4-0 St. Thomas football team looks to continue its winning season as it prepares to host rival St. John’s Saturday.

Last season St. Thomas ended a 12-year losing streak against St. John’s with a 27-26 overtime victory on the Johnnies’ home turf. Coach Glenn Caruso attributes last year’s win to his players’ mental toughness, team continuity and overall togetherness.

“If you look at last year, we played one of our worst games of the year offensively. Defense played a pretty solid game, but I think that is a real tribute to our kids’ mental toughness to stick with it,” Caruso said. “When you play a game like we played last year, which was not stellar by any stretch of the imagination and are still able to come out with a victory at their place on Homecoming . . . it makes you feel pretty good.”

The Johnnies lost their second Homecoming game in a row last weekend, this time to Augsburg College. The Auggies defeated the Johnnies 32-31 after Auggie quarterback Marcus Brumm threw a 32-yard touchdown pass with no time remaining on the clock. St. John’s is now 2-2 on the season and 1-1 in the MIAC.

St. Thomas beat the Concordia-Moorhead Cobbers 48-30 on the road last weekend, improving to 2-0 in the MIAC.

Although the team’s record is perfect, Caruso said there are improvements to be made moving into this weekend’s game.

“I’m not real happy with how many passing yards we’ve allowed, and that has to be cleaned up,” Caruso said. “That’s job number one in terms of defensively what has to be better.”

Last weekend the Tommies allowed the Cobbers 329 passing yards, which is higher than the average 244 passing yards St. Thomas allows each game.

Caruso said although the defensive play last weekend was not St. Thomas’ best showing, but he has confidence his players will respond this weekend.

“One thing I know about our guys is they correct their mistakes and don’t make them twice,” Caruso said.

The St. John’s defense has historically been a force to be reckoned with, and Caruso said it is what keeps their team so buoyant.

“If you look at the last 18 years, I think their defense has averaged somewhere around 13 or 14 points per game, which over that long of a period of time is extremely impressive,” Caruso said.

This season the Johnnie defense has allowed their opponents a total of 913 passing yards over four games. The Johnnie offense on the other hand has compiled a total of 910 passing yards.

“Their offense certainly has year in and year out different strengths. They’re very balanced this year. I think that’s one of their strengths,” Caruso said. “ I know that St. John’s has a really athletic quarterback and some really hard nose running backs, but I think they balance that real well with a very productive passing game.”

Johnnie quarterback John Ries has completed 73.7 percent of his passes this year, throwing four touchdowns and two interceptions. Most of Ries’s completions have come to running back Stephen Johnson, who is also the team’s leading rusher.

Senior wide receiver Ricky Margarit believes playing balanced football is the key for St. Thomas on Saturday.

“We just need to put all of the phases together. We need our offense, our defense and our special teams to be on the same page at the same time. We kind of have been picking each other up,” Margarit said. “Some games our offense will play better than our defense or vice versa.”

Saturday will mark the first time in three years the teams have met in St. Paul. The last time St. Thomas beat St. John’s at home was in 1992 with a score of 15-12.

St. Thomas fans are expected to turnout in possibly record numbers. Senior outside linebacker Willy Baregi sees the crowd and the overall rivalry as secondary concerns.

“I think it’s not getting caught up in the atmosphere of all the different things that are going on around the field. That’s the biggest thing,” Baregi said. “Just staying focused and doing our job is going to be key for us. So if we do that, we should come out on top.”

“As opposed to seeing all that Johnnie red, we’ll see some Tommie purple,” Margarit added.

Although the two teams have had very different seasons, Caruso sees many similarities in the teams’ abilities.

“I think where we’re the same is in the fact that we’re rather balanced, but I think that there’s a ton of similarities. We both have veteran quarterbacks. We both have experienced running backs, so we’re very, very similar.”

Similarities aside, one team will emerge the victor on Saturday.

“We’re going to get their best game, and they’ll get ours,” Baregi said.

Briggs LeSavage can be reached at lesa4364@stthomas.edu.