The St. Thomas football team entered its first Division I season in 2021 ranked 128th of 128 teams in the FCS. Fifteen months later, the No. 23 Tommies are undefeated in the Pioneer Football League, have clinched at least a share of the conference crown and are just one victory away from winning it outright.
Senior quarterback Cade Sexauer’s two-touchdown performance helped the Tommies (9-1, 7-0 PFL) shut out Stetson 23-0 Saturday at O’Shaughnessy Stadium on senior day. The win extended the Tommies’ win streak to nine games and their regular season home win streak to 37 games.
Butler and Davidson are now out of contention for the title after losses Saturday. However, Dayton is still closely behind and could share the title with the Tommies, if they lose to Butler.
With multiple accomplishments earned against Stetson (3-6, 1-5), coach Glenn Caruso could have just focused on his team’s now-secured portion of the PFL crown. Instead, he looked to his seniors’ leadership as Saturday’s biggest triumph.
“When winning a share of a conference championship in our 15th month of Division I is the second most important thing that happens on the day, that’s pretty awesome,” Caruso said. “The number one most important thing was getting a chance to thank and honor our seniors.”
St. Thomas honored 21 seniors before the game, all of whom originally started as Division III players and all of whom have never lost a home game.
“They’re going to leave some pretty big shoes to fill,” Caruso said.
Multiple seniors contributed key plays to the game, one of those key plays being Sexauer’s first touchdown with 3:59 left in the first half to put the Tommies up 17-0. Sexauer’s 1-yard run came just two plays after a 57-yard breakout rush by sophomore running back Shawn Shipman.
Shipman contributed 168 yards on the ground and ran in the game’s first TD on a 3-yard sprint through traffic in the first quarter.
With star running back Hope Adebayo sidelined, Shipman took his “next man up” mentality into Saturday.
“I just knew I had to step up and do the routine things routinely and just do what we had to do to pull out the win,” Shipman said.
However, the Tommies’ defense was the real hero, holding a normally explosive Stetson offense to just 113 total yards.
Coming into Saturday, the Hatters led the PFL in passing yards per game (319), but the defense held them to just 75. The Tommies’ defense also never allowed the Hatters to get into the red zone and held them to 38 yards rushing.
“When you can stop the run game in the manner that we did today, … then you can do a lot of different things so your offense doesn’t have to be taking on a lot of risk,” Caruso said.
Senior defensive back Luke Glenna contributed an interception to the defensive mix, returning it more than 50 yards before getting tripped up short of the end zone. This was Glenna’s fourth interception of the season.
The offensive line, consisting of two seniors and multiple underclassmen, also had a remarkable day, allowing just one sack and giving Sexauer multiple opportunities to run for positive yardage. The offensive line has only allowed five sacks all season thus far.
“We’ve all done a good job complementing each other, and it’s never one guy’s fault,” senior offensive lineman Matthew Weimann said. “We all kind of take the lows and the highs together.”
Sexauer’s final TD came in the third quarter on a 10-yard wide-open loft to first-year tight end Matthew Rink. Sexauer has thrown a TD pass in all 10 games this season, collecting 17 total.
The Tommies take on Butler Saturday, Nov. 19 at 11 a.m. Central for the chance to secure St. Thomas’ first outright championship title of the DI era.
“I love playing with these guys, but it’s really exciting to know that we have the opportunity that we have next week at Butler,” Weimann said. “We’ll be sad when it’s all over, but right now we’re kind of just excited for the opportunity that we have next week.”
Cam Kauffman can be reached at kauf8536@stthomas.edu.