Adebayo sets Tommie rushing record in 34-14 win

Senior running back Hope Adebayo rushed for 277 yards, a Division I-era school record, and three touchdowns in St. Thomas’ 34-14 win against the University of San Diego Saturday at O’Shaughnessy Stadium.

Adebayo became the first Tommie running back in the D-I era to rush for over 200 yards. Four of his runs went for 42, 43, 60 and 70 yards. All but the 43-yarder went for touchdowns.

“I love the way our kids came together. I mean, that was a legacy game. I don’t use that term lightly,” coach Glenn Caruso said.

Adebayo broke three tackles on his way to his first touchdown on the Tommies’ first drive. After getting caught from behind on his second big run, he made a point to ensure that wouldn’t happen again.

“I can’t come up here and be like, ‘Man I knew a hurdle was coming,’ but pregame I was like, ‘Huh, what about a hurdle?’ But then I took that out of my mind, and it ended up happening,” Adebayo said.

On his 60-yard touchdown early in the third quarter, Adebayo spun and juked his way down the field. Caruso compared his footwork to ballet.

“If you flip on SportsCenter tonight, you’ll probably see it on there on the Top 10, where he leapt over a guy and did a pirouette and landed, and then cut back on another guy and then beat him to the corner,” Caruso said, “We’ve watched about 40,000 plays of football out on that field over 20 years, and that was about as pretty as you’ll ever see.”

Adebayo’s biggest gain of the afternoon came after junior linebacker Ryan Sever sacked San Diego graduate quarterback Grant Sergent for an 8 yard loss on a 4th and 8. 

“No fourth downs are ever easy to make, but they were doing a pretty nice job of chunking those 2-yarders, the 4-yarders in the run game,” Caruso said, “I thought that was a major turning point.”

Adebayo took the ball 70 yards to the house the very next play.

“That’s the best I’ve ever seen Hope run, and we’ve been seeing him for a lot of years now,” Caruso said.

The run game dominated even without the team’s best offensive lineman senior Alec Rasmussen in. The 6-foot-7, 319 lb. lineman hasn’t played since the Oct. 12 win against Marist.

Sophomore quarterback Tak Tateoka connected with graduate receiver Jacob Wildermuth for the team’s other touchdown from 25 yards out while Wildermuth was falling out of bounds. Tateoka had thrown a similar ball two plays earlier but it had fallen incomplete.

“When that ball went up two plays later, it sort of looked like it was in the same trajectory and he wouldn’t get there, and he did,” Caruso said.

Tateoka has now strung together three straight games of consistent quarterback play after the Tommies struggled to find their true starter in the first few games of the season. Tateoka threw for 105 yards and a touchdown, and added 28 yards on the ground.

“Having Tak, oh my god, that’s so much fun, just seeing him play the way he’s playing,” Adebayo said.

Tateoka’s longest pass was 34 yards to junior receiver Colin Chase. Chase was nearly completely smothered by a defender but was able to come down with the ball. The receiver has become a recent deep-ball favorite for Tateoka after catching a 74-yard touchdown in St. Thomas’ Oct. 19 win over Valparaiso.

The rest of the Tommies’ points came from the leg of first-year kicker Ben Hoiland, who drilled two field goals from 25 and 44 yards out. Hoiland is now a perfect 5-5 in field goals since earning the starting spot in the Oct. 5 game against Stetson.

Despite his perfect run on field goals, Caruso’s coaching staff sought a new kicker for kickoffs and found one on campus in first-year Aidan Macke.

“Even though we liked the way that Ben was kicking the field goals… I was not happy with the distance and the placement of the kickoffs and (special teams) coach Kubacki said, ‘I really think we should give Aidan a shot,’” Caruso said.

The Tommie defense held Sergent and the Torero offense to just 144 yards in the air, the least he’s put up against a Pioneer League opponent all season. Defensive backs graduate Grif Wurtz and junior Den Juette each picked him off.

Junior defensive back Ryan Calcagno also forced Sergent to fumble deep in his own backfield, which was recovered by Sever.

“I think the big thing this off-season and this camp, and even during the season has just been stressing getting the ball away, getting takeaways. Last year was not up to our standards at all in that aspect, so it’s just been an ever-present focus for the defense as a whole,” Wurtz said.

Wurtz became the only player in Tommie history to intercept a pass and complete a pass in the same quarter as he threw an 11-yard pass to junior tight end Matt Rink on a fake field goal to keep a first-quarter drive alive.

Despite the pressure on Sergent, he was still able to get a touchdown pass off to senior receiver Ja’seem Reed, and another would-be touchdown that Reed dropped.

“That quarterback is really good. Ja’seem –that wide receiver– one of the best that we will see all year,” Caruso said.

Junior tight end Peyton Smith reeled in the other touchdown for the Toreros.

Saturday’s win puts the Tommies in a tie for first place in the Pioneer League with Drake, the team’s homecoming matchup on Nov. 9.

“It’s not a total surprise, because we said a month and a half ago that we have a propensity of growing into a pretty decent team even though we’re nothing special. What you’ve just seen the last month, month and a half, is that in action,” Caruso said.

St. Thomas is now on a four-game win streak after starting the season 1-3 and losing its nation-best home winning streak at the start of the year.

“Obviously we didn’t start the year exactly how we wanted to, but I think a big thing is just stressing to everybody –old guys or young guys– that we just got to come back every day and get to work,” Wurtz said.

St. Thomas travels to play Morehead State University for the Nov. 2 game in Kentucky. The game kicks off at noon.

Adam Mueller can be reached at muel7541@stthomas.edu.