St. Thomas football’s 36-20 road loss to Butler on Saturday was full of blocked kicks, interceptions, failed third-down conversions and fruitless red zone appearances.
The hardest pill for coach Glenn Caruso to swallow was that none of these mistakes were new.
“I think it was very similar to last week, and frankly, the week before. That’s disappointing and upsetting to me in many ways. We can’t expect someone else to make a play, we can’t expect one side of the ball to do everything,” Caruso told ESPN Radio.
The Tommies only converted once on their 12 third downs. They’re 10-39 over the last three games. They’ve missed four field goals or extra points in that span, including one on Saturday. The team reached the red zone five times and scored twice, making them 7-12 across the losing streak.
“We did not finish well, whether it’s on whatever side of the ball. We didn’t finish the drive well, we didn’t finish the half well, we didn’t finish the game well. We didn’t finish well,” Caruso said.
Caruso had never lost three games in a row at St. Thomas until Saturday. Now, the team sits at 5-6 overall.
Butler entered the game ranked No. 25 on the Football Championship Subdivision Coaches Poll and backed it up. The offense gashed St. Thomas for 211 yards passing and 168 yards rushing, while the defense forced five turnovers. Caruso called the Bulldogs “opportunistic” for taking advantage of his team’s mistakes.
“They were three-for-three in the red zone, they turned us over and that was really the difference in the game,” Caruso said.
The purple and gray offense started in the game with an aggressive air attack. Sophomore quarterback Tak Tateoka had 178 yards passing in the first half. He also had two interceptions.
Tateoka only completed 13 of his 26 pass attempts before he was replaced with sophomore quarterback Michael Rostberg with nine minutes left in the game.
Tateoka and Rostberg each threw touchdowns to junior receiver Colin Chase. Tateoka added the team’s third on the ground.
Typically, St. Thomas’ offense can rely on senior running back Hope Adebayo to kick start the offense. Adebayo eclipsed 1,000 yards rushing for the season on Saturday in one of the best individual seasons in school history.
Against Butler, he had just 61 yards, with 40 coming on a singular play. In total, the offense had an uncharacteristic 305 yards passing and 62 rushing.
“I don’t care how many yards you throw for. Case in point, we threw for 300 yards, it’s probably a season high, it might be a high for the last two years, and still, we’re sitting here with a two score loss,” Caruso said, “You need to be able to run the ball. Run it effectively and efficiently.”
St. Thomas needed to come back from the 15-point deficit midway through the fourth quarter, attributing to the high passing numbers.
Chase had 121 receiving yards and graduate receiver Jacob Wildermuth had 103 yards.
“When we get in games like we have the last three weeks where the second half, we feel like we have to pass, obviously it’s not something that we’re doing very well because we’re 0-3 the last three weeks,” Caruso said.
The team has been battling injuries all season and was out with multiple key players Saturday. Junior running back Gabe Abel and junior tight end Matt Rink didn’t play, and multiple players had to be helped off the field, including junior defensive back Ryan Calcagno.
“I understand we’re playing with a lot of backups and I understand that this year was an anomaly with injuries, relative to what we’ve faced the past 16 years. Guys have stepped up and prepared well but we need to finish better,” Caruso said.
The Tommies finish the season at home and will try to prevent the first losing season in Caruso’s tenure as head coach.
“Every team that we’ve had that is great has failed tremendously many, many times, but they’ve met their failures straight on and they’ve improved and grown from those,” Caruso said, “Right now we are simply not learning well enough or growing fast enough.”
The game against Dayton kicks off at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 23 at O’Shaughnessy Stadium.
Adam Mueller can be reached at muel7541@stthomas.edu.