By Dan Weber NKyTribune sports reporter
Thomas More’s first big football showdown in its new Great Midwest Athletic Conference came sooner than anyone should have expected. In only its third league game, the Saints found themselves hosting Tiffin University in a battle of 2-0 teams for the conference’s top spot.
Tiffin, the No. 1 offense in the league and No. 2 in the nation in the NCAA Division II, against a TMU defense that was No. 1 in the league, holding opponents to 14.5 points a game.
“They’ve been at this a long time,” Thomas More Coach Chris Norwell said with a nod to the power that Tiffin has become as the G-MAC’s lone team to earn votes in the NCAA Division II poll. “That’s a very good team.”
The Saints, and a capacity crowd at Republic Bank Field at the Griffin Family Plaza had an up-close look at just how good. After Thomas More took a 9-3 lead at the first quarter, the unbeaten Dragons (5-0) ran off 44 unanswered points for a decisive 47-9 win, dropping the Saints to 3-2 (2-1 in the G-MAC).
Just one position made the case for how different these programs are. Tiffin’s quarterback is a 6-foot-4, 220-pound strong-armed fifth-year grad student transfer, Kason Martin, a former Texas all-stater who took his Manvel High School team to the state title game before leading North Texas to two Division I bowl games before transferring to Eastern New Mexico and Tiffin.
“He’s played a lot of football,” Norwell said. “He’s got a huge arm.” Indeed, an arm that completed 19 of 28 for 193 yards and three touchdowns while running for another 42 and two TDs.
Thomas More, on the other hand, after veteran starting quarterback Rae’Von Vaden sprained his ankle in Thursday’s practice, had “to play our pups,” Norwell said. That meant that freshman Chase Crone out of Simon Kenton and fellow freshman Griffin Scalf of Cincinnati Anderson would share the honors with barely a day to get ready.
Crone got TMU on the board first with a 2-yard run, concluding the Saints’ opening 53-yard, six-play drive. No one knew it would be their last. Crone would hit on 11 of 24 passing for 82 yards. Scalf completed five of 10 for 57.
But if it was tough for TMU to pass against the Dragons, it was tougher to run the ball. Counting the four sacks for 19 yards, the Saints ran the ball 29 times for a net 32 yards, barely more than a yard a carry.
Contrast that with the 375 rushing yards Tiffin put up. That’s a tribute to an athletic Tiffin team that had three quick, strong running backs and multiple defenders wherever the TMU offense tried to go.
The disparity on offense was glaring with Tiffin racking up 568 yards to TMU’s 174.
Norwell, a tough four-year starter as a defensive lineman for an Illinois team that made it to the Rose Bowl his senior season, wasn’t happy with his team’s post-game talking in the handshake line answering an extremely chippy Tiffin team that talked as hard as it played.
“You had 60 minutes to do the talking,” Norwell told the Saints. But no time for that now. Time to respond and get better. “They won that second half physically.”
And yes, the first half could have gone better except for the two makeable field goals that were missed, a blocked punt that led to a 1-yard Tiffin TD and the fake punt pass that fell short. The 23-9 score on the board could have been maybe 16-15 Tiffin had things gone TMU’s way.
But no way were the Saints in Tiffin’s class.
“We’re going to take risks here,” Norwell told his team. “We’re going to win ball games . . . that’s the only way to get better . . . there’s a lot of football to be played.”
But there’s only one way to play it, Norwell told them. “We have to play together, when we lose, or when we win. Who’s going to be the best team from Kentucky in the G-MAC?” is one thing to be decided when the Saints head to Owensboro for Kentucky Wesleyan Saturday (7 p.m.).
Then he circled back to this game. “We’re better than that,” he said. “This feeling sucks.”
Remember that, Norwell told them. And then decide “what kind of team you’re going to be” when the Saints come back Monday for lifting after the weekend. “Your response is huge.”
SCORING SUMMARY
TIFFIN (5-0, 3-0) 3 20 14 10—47
THOMAS MORE (3-2, 2-1) 9 0 0 0—9
TMU: Crone 2 run (Iden PAT kick)
TIFFIN: Woodfin 20 FG
TMU: Team safety
TIFFIN: Lewis 25 pass from Martin (Woodfin PAT kick)
TIFFIN: Banks-Dorn 2 pass from Martin (Woodfin PAT kick)
TIFFIN: Martin 1 run (PAT kick failed)
TIFFIN: Dean 19 pass from Martin (Woodfin PAT kick)
TIFFIN: Gresock 4 run (Woodfin PAT kick)
TIFFIN: Martin 1 run (Woodfin PAT kick)
TIFFIN: Woodfin 19 FG