Oct 29, 2015 5 min read

At first glance, Saturday afternoon’s football game between Thomas More and Waynesburg might seem like a mismatch.

Thomas More is nationally ranked in NCAA Division III and Waynesburg is struggling through a sub-.500 season.

But history tells a different story at times.

Thomas More comes into this Presidents’ Athletic Conference game tied for first place with Case Western Reserve with 6-0 records. Waynesburg has staggered through the season with a 2-4 record in the conference and 3-5 overall mark.

But the Yellow Jackets had some surprising success against the Saints recently and hope to again when the two teams meet in Crestview Hills, Ky., for the 1 p.m. kickoff.

“In the course of my tenure here, all things considered, we’ve played them very well,” said Waynesburg head coach Rick Shepas.

Thomas More has a 41-8 record since 2011, including a 33-5 mark in the PAC. Two of those losses came against Waynesburg.

The first was a 26-23 upset in 2011 that gave the Saints their only loss in the conference and nearly knocked them from the automatic playoff berth in the NCAA Division III championships. The Yellow Jackets finished 5-5 that year. The second win for Waynesburg came the following season, 14-10, this time knocking Thomas More from the playoff picture.

In that game, Willie Leavell blocked a punt and returned it for a touchdown with seven minutes left in the game at Wiley Stadium. Thomas More was ranked 23rd in the country at the time.

“To win this game,” Shepas said, “I think we have to run the football well to set up the play-action pass. That would be huge for us. Defensively, we have to tackle well. We have to stop the run first and that starts with tackling.”

The Yellow Jackets are young but not so inexperienced any longer with just two games remaining in the season. Shepas said he is still waiting for a game in which his team plays consistent in all phases for 60 minutes.

“In some ways, we have played great and in other ways not so great,” said Shepas. “I just want us to be consistent. We talked about playing consistent in the three phases of a game and we haven’t done that for a full game.”

Thomas More, ranked 11th by d3football.com, is the top offensive and defensive team in the PAC. Waynesburg ranks eight and sixth, respectively. The Saints rushing attack is led by tailback CT Tarrant, who needs 63 yards to reach 1,000, and a passing attack now directed by sophomore Brenan Kuntz, who replaced the injured Jason Gebhardt two weeks ago. Kuntz now leads the PAC with a 65 percent completion percentage and has 1,034 yards and 11 touchdowns.

The Saints’ defense has produced 27 sacks with a plus-8 turnover ratio.

“It’s the same team we see every time,” Shepas said. “They are athletic, blessed with size and speed. … The have the advantage of recruiting from the heavily populated Cincinnati area. There is no doubt how good they are.”

The sting from last week’s 35-28 loss to Case Western Reserve is slowly wearing off for W&J.

The playoffs are now no longer a reality for head coach Mike Sirianni’s team.

“We finish the season, trying to win the rest of the games as a team,” said Sirianni. “The football program has to look to see that this doesn’t happen again.”

Sirianni said he believes a chance at the playoffs was lost last November and December.

“I believe we were more focused after last season on how we can make a jump to the next level and compete with Mount Union and Wisconsin-Whitewater rather than on let’s improve our players,” he said. “We put signs in our locker room of the playoff game (a loss to Mount Union) and we don’t even play them in the regular season. Our focus was on how do we compete with those teams when it should have been how can we improve. We didn’t. We didn’t improve. We are not a better football than we were last year. When the football team doesn’t improve, blame me. I will tell you it won’t happen again. We’re going to fix it.”

Sirianni said everyone needs to work harder.

“It was a humbling season,” he said. “We had a lot of expectations and they came crumbling down.”

W&J enters the game against Geneva with a 3-2 conference record and 5-2 overall mark. Geneva is 1-4, 2-5.

Tailback Ryan Ruffing is 190 yards from 1,000 and quarterback Pete Coughlin is 56 passing yards from 2,000. Geneva has struggled to run the football, gaining just 625 yards this season. Quarterback Aaron Channing is averaging 186 passing yards per game and has been intercepted only six times in 211 attempts.

After handing Clarion its first loss of the season last week, California University’s football team will finish the schedule with a game at Gannon, a home game with Mercyhurst and the finale at Lock Haven.

Gannon, the preseason pick to win the PSAC West, has had trouble on defense, allowing at least four touchdowns in five games. The Golden Knights, like Cal, are 3-2 in the conference and 6-2 overall. Cal is 5-3. Brock Jones leads the PSAC with 964 rushing yards and quarterback Liam Nadler has thrown for 2,184 yards, 20 touchdowns and just three interceptions in 281 attempts.

John Franklin and Jimmy Wheeler have combined for 1,082 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns. Quarterback James Harris has thrown 11 interceptions, four more than last season. He needs 10 touchdown passes in the final three games to match last year’s mark of 24.