CHICAGO --- A college football fan would have had no doubt which team was ranked fourth in the nation had the reference point been the second quarter of Saturday night's matchup between University of St. Francis and Saint Xavier University.
No question… USF.
Saint Xavier, the pre-season NAIA No. 4 pick, finished off USF 52-21, the second straight year the Saints fell to the Cougars by that score.
Once again the damage inflicted on St. Francis came from a pair of former Will County stars. Providence Catholic product Mike Maher scored four times, three on touchdown passes from Lincoln-Way East alum Anthony Kropp who tossed five scoring strikes.
Maher caught 9 passes for 112 yards, while Kropp threw for 361 yards.
For all but those two players' heroics, it was USF who absolutely dominated the Cougars from late in the first quarter all the way to half time. In the final 17:49 of the first half, the Saints controlled the ball for 16:01.
During that stretch, St. Francis cut a 21-7 Saint Xavier lead to 21-14 on an E. J. White (St. Cloud H.S./St. Cloud, FL) two-yard touchdown run with 7:55 to play in the half. That capped a 15-play drive and used up 9:24 of possession time.
After Saint Xavier was forced to punt on the next possession, the Saints took 6:07 off the clock, driving from their own 6-yard line to the Cougar 18 in 17 plays. The long drive, however, came up empty as a 36-yard field goal attempt was wide left with 10 seconds to play in the half.
"Our goal was to get it to half, and we did," said USF head coach Mike Uremovich. "We were in it. We didn't get that score before the half. That would have been nice to tie it."
White, the freshman quarterback making his second collegiate start in just his second game, rushed for 110 yards in the first half, 64 of them coming on a touchdown run in the first quarter of the suspended game that started on Thursday night. Lightning postponed all but the first 9:05 of the game until Saturday.
Once the second half began, Saint Xavier flexed its offensive muscles and demonstrated the explosiveness that propelled it into the national semifinals last season.
The Cougars had scoring drives of 51, 22, 21, 81 and 50 yards which took a cumulative time of 7:35. With 12:38 to play in the fourth quarter, St. Francis trailed 52-14.
"When the game is within a score or two, we're very comfortable with our offense to control the football," Uremovich said. "They are so explosive that when they get up two scores, you feel like ‘We have to score now!'
"It isn't enough to take a couple of minutes off the clock and it snowballs, and Saint Xavier got way more aggressive. They know they are going to score more. They're the fourth-ranked team in the country."
Sophomore Desmond Page (Briggs H.S./Columbus, OH) engineered the final USF scoring drive, running in a 3-yard touchdown. Page, the backup quarterback, rushed for 34 yards and threw for 42 more on the final drive.
The Saints (0-2) begin Mid-States Football Association/Midwest League play next Saturday evening when they host Grand View University (IA) in the home opener. The game will kick off at 6 p.m. on Joliet Memorial Stadium's new MondoTurf.
Grand View, runnerup in the Midwest League a year ago, will come to Joliet with a 1-0 record after enjoying an open date this weekend. USF begins a stretch of six home games in its next eight contests.
