Following their biggest blowout of the season, 40-7 over the Hamline Pipers, the St. John’s Johnnies travel to St. Paul to take on their biggest rival, the St. Thomas Tommies. It’s been a decade since the Tommies toppled the Johnnies on the gridiron, but for the first time in ages the two-loss Johnnies are looking up at the Tommies in the standings. The Tommies’ only loss this season came in 7 overtimes to St. Olaf.
Here’s a look at how the contributors to JohnnieFootball.com see this season’s Tommie/Johnnie game playing out:
DuffMan: I can foresee this game going two directions. Scenario number one is that the Johnnies finally started clicking after their monkey stomp of Hamline last week and will come out to roll over the Tommies. Scenario number two is that last week’s score was more indicative of a poor Piper squad than a massive improvement by the Johnnies, and the Tommies will earn their first win in a long time.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the Johnnies will come out on top. Their flashes of brilliance have been overshadowed by too many mediocre performances. The Tommies are on the upswing. They’ve got a young, hungry coach and a veteran quarterback, while St. John’s has yet to even settle on a quarterback. I think the Johnnie defense will keep them in the game, but as has been the case too often this year, offensive woes will prevent a win. St. Thomas 14, St. John’s 10.
DustySJU: Along with “Johnnie Tats”, my Johnnie blinders are particularly wide. Obscuring my vision, along with those blinders, are my red-tinted glasses which find their way whenever the subject of St. John’s is ignited. Keep that in mind as I remind you this isn’t your classic Johnnie football team. I could give you good reasons why the Tommies should win this game but I won’t, and they won’t. Today is a great day to be a Johnnie. St. John’s 20, St. Thomas 17.
JohnnieEsq: I have been trying to avoid this moment for the past ten years, for what I have to do does not make me proud, nor do I do it lightly or with any pleasure whatsoever. Actually, what I am about to do is extremely painful for me and I fear the worst in society has bottled itself up in me at this moment– dogs and cats, living together! Hell hath received a record snowfall! This just in: Pope Benedict declares he is Anglican!
How far the mighty have fallen for this to occur!
I have simply lost any and all faith for this Johnnie team to win in competitive games over the past few years, who have consistently underperformed and have shown little-to-no fire when in the most intense pressure situations–and this one, a chance to show “new coach-same UST” does not seem to rebuild my confidence in the Jays. Quite simply this team, on offense, cannot get it done come crunch time. And despite limiting a UST team to two scores, I am afraid we cannot do more than that, as our offense has played downright offensive as of late. And now we stand up to our rival, the one game the alumni circle on their calendar each year to waive the flag, and instead of considering a pilgrimage to Summit and Cretin to consider the candidacy for canonization of the 2008 quarterback, we want someone’s head on a platter. I guess I summarize my fears this way:
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere Johnnies are laughing, and somewhere their children shout;
But there is no joy in Collegeville— the mighty Jays have choked out.
St. Thomas 14, St. John’s 13.
Johnnie Tats: No deep technical analysis needed. No quaint marketing phrase for the game needed. And, sure as heck, no extra motivation should be needed by this year’s squad! IT’S THE TOMMIE/JOHNNIE GAME! If you are a true Johnnie, and you are not unbelievably motivated and ready for this game, then you should turn in your Johnnie Ring and Rat T-shirts!
For the Nation… For Rich Hall SJU ’63 (who always wanted me to get a Tommies SUCK Tattoo) and for my Dad (Col H.F. Hacker SJU ’62)… Let’s go Johnnies! St. John’s 49, St. Thomas 3.
Mr.Shoes: We’re not losing to ****ing St. Thomas. St. John’s 17, St. Thomas 13.
(Hey, it worked last week *cough*.)
Sjusection105: This has been a crazy year in the MIAC and I don’t see today’s Johnnie-Tommie game being any different. The Tommies have a lot to play for: a new coach, a student body that kind of knows there’s some sort of big rivalry game going on today and, of course, trying to get the 10-year monkey off their collective backs.
The Tommies have some solid players on both sides of the ball and should win this game. Having home field should give them a 3 point advantage. Unfortunately they don’t have John Gagliardi on their sideline. St. John’s 14, St. Thomas 10.
TC: Before I begin, I’d like to take a second to blow my own horn. The past two weeks, I’ve been off by a total of three points on my predictions in this column, as I predicted Bethel 14, St. John’s 7 (actual score 14-9) and St. John’s 40, Hamline 6 (actual score 40-7). Now we don’t put score predictions on here because we think that we’ll be right, we do so to try to give you a general idea of how the game’s going to play out. And let me clear up a growing misconception—I don’t have any better idea how this Johnnie team is going to play on a week-by-week than anyone else.
That said, I don’t have quite as much pessimism for this team as many of my fellow Johnnie followers seem to. Sure, they have two losses, but they are only two plays away from being undefeated. Two plays away from everyone talking about is this team with an airtight defense and an offense without any stars that just finds a way to win. Granted, they haven’t actually found a way to win, but this isn’t a team devoid of talent.
At the same time, St. Thomas has added a ton of talent from last year, both on the sidelines and between the lines. But that talent is inexperienced—Glenn Caruso never coached anything like a Tommie/Johnnie game at Macalester, Fritz Waldvogel never played a Tommie/Johnnie game at St. Thomas Academy, and Tommy Becker hardly has played at all in the two years since high school. This is a team with the talent to beat St. John’s, but it’s been ten years since the Tommies have been able to pull off the feat. I think it’ll be 11 after this weekend. St. John’s 20, St. Thomas 16.
Touchdown Tommy: This year marks the first time in recent memory that St. Thomas is the favorite heading into the matchup with the Johnnies. They have home field advantage, a reinvigorated program led by new head coach Glenn Caruso, and are coming off an impressive road victory on the frozen tundra of Moorhead. The Johnnies continue to look very average (take off the red blinders, last week’s Hamline game was clearly not as impressive as the final score indicates, that was a team that the Johnnies should destroy in the first half allowing the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th stringers to gain valuable game experience) and, thus, there is no reason to expect any of the results to change significantly. Teams live and die with their quarterback play. The Johnnies’ Jordan Hansel has been less than stellar all season long. He throws a nice long ball, but that is it. You can’t continue to make poor decisions, throw interceptions in the red zone, and underthrow wide open receivers. St. Thomas 24, St. John’s 13.
