One-third of the way through the 2018 season already, and the Xavier Saints look, well, like the defending state champions. Quinn Schulte and Braden Stovie ran for just about 110 yards apiece and the defense picked up their first shutout of the year as the Saints blanked Davenport Assumption 48-0 last Friday.
Let's talk a bit about that defense. They've allowed 7 points to Iowa City Regina, then 3 to Decorah before the shutout of Assumption - if that trend persists, they'll start allowing negative points, if that's possible. Jon Bell has credit for 4 sacks and Kyle Krezek has 3, opponents have gotten a total of 57 yards passing over the past two weeks, the Saints are allowing only about 63 yards per game on the ground, the linebackers (particularly juniors Ethan Hurkett and Jakob Forslund) are playing great, we've already seen two blocked punts this year ... Coach O'Connell has these guys playing at a really high level.
But really, Xavier is running on all cylinders so far this year. The Saints have scored 40-plus points in all three games, against pretty good competition (even though all three teams Xavier defeated are currently 1-2, Regina is a top 1A team, Decorah is really pretty good with plenty of size and talent, and Assumption has always played tough against good opponents). The continuous clock has run for the entire second half of two games and the entire fourth quarter of the other. Add to that, as I mentioned, that they've allowed only 10 points, and the first third of the season has been pretty much everything you'd want so far. Heck, one of the sore points of good Xavier teams over the years has been penalties, but even that hasn't been an issue so far this season. Even the scout team offense has shined, putting together solid, consistent, long drives in the fourth quarter of all three games and finishing two of those drives with touchdowns (the other one ended inside the 5 as the clock ran out).
But a test is certainly coming this week. West Delaware boasts a ton of offensive weapons, from a huge 300-pound sophomore lineman blasting open running lanes to a quarterback (Nick Casey) who's already thrown 80 passes for almost 500 yards to one of the top running backs in the state (Caleb Kehrli). Kehrli has run for just about 1800 yards in his last 14 games, averaging 5.9 yards per carry with 100 carries already in three games this season (that's no small sample size!). West Delaware and coach Jim Winkowitsch have a terrific 3A program in Manchester, one that's been to the playoffs for 10 years in a row, and this offense has been unstoppable so far.
Defensively, though, the Hawks do appear to have a weak link - they've given up a ton of passing yards. You can't really put that on teams trying to catch up through the air, either, as Marion led West Delaware pretty much the entire game two weeks ago until the Hawks pulled it out at the end, and Mt. Vernon stayed step-for-step with WD last Friday with the lead changing hands three times over the past 3 minutes or so.
(A bit of an aside: while Mt. Vernon pulled out that game at the end in a thrilling finish, it turns out one of their players participated in more quarters of football than he was allowed to last week, playing in both JV and varsity contests. Mt. Vernon's head coach self-reported the situation, which by rule results in a forfeit to West Delaware - that means the Hawks are officially 3-0 going into this week's Xavier game.)
So it's up to Schulte and the Saints receivers to make a mark this Friday. The offensive line has been outstanding at both run and pass blocking so far - they'll need to keep that up with WD's Jordan Bries accounting for 5 sacks already this year. The receivers, by the way, have generally shown up big this season - Kyle Moeder had two big TD catches against Regina, and Matt Jordebrek added two more against Decorah - but there were some drops and missed opportunities last Friday. West Delaware probably isn't going to be very forgiving of Xavier mistakes.
As the season has started to take shape over the first third, Xavier has certainly solidified their expectations as the favorite in District 4. This week is probably the Saints' toughest test so far this season - once district play starts on September 21 Xavier begins with Maquoketa and Dubuque Wahlert, two struggling programs that have yet to find a win, but October 5 will be another big test as Western Dubuque comes to Saints Field. Apparently it's the WD teams that are looking to challenge Xavier in 2018.
Mentioning district titles and playoffs - the official RPIs are posted on the IHSAA website. They don't mean anything after just three games, but it's a chance to see how those numbers are shaping up. Remember, if you win your district, it doesn't matter what your RPI is, you're in the playoffs. That number is going to come into play for the at-large, non-district-champion playoff qualifiers, of which there could be as many as seven. So it's interesting at this point, but doesn't really mean that much.
Let's see what Xavier does on the road at a pretty darn good opponent this week, then we'll get started on the district games after that.
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