St. Thomas Beats Davidson 35-7 as Nick Peipert Has a Hand in Four Touchdowns on Halloween

Davidson got the first scare in on Halloween. For roughly two minutes at O'Shaughnessy Stadium, the Wildcats had a lead, a Halloween crowd and a plan that looked like it might work. Then Nick Peipert started collecting touchdowns like candy, and the trick-or-treating was over before the second quarter ended.

St. Thomas beat Davidson 35-7 on Saturday, Oct. 31, in St. Paul, scoring 35 straight points after falling behind on the game's opening possession. Peipert, the redshirt freshman quarterback, had a hand in four touchdowns: two on the ground, one through the air and one on a fumble he scooped up and carried into the end zone himself. The St. Thomas defense did the rest, sacking Davidson quarterbacks repeatedly and never allowing a second score.

The Tommies improved to 7-2 overall and 4-1 in the Pioneer Football League. Davidson fell to 3-6 and 1-4.

A fast start for the visitors

Davidson came to Minnesota off its best moment of the season, a 34-31 overtime win over Morehead State in which the Wildcats drove 90 yards to tie the game with 14 seconds left in regulation. The energy carried over for exactly one possession.

Andrew Frazier returned the opening kickoff 66 yards, and the Wildcats needed only five plays to cash it in. Casey Bullock found AJ Adams for an 11-yard touchdown with 12:49 left in the first quarter, and Christos Tzoumakas added the extra point. Davidson led 7-0, and for a team that lost to St. Thomas 57-13 a year ago, it was a genuinely encouraging opening act.

The fumble that wasn't a disaster

The answer came quickly, and it came in the strangest possible way. On the Tommies' first drive, running back Gabriel Abel broke a 10-yard run before Davidson's Erick Bonner punched the ball loose. In most games, that is a momentum swing for the defense. On Saturday, the ball found Peipert, and the quarterback ran it the rest of the way for a touchdown.

Ben Hoiland's extra point tied it at 7 with 10:39 left in the first quarter. The drive covered 75 yards in four plays, and the last few of those yards came on a play nobody in either building drew up.

St. Thomas took the lead for good on its next possession. The Tommies put together a 12-play, 63-yard drive that bled 6:45 off the clock, and Hoiland finished it with a 27-yard field goal with 15 seconds left in the quarter. It was 10-7, and Davidson's early lead already felt like a long time ago.

The turning point: a 25-point second quarter

If the first quarter was a fight, the second was a takeover. It started with a mistake. On Davidson's first drive of the period, Bullock threw a pass that Preston Franklin intercepted at the Davidson 43, and St. Thomas needed six plays to turn it into points. Peipert ran in from 4 yards out with 10:16 left in the half.

Even the two-point try had a twist. A St. Thomas pass on the conversion fell incomplete, but a Davidson illegal formation penalty gave the Tommies another chance, and Joseph Koch ran it in. It was 18-7.

From there, the quarter belonged to St. Thomas. Davidson went for it on fourth-and-1 from its own 41 and Bullock was stopped for no gain, which handed the Tommies a short field. Peipert punched in a 1-yard touchdown run with 6:25 left. On the next St. Thomas possession, Peipert found Pierce McCrary for a 19-yard touchdown with 2:45 to go, finishing a three-play, 41-yard drive.

The Tommies even squeezed in one more. After a Davidson punt, St. Thomas moved 55 yards in 10 plays, converting a fourth-and-1 when Peipert hit Quentin Cobb-Butler for 6 yards, and Hoiland drilled a 28-yard field goal with six seconds left. St. Thomas went into the locker room up 35-7 after outscoring Davidson 25-0 in the quarter.

Peipert, Cobb-Butler and a busy pass rush

Peipert has been the story of the Tommies' season, and Saturday added another chapter. The redshirt freshman from Barrington, Ill., who was named to Stats Perform's Jerry Rice Award watch list earlier this month, completed 19 of 28 passes for 246 yards and the touchdown to McCrary. Peipert also ran 14 times for a game-high 116 yards, and the official stats credit the quarterback with three rushing scores, counting the fumble return.

Cobb-Butler was the go-to target all afternoon, catching 12 passes for 126 yards. McCrary added five catches for 94 yards with the touchdown, and even threw a completion of his own. It was a reminder that this offense, which came in leading the PFL in total yards, has more than one way to beat you.

The defense may have been even better. William Seymour lived in the Davidson backfield, finishing with 8 tackles and 3.5 sacks. Nash Tichy added 1.5 sacks, Mitchell Schares and Charlie Boucher had one apiece, and St. Thomas finished with seven sacks as a team. Davidson ran 30 times for 58 yards, an average of 1.9 per carry, the kind of number that tells you how few clean pockets and open lanes Bullock and company saw.

The stats that matter

The scoreboard says 35-7, and every one of those points came before halftime. Neither team scored in the second half. St. Thomas turned it over on downs twice, including a fourth-and-1 stuff at the Davidson 20, and an apparent Bonner interception of Peipert in the third quarter was overturned on review. Davidson got creative, with punter Tzoumakas completing a 13-yard pass to Frazier on a fourth-and-1 fake, and the Wildcats put together a 12-play, 75-yard march that reached the St. Thomas 21 before a fourth-down pass fell incomplete.

Still, the overall picture was lopsided. St. Thomas outgained Davidson 489 to 192, piled up 25 first downs to 13 and averaged 7.1 yards per play to Davidson's 3.2. The Tommies ran for 232 yards at 6.3 per carry. Time of possession was almost dead even, 30:06 to 29:54, which tells you the Tommies did not need to sit on the ball to do their damage. They just needed about 15 minutes of good football. The full numbers are in the ESPN box score (opens in a new tab).

Davidson's bright spots were real, if limited. Adams was a reliable outlet with 10 catches for 56 yards and the touchdown, and Jacary Lightsey added a 26-yard grab late in the fourth quarter. Tzoumakas averaged 46.6 yards on five punts, Christian Lyons led the Wildcats with nine tackles, and Bonner made seven tackles and forced the fumble that, in a fairer universe, would have been a takeaway.

What it means

For St. Thomas, this was a business trip in its own stadium, and the timing could not be better. The Tommies entered the weekend in a four-way tie for first place in the PFL after beating Marist 35-13 a week ago. Two of the other co-leaders also won on Saturday, with Butler beating Presbyterian 27-10 and Dayton outlasting Stetson 44-34.

That sets up the next one nicely. St. Thomas travels to Butler on Nov. 7, then hosts Drake on Nov. 14 and finishes at Valparaiso on Nov. 21. The Butler trip has the look of a game that could decide who controls the league race in November. It also made this one, per the St. Thomas preview, the Tommies' first Halloween game since 2015, and Glenn Caruso's program is now 3-0 on Oct. 31 in his tenure.

For Davidson, the lesson is familiar. The Wildcats can hang for a quarter, and they showed fight on special teams and in a long fourth-quarter drive. But against the top of this league, one turnover and one failed fourth down turned into 25 points in a single quarter. Next up for Davidson is a home game against Stetson on Nov. 7 at Richardson Stadium, with Marist coming to town for the finale on Nov. 21.

The last word

St. Thomas did not need its best game to win this one. It needed a few minutes to wake up, one lucky bounce on a fumble and a quarterback who keeps turning ordinary drives into touchdowns. Peipert supplied all of it.

Davidson opened the afternoon with a jump scare. St. Thomas closed it with a reminder of why it is sitting near the top of the PFL, and why the trip to Butler next week suddenly matters so much.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play, St. Thomas Athletics game preview and Undrafted's previous coverage of St. Thomas, Butler and Dayton. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Kason Zetah/St. Thomas Athletics (file photo).