How Do You Get Back on the Field After Losing 98-0? As Quickly as Possible

Jake Zoellick, the starting defensive tackle for the College of St. Scholastica, a Division III school located in Duluth, Minnesota, has a message for future opponents.

"Watch out," Zoellick told B/R on Wednesday. "We're coming."

Even the slightest hint of swagger normally wouldn't be expected from members of a team that suffered the worst college football blowout in more than a decade.

But that's what makes St. Scholastica's season-opening 98-0 drubbing by Saint John's last Saturday even more bizarre. The Saints, after all, are hardly the type of team you'd expect to be on the receiving end of such a beatdown.

St. Scholastica has posted a 26-7 record over the last three seasons, including a 7-3 mark in 2016, when it failed to make the D-III playoffs for the first time since 2010.

Heck, crazy as it sounds now, with a slew of returning starters and upperclassmen, St. Scholastica's players took the field Saturday expecting to hang close with one of the winningest programs in D-III history.

And maybe even win.

"If a few things went our way," fourth-year coach Kurt Ramler said, "we thought we'd have a chance."

Ramler's players were convinced, too.

"What happened (Saturday) was totally uncharacteristic of our team," Zoellick said. "We firmly believed we had a chance to play a close game against them."

Those ambitions died quickly.

Saint John's scored on its third play from scrimmage. Then, after forcing the Saints' offense to a three-and-out, the Johnnies recovered a mishandled snap on a punt attempt and turned it into a touchdown two plays later. A little more than a minute later, they returned an interception for a touchdown.

Less than six minutes into the game, and after just five offensive plays by Saint John's, the Saints were down 21-0.

Photo courtesy Alexus Jungles/Saint John's University

"We played about as poorly as we could—and our opponent played about as well as they could," said Ramler, who, ironically, is a former star quarterback for Saint John's. He also spent a year as a Johnnies assistant coach.

"It was incredibly frustrating. A combination of poor play and some fluke plays led to us digging a really deep hole early. And it kept getting deeper."

Indeed, St. Scholastica trailed 63-0 after Saint John's returned a fumble 73 yards for a touchdown just before halftime. By the time he reached the locker room, Ramler had decided to pull the majority of his starters and play mostly freshmen in the second half.

"We had some guys hanging their heads," Ramler said. "It was tough not to hang my head. I just thought, 'This one is a doozy. Let's get our freshmen some experience that might pay off later in the season.'"

Saint John's tacked on 35 more points in the second half, causing many who saw the score on television or social media to question whether Johnnies coach Gary Fasching exhibited poor sportsmanship by running up the score.

A closer look at the box score suggests that was hardly the case.

Fasching told the St. Paul Pioneer Press he used 160 players Saturday. Thirteen of them scored a touchdown. He said all of his starters had been yanked for good midway through the second quarter. Preseason All-American receiver Evan Clark touched the ball just one time. Fasching said the Johnnies threw their last pass at the 10-minute mark of the third quarter—and that came on an audible following a botched run play.

"We tried everything we could not to run it up," he told the paper. "It was the perfect storm. Everything we did worked, and everything they tried didn't work. We could play them 10 more times and there is no way the score ends up like it did.

"It was the hardest game I've ever had to coach in."

Maddening as the experience was, Zoellick said he and his teammates weren't subjected to taunts and trash talk by Saint John's players.

"I thought they were being really respectful," Zoellick said. "I got injured during the game. The offensive lineman I was going against was making sure I was OK. They definitely weren't doing anything wrong or [unsportsmanlike]."

Photo courtesy Alexus Jungles/Saint John's University

In fact, it was just the opposite.

Before the start of the fourth quarter, Fasching asked the officials if the final 15 minutes could be played with a running clock. While that wasn't a possibility, he was told they could play a "shortened quarter" that would last only one minute. As much as Ramler appreciated the offer—"He's a good man," the coach said of Fasching—the coach declined it and opted to play the final 15 minutes.

By game's end, Saint John's had compiled 560 yards of offense (while averaging 9.0 yards per play) while St. Scholastica finished with 52 yards (a 0.9 yards-per-play average).

"Everything that could go wrong for them did," Fasching said, "and everything we did turned to gold. I got a number of emails. I got some hate mail, which can be expected. I heard from a number of coaches who've coached against me. They said, 'We know that's not who you are.' People look at the score without being at the game and think they know what happened."

Instead of pretending like it didn't occur, the Saints are trying to draw strength from Saturday's loss. Time and time again the past few days, Ramler has reminded his players that they'll be remembered less for the 98-0 defeat and more for how they respond to it.

"We can't let that define our season," Zoellick said. "We have a good team. We can win a lot of games."

So eager are the Saints to prove last weekend was a fluke that "they were ready to get on the field the very next day," Ramler said of the team's preparations to face Greenville (Illinois) this Saturday. "We're keeping things in proper context. What happened last weekend … in the end, it was just one loss."

And perhaps one that, eventually, may even be looked back upon with a chuckle or two.

Right, Coach?

"Give me some time on that one," Ramler said. "Give me some time."

Jason King is a senior writer for B/R. A former staff writer at ESPN.com, Yahoo Sports and the Kansas City Star, King's work has received mention in the popular book series The Best American Sportswriting. In both 2015 and 2016, King was tabbed as one of the top five beat writers in the nation by the APSE. Follow him on Twitter: @JasonKingBR