ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Concordia-St. Paul football team (1-3 NSIC) put on a homecoming show for a crowd of 2,132 on Saturday afternoon at Sea Foam Stadium in a 44-3 win over Minnesota Crookston (0-4 NSIC). It was a complete team performance as the a balanced offense rolled up 499 yards of total offense while the defense forced three turnovers and held UMC to 158 yards and the special teams provided big return yardage and three field goals.

The Golden Bears begin NSIC South Divisional play next Saturday at Sioux Falls.

Concordia had its first 300-yard passing performance as a team this season as senior Jared Russo completed 22-28 for 248 yards and three touchdowns while redshirt freshman Ben Schramski made his debut with 3-6 for 57 yards.


CU Football vs. UM Crookston (Homecoming 2014) - Images by Justin Oakman

Together, Russo and Schramski connected with nine different targets as eight players had at least two receptions. Senior Jermaine Clemon had five catches for 61 yards while senior Cordell Smith had three catches for 81 yards and a pair of touchdowns including a 46-yard score on Concordia's opening drive less than a minute into play.

The running game bruised UMC for 194 yards on 38 team attempts led by senior Tre Spears with 20 carries for 139 yards and a 24-yard touchdown.

Defensively, Concordia held UMC under 100 passing yards for the third time in four games this season as two Golden Eagle quarterbacks combined to complete 10-25 for 94 yards with two interceptions and were sacked four times. Concordia's run defense held UMC to just 64 yards on 29 attempts for a total of 158 yards of offense.

Concordia's defense allowed UMC to cross midfield just three times on its 14 drives. Of those three drives, two ended with turnovers and the other was a 37-yard field goal from the 20-yard line - the deepest UMC would advance in the game.

Junior defensive lineman Dion Roche accounted for all four sacks and also hurried UMC's passers five times, leading the defense with eight total tackles. As a team, Concordia stopped UMC behind the line 10 times, with senior Nick Jauch adding 2.0 tackles for loss and five hurries. Senior Hank Goff also got in the quarterback's face three times as Concordia hurried UMC's quarterbacks 15 times.

Senior strong safety Abdullah Asad had six tackles and forced a pair of turnovers with an interception and a fumble recovery while redshirt freshman nose guard Chazz Roberts intercepted a screen pass as well.

On special teams, senior Tom Obarski tied a school record that he already shared by converting three field goals and added five PAT's for a 14 point day. All three of his field goals were from 45-plus yards, hitting a 45-yarder in the first quarter, from 48 in the second and from 47 in the third to put Concordia head 23-3 early in the second half. He also punted three times for a 33.3 average but two of his three punts pinned UMC inside the 20 and he produced three kickoff touchbacks out of his nine total kickoffs.

The return game was led by freshman Uzziah Davis as he averaged 40.0 yards on his two kickoff returns, taking the opening kickoff back 47 yards to set up Smith's 46-yard touchdown reception from Russo.