It’s late October, and the St. Thomas football program is 6-2 and has a realistic chance of qualifying for the FCS playoffs.
The University of St. Thomas has had a Division I football program since the 2021 season, competing at the lowest level in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), the Pioneer Football League. Not every member of the conference offers football scholarships, but the league does have an automatic bid into the FCS playoffs. Through four conference games, St. Thomas is in a four-way tie for first place.
St. Thomas became the first and only Minnesota college football program to compete at the FCS level in 2021. If you’re not familiar with the playoffs, 24 of the 128 teams at the level qualify for the tournament. Eleven conferences earn automatic bids, and the remaining teams are chosen through an at-large process similar to other NCAA sports.
St. Thomas football was a very successful program at the Division III level, winning 21 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) titles and making nine appearances in the DIII playoffs.
Under longtime head coach Glenn Caruso, the Tommies have been one of the most consistent programs in the Pioneer League since making the jump to Division I. They went 7-3 in their first year and even won the league at 10-1 in 2022, but they weren’t allowed to play in the postseason, according to NCAA rules.
The Tommies have gone 8-3, 6-6 and 7-5 over the last three seasons. They’re now eligible for postseason play across all Division I sports, and they’re firmly in the race to claim the Pioneer League’s automatic bid with just four games remaining.
San Diego was voted the preseason favorite to win the conference, but it has gotten off to a shaky 2-3 start in Pioneer League play. Drake has won the conference in each of the last three seasons, but its head coach, Joe Woodley, left to become an assistant at Rutgers, and the Bulldogs are also 2-3.
The conference race is wide open, and St. Thomas is in the mix. The Tommies lost a nonconference game to North Dakota, but their lone Pioneer League loss came against Presbyterian. They handed Marist its first loss of the season, winning 35-13 in Week 8 in Poughkeepsie, New York, in what was a huge victory.
The Tommies finish the season against Davidson ((3-5, 1-3) at home, Butler (6-2, 3-1) on the road, Drake (2-6, 1-3) at home and Valparaiso (4-4, 3-2) in the regular-season finale. They already hold the tiebreaker over Marist, but there’s a disaster scenario in which St. Thomas and Dayton finish the season tied atop the Pioneer League standings, and they don’t play each other. The tiebreaker would then be each team’s record against all common opponents in the league.
The Pioneer League has never received an at-large invitation since the format began including the conference among those with automatic bids in 2013.
Furthermore, a team from the Pioneer League hasn’t won a game in the FCS playoffs since 2017. A team from the Pioneer League didn’t even receive a vote in the latest top-25 FCS Coaches Poll.
Led by second-year quarterback Nick Peipert, veteran running back Gabriel Abel and sophomore receiver Pierce McCrary, St. Thomas has its best team since 2022. Football goes beyond the FBS level, and the Tommies are quietly one of the best stories in Minnesota.
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This story was originally published by Bring Me The Sports on Oct 26, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Sports News and Rumors section. Add Bring Me The Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.