COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. - The Saint John's University football team lost three of last season's top four rushers to graduation.
 
Then, during the preseason, speedy junior Caden Wheeler – the fourth member of that group of top rushers – suffered a broken foot that will keep him out of at least the early portion of this season.
 
So the Johnnies entered last Saturday's opener against Carthage (Wis.) seeking answers in the backfield. And they found them in a variety of places.
 
In all, eight SJU players carried the ball (including senior quarterback Aaron Syverson, who had a 28-yard touchdown run) and the team piled up 210 yards on the ground in a 49-0 victory at Clemens Stadium.
 
"Going into a game like that, you want to be able to run the football," said Johnnies head coach Gary Fasching, whose team (1-0 overall) – ranked No. 12 nationally in the most recent AFCA and D3football.com polls – faces a key non-conference test when it plays host to Wartburg of Iowa (1-0 overall) – ranked as high as No. 5 – at 1 p.m. this Saturday, Sept. 14, in Collegeville.
 
The Knights, who advanced to the Division III national semifinals a year ago, opened their season with a 38-24 win at Monmouth (Ill.) last week.
 
"We have four of our five offensive linemen back from last season," Fasching continued. "So opportunities will be there in the running game, and I was really impressed with the way our guys took advantage of them (against Carthage). We averaged 6.2 yards-per-carry. If you can do that over 34 carries the way we did, that's pretty good."
 
Leading the way was sophomore Will Blakey (St. Paul, Minn./Central) – a 26-year-old who served six years in the U.S. Air Force, then spent the past two seasons at Division I Portland State (including a redshirt year in 2022). He carried the ball seven times for 55 yards.
 
Senior Quinn Christoffersen (South St. Paul, Minn.) carried the ball eight times for 35 yards and a touchdown. Sophomore Jaxon Sawyer (San Jose, Calif./Bellarmine College Prep), who spent two seasons at Division I Washington State (including a redshirt year in 2022) before transferring to SJU prior to the 2023 campaign, had three carries for 18 yards and a touchdown as well.
 
"We've had a pretty deep running back room the past few years, and there are a bunch of us who've been waiting for a chance to show what we can do," said Christoffersen, an exercise and health science major who hopes to pursue a career as a chiropractor post-graduation.
 
"It felt awesome to get out there. Our offensive line is really experienced and it showed. They opened holes for us, and it felt good to see the hard work we've put in start to pay off."
 
Sawyer, a biology major on the pre-veterinary track, echoed those sentiments.
 
"I think we all felt like we had something to prove," said Sawyer, who is also a member of the SJU track-and-field team. "We had some great seniors on the team last year, but now it's our turn to step up and make them proud."
 
Though new to the team this season, the 6-foot, 200-pound Blakely has already taken on an elder statesman role in the locker room.
 
"Everybody on the team calls me Unc," he said. "I don't think anyone actually calls me Will. But being an older guy isn't something I shy away from. I embrace the role.
 
"I've been a younger guy myself, so I know what it's like. And if I can help out with advice or anything like that, I'm happy to do it."
 
Blakey played football through eighth grade, then didn't play again until his senior year in high school when he immediately earned a starting spot at running back.
 
He enlisted in the Air Force after graduation, serving at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. But about midway through his service, with all his college eligibility still intact, he began eying a potential college football career.
 
That led to him walking on at Portland State, where he redshirted in 2022, then saw time primarily in a special teams role last season.
 
"It was a great experience, and I learned a lot," he said. "I still consider myself a special teams player. But I wanted to move back closer to home. I have a daughter, and it was important for me to bring her closer to her grandparents."
 
Sawyer too said he benefitted greatly from his time at the Division I level.
 
"To say my time (at Washington State) was life-changing would be an understatement," said the 6-foot-1, 205-pound Sawyer, whose older brother Jaden played at Division I Nevada and is currently an assistant coach at Division I Louisiana. "When I was going through it, it was hard – 6 a.m. practices and long days. But in hindsight, it was an awesome experience. I think it really helped a lot in my development as a player."
 
Christoffersen, meanwhile, got to see some of the rest of the world when he and several of his teammates studied abroad in London during the spring semester earlier this year.
 
"That was incredible," the 5-foot-10, 200-pounder said. "We went to Morocco, we saw a few rugby games, we got to see what living in a different country was like. It helped to have teammates there with me because we were all able to do our drills and keep each other accountable, even if we weren't here on campus."
 
But now all three players are in Collegeville and focused on leading the Johnnies to success this fall.
 
"This is the final go-around for us as seniors and we want to make it count," Christoffersen said. "We've put in a lot of hard work these past few years and we want to go out on a high note."
 
"Our goal as younger players is to make the seniors proud," Sawyer added. "We want to do right by the guys who are in their final seasons. That means giving 100 percent every time we step on the field.
 
"We don't want to leave anything out there or look back with any regrets."