The UW-Oshkosh defense bottled up Wheaton running back Giovanni Weeks in Week 1. Photo by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com

By Brian Lester
D3sports.com

Regardless of if Wheaton had won or lost last Saturday’s opener against UW-Oshkosh, offensive lineman Aidan Kingsbury said the bye week for the Thunder is well-placed. After all, coaches across football say that a team has its greatest opportunity for improvement between Week 1 and Week 2.

For the record, Wheaton lost, the then ninth-ranked team in the D3football.com poll dropping a 21-14 decision after a last-minute touchdown by the Titans.

Certainly heading back to practice coming off a win is always more ideal. But it’s history now and it’s time for the No. 19 Thunder to move on.

“It sucks that we lost. No one wanted that to be the outcome. But the past is the past. The focus is on how we respond to that,” Kingsbury said. “There is good collective resolve across the team. A lot of accountability.”

Head coach Jesse Scott told his team after the game that there was only going to be one direction to move in.

“You can be tempted to have some revisionist history. You can get caught up in the what-ifs,” Scott said. “The thing that our team needs right now is to move forward, and the particular challenge given to our guys is to get out of themselves and get into the team. That was repeated here even when I was a player and it appears to be the antidote to feeling sorry for ourselves in the aftermath of a tight game. It provides direction for how we move forward together.”

Video study is certainly a crucial part of moving forward. The team looked at what it did wrong as well as putting an emphasis on the positives amid the rubble of defeat.

Those positives include the 315 yards of offense under the direction of a transfer quarterback who had been at Wheaton only since the start of fall camp. Mark Forcucci threw for 232 yards and a touchdown. Seth Kortenhoeven caught seven passes for 51 yards.

The Thunder defense shined as well, recording five sacks. Isaac Parrish rang up a team-leading 11 tackles to go along with a sack and a forced fumble. Rex Kroger tallied eight tackles and recovered a fumble. Colin Moore also came up with eight tackles.

“I think one of the biggest mistakes we could make as a coaching staff and that the players could make, was to only focus on the negatives,” Scott said. “There were some individual performances that were encouraging and some units that did their job snap in and snap out.

“To diminish all of that because the outcome was not what we wanted, it would be antithetical,” Scott continued. “We were proactive in highlighting the positives not to make ourselves feel better, but to encourage the players to continue to buy in and trust the process.”

Kingsbury said it was good to look at both sides of the game, noting there were lessons all the way around.

“During the game, you aren’t thinking about all the schematic and technical stuff, and the assignments that were drilled into you during the week,” Kingsbury said. “When you watch the film, you look back and see, where did I mess up, and, how did I fail to prepare for that situation. You focus on your own role and where you fell short and how that can be addressed moving forward.”

He added seeing the positives from the game will help make a difference.

“It definitely helps to highlight the positives,” Kingsbury said. “It’s encouraging to see a lot of the good that we did. Our defense played well and we saw flashes of having a lot of offensive power. It’s encouraging to see our potential.”

Leadership has also stood out in the wake of the loss. Players are owning their mistakes, especially the veterans.

“We’re stressing collective and individual accountability,” Kingsbury said. “It doesn’t help anyone to point fingers. And seeing the older guys take accountability of where we fell short, sets a good example.”

Practice this week has been about working on what needs to be corrected, and in some ways, it’s like another preseason.

“We’ve talked about it being fall camp part two,” Kingsbury said. “With no game this week, we can go a little harder. It’s less scout exchange and more starter vs. starter. That heightens the competition and helps everyone get better. The coaches have done a good job of putting us in positions to help us get better.”

Scott said he’s emphasized the importance of winning each day.

“The challenge has been to not be conditional competitors,” Scott said. “We don’t want to be players who like to compete only when the momentum is on your side, when we’re winning games, when the reps are easy or when the chemistry is fantastic. We want them to come out and win the moment every day no matter what.”

Having strong leadership can help that cause.

“It can be a coaching cliche, but you coach guys to be thermostats, not thermometers,” Scott said. “We talk a lot about empowering player level leadership, and we have an exceptional group of leaders on this team. A lot of gifted guys. We want them to take ownership. We hope that is valuable to us for the rest of the season, so when we get into moments in the future where our backs are against the wall, we know how to respond.”

Wheaton was a 10-2 football team a year ago, reaching the second round of the postseason. The Thunder have that kind of potential again.

“People I’ve talked with have said how you still have everything on the table, and as much as I agree with that, what I don’t want the team to do is create a snapshot of the next nine weeks and think we have to accomplish it all right now,” Scott said.

“The best thing for our 2024 football team is to learn to love to practice this week in adverse circumstances. That’s what our team needs more than anything,” Scott continued. “If we relish that, and savor the difficulty of this week, it’s going to be valuable to our season and our desire to go 1-0 week in and week out from this point forward.”

Kingsbury said the team is keeping the focus on the present and believes good things are ahead.

“We are focused on what is in front of us,” Kingsbury said. “We want to have a shot at the playoffs at the end, but all you can focus on right now is what is ahead of you. There’s definitely a general sense that we can be a great team, and we are ready to work to make that happen.”