Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College’s Andrew Raasch (88) pulls down a catch over Macalester’s Jacob Degnan (0) during a nonconference college football game on Saturday afternoon at the MLC Bowl in New Ulm.

NEW ULM — Senior quarterback Michael Nadeau had a career day for the Macalester College Scots at the expense of the Martin Luther College Knights, racking up eight touchdown passes on the way to a 56-27 win in a nonconference football game Saturday at the MLC Bowl.

Nadeau’s eight touchdown passes set a Macalester single-game record. The prior program record was six touchdowns, held by both Cody Petrich (2018) and Nadeau (2022).

Nadeau completed 29 of 40 passes for 542 yards. He also threw two interceptions in the first half, but that didn’t end up impacting the rest of his day much.

Nathan Wu was Nadeau’s top target, catching eight passes for 166 yards and three TDS, while Michael Poker had eight catches for 132 yards and two touchdowns. Nick Bice also had seven catches for 204 yards and two TDs for Macalester.

While MLC quarterback Max Nordlie had some success also through the air, much of it came in the first half. Nadeau’s aerial assault continued into the second half as the Scots pulled away.

“Some of those [passes] were just one-on-one plays that our D-backs were in good coverage, in the right position and their receivers just made better plays,” MLC head coach Paul Huebner said. “It’s going to happen, that’s how we scored a couple of our touchdowns early, too, that’s football, good players make good plays. But blown-coverage stuff, we’ve got to work on that coaching-wise and just teaching our guys up. And again, that’s a function of our youth a little bit, our youth and inexperience in the secondary combined with the experience and the accuracy and all the stuff that their quarterback and receivers are able to do.”

Nordlie was 6 of 20 for 214 yards, three TDs and an interception. Mason Cox caught four of those passes for 186 yards and three TDs, while Andrew Raasch had a 27-yard catch and Thomas Koelpin got a pass for a yard.

Carson Oestreich had seven carries for 68 yards to lead the Knights on the ground, while Rees Roecker had 16 carries for 61 yards and a score.

Macalester’s top rusher was Vasco Sierra, who had 14 carries for 48 yards.

The game started as a shootout, with both teams trading one-play TD drives to start the game in the opening minute.

The Knights were first on the board with a 71-yard touchdown pass to Cox for a 7-0 lead after the extra point. Then it was Macalester’s turn as a pass to Bice went 85 yards for a score. The extra point was no good and the Knights held a 1-point lead.

MLC didn’t keep the one-play scoring streak going, but after a 20-yard run by Nordlie and a 3-yard run up the middle by Roecker, Nordlie again connected with Cox down the left sideline for another 71-yard TD strike to put the Knights up 13-6 with 13:13 left in the first quarter.

“The first one was a play-action call, the other one’s where our quarterback and wide receivers were just audibling stuff, which I love because it’s senior quarterback Max Nordlie, senior wide receiver Mason Cox, some other talented wide receivers, and they have the confidence in themselves,” Huebner said. “And I believe in them, too, like, ‘Hey, if I call a run play and you guys think you can beat them with a fade, beat them with something man to man, let’s take it.’ And we did that today. We did that a little bit last week, not as much, so I think just those guys being more comfortable with each other, more confident in their ability to just make plays in the passing game is awesome, so I was really pleased with how that went today.

“Offensive line did a great job today, pass protection was better today, run blocking was phenomenal, especially in that first quarter. We’re limited depth-wise on the O-line, so those guys just battled their tails off, I love it, they got tons of movement in the run game, especially in that first quarter.”

Macalester continued the scoring with an eight-play drive that ended on a 1-yard TD pass to Logan Pampel. The 2-point conversion was good and the Scots led 14-13 with 9:39 left in the first quarter.

The Knights kept the scoring barrage going on their next drive, polishing off a 13-play drive with a 7-yard TD run by Roecker to lead 19-14. A 2-point try saw Oestreich scamper out of traffic, head towards the left sideline and dive to the pylon for a 21-14 MLC lead.

Macalester kept it a turnover-free, puntless game as its next drive ended on a 35-yard TD pass to Bice. The extra point tied the game at 21-all with 2:40 left in the first quarter.

MLC’s next drive saw Nordlie sacked by Derek Foker, giving the Knights a third-and-22 from their own 18. A third-down pass to Cox was broken up, ending the overall six-touchdown streak in the game as the Knights were forced to punt.

Macalester promptly scored on its next drive with a TD reception by Wu putting the Scots up 28-21 early in the second quarter.

While MLC failed to put up any more points the rest of the half, its defense made key stops on two consecutive Macalester drives as Joey Ehlke and Jeremiah Stanton both picked off passes to keep the Scots from the end zone.

However, Macalester broke through again just before the half with two quick passes putting the Scots up 35-21 at half.

In the second half, Nadeau found Poker for a 28-yard TD pass and a 41-21 lead with 8:45 left in the third quarter. Nordlie connected again with Cox for a third touchdown pass, this time on a 2-yard throw to the end zone with 4:41 left in the third quarter.

But that was the only damage the Knights could do in the second half while Nadeau added two more touchdown passes to his total to lead the Scots to victory.

Thomas Balge led the Knights in total tackles with nine, while Ehlke added eight, including one for a loss.

DEFENSIVE DIFFICULTIES

The Knights’ loss came with an unfortunate fact that they gave up more than 50 points in back-to-back weeks to open the 2023 season.

The Knights fell in Week 1 on the road to Concordia-Wisconsin by a score of 55-14.

There are several young players adjusting to the college level of play for the Knights, however, and Huebner said the coaches have reminded the team to focus on the things they can control.

“The only thing we can control is the way that we respond to the events around us, we can control the effort and the intensity and the things that we bring to the game,” Huebner said. “We only control ourselves. So we’ve got things that we can get better at and we’ll do that in practice, we can control that.

“We’re playing good teams in our nonconference schedule, getting us ready for conference, so we talk about that, too. We just wanted to get better today regardless of outcome, and I think we did that.”

BACK ON THE ROAD

The Knights hit the road again Saturday when they trek to Minneapolis to take on Augsburg in nonconference action. Augsburg didn’t play this past weekend and is 1-0 on the year after an opening-week win over the University of Northwestern-St. Paul, winning by a score of 52-10 on Sept. 1.

In that win, Augsburg quarterback Cade Sheehan connected on 16 of 26 passes for 251 yards and three TDs without a turnover. Receivers Dominic Smith and Braden Tretter finished with 119 and 118 yards receiving, respectively, and will be targets the Knights will likely have to keep an eye on.

Meanwhile, Augsburg’s opening-week win also saw a strong performance from running back DJ Monroe, who rushed for 101 yards and a score on 20 carries.

The Knights are 0-3 against Augsburg all-time, losing last season’s game 45-7 in New Ulm.