NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Quarterback Jacques Perra led an offensive surge that saw St. Thomas put up nine touchdowns and 651 total yards in a 63-0 blowout of the Carleton Knights on Saturday at Laird Stadium.

Perra, who has struggled at times under center this season, completed 70 percent of his throws for 324 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions. Running back Jordan Roberts added 77 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.

Four receivers caught touchdown passes from Perra. Wide receiver Luke Iverson and tight end Jackson Hull had 47-yard touchdown receptions.

“I’m excited that we took a step forward, and every week I just want us to take a step forward,” coach Glenn Caruso said. “Most of them have to do with getting off the field on defense and finishing drives on offense, and both those things got accomplished.”

After struggling on both sides of the ball in last week’s loss against Wisconsin-Stout, the Tommies had their best game of the season statistically. The defense pitched a shutout for the first time since the Tommies beat Northwestern (Minn.) in the first round of the NCAA playoffs last season. Linebacker Adam Kraft led the defensive effort against the Knights with four total tackles and one interception.

“It was big for our defense, especially coming off a loss and coming off something we need to grow upon,” Kraft said. “We came into today having the mentality that we need to take a step forward for our season and our team, and I think we came out and did that today.”

On the other side of the ball, the trouble areas the offense faced in the first two weeks weren’t entirely eliminated, but weren’t nearly as prevalent in the win.

The offensive line, which has struggled to keep Perra on his feet and to open up running lanes all season, showed the most cohesion and flashed the potential that Caruso believed they had at the beginning of the season.

“Our great offensive lines grow into great offensive lines,” Caruso said. “You look back to some of the great ones we’ve had, and they take steps each week. They’re moving in the right direction.”

Better play from the O-line allowed the running game to flourish. In a performance reminiscent of last season, the offense put up 225 rushing yards and five touchdowns.

Running backs Jordan Roberts and Tucker Trettel led the effort. Roberts played for most of the first half and recorded 77 yards and two touchdowns. Trettel started the second half with a 67-yard touchdown run on the first play in the third quarter.

Penalties remain the biggest problem for the Tommies. The team had seven penalties that cost them 67 yards and a fourth-quarter pick-6. Tommie linebacker Tobias Knight intercepted Knights quarterback Christian Zaytoun on the first drive of the fourth quarter and took to it to the endzone, but the touchdown was overturned following an illegal block in the back.

“Any penalty is a big error. It doesn’t matter if it’s five, 10 or 15 yards, we want to be penalty-free,” Caruso said. “When get the chance to score on defense it’s a big deal. These are things that if we want to play at the highest level, we just can’t do them.”

The win extended the Tommies’ unbeaten streak over Carleton, dating back to 1992, to 26.

The Tommies will face off against MIAC-rival St. John’s next Saturday at Target Field in the annual Tommie-Johnnie showdown. Though the win helped the Tommies regain some confidence moving forward, Caruso doesn’t believe it will affect how they play the Johnnies.

“We’re not real big on momentum around here because that’s something we don’t always control,” he said. “We’re going to judge ourselves on how well we played against how well we should have played and I think that was at a pretty high level.”

“Obviously it’s a big stage, something new, something different, something we’ve never seen before,” Kraft said. “That’s the kind of adversity we look forward to.”

Noah Brown can be reached at brow7736@stthomas.edu.

Reporter Gamiel Hall also contributed to this report.