North Central athletics photo by Steve Woltmann

Veteran North Central coach John Thorne admitted he was deliberately coy about his retirement until he got a chance to tell his players on Monday, something he has known along with his son Jeff, the team's offensive coordinator who will be taking over as head coach on Jan. 1, have known for some time.

"We wanted to players to know first before the word got out," Thorne said about the announcement that this would be his 13th and final season leading the Cardinals to spend more time with his Kathie, who has been fighting multiple myeloma, an incurable form of blood cancer, since 2011.

"My wife needs me a lot more than North Central needs me," Thorne said Tuesday. "She's doing fine but we just need to have more flexibility so we can do more things together and also find out what things the Lord wants us to do in the next chapter of our lives. Hopefully we can do those types of things together and not separately."

Jeff Thorne has been his father's offensive coordinator for all of the 13 years he's been head coach. Over that time, North Central has amassed 44 individual career, single-season and single-game offensive records in that time. North Central's top 10 single-season totals for passing yards, total yards, points and passing touchdowns have come under the Thornes.

"Jeff and all the other coaches will all be able to stay in place," Thorne said, which he hoped would be the case in keeping the continuity between his leaving the program and his son taking over. "He's really been the magic behind the program the whole time I've been here anyway. He runs the offense and I haven't called a single play in the 13 years I've been here.

"I believe the program has a chance to continue to get better and better as the year goes on," the elder Thorne added.

John Thorne will leave quite a legacy with North Central winning or sharing the last eight straight College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin titles will gathering an overall 112-29 record. It's a legacy not lost on the younger Thorne.

"It's an honor for me to take the program over and follow in my father's footsteps and build upon the legacy he's established here," Jeff Thorne said in a statement released by North Central. "My job is to make sure we continue developing our players as human beings first and football players second. … Keeping the staff together is a huge piece of that. We've got a staff that really has great chemistry. We're all pulling in the same direction, we all believe the same things, and each one of us brings something different that helps to shape these young men in their faith, academic pursuits and service initiatives."

John Thorne said he still plans on helping his son coach the special teams and assist with recruiting, but not having the head coach title will allow him to leave when he wants to and needs to be by Kathie's side. He said, though, there are no mixed feelings about his decision.

"None at all," John Thorne said. "Actually, I'm very excited for the college, Cardinal football, for Jeff, for the other coaches and Kathie and I. You just don't know how many days you've got left on Earth with the one you love. You just want to make sure you're making the most out of every one of those days that you have."

On the football of things, John Thorne admitted injuries, mistakes and the inexperience caught up with his young 2-1 Cardinals on the road against undefeated UW-Stevens Point last Saturday in a 34-27 loss.

"(UW-Stevens Point) really played well and we were getting beat up," Thorne said. "We've been losing an average of two players per game and that doesn't help. We had the ball a couple times in the fourth quarter with a chance to take it into overtime and just couldn't finish drives, but that had more to do with them and how well they played."

A lot of people will remember North Central for the way it marched to the national semifinals last year and nearly knocked off mighty Mount Union in the snow of Alliance, Ohio. So no one was surprised that the Cardinals were ranked No. 5 in the nation going into last weekend.

But Thorne would tell anyone that would listen that he lost a lot of regulars off that team from last year and while he believes he has a quality squad this year, they just don't have the reps and experience yet to make plays to take a team like UW-Stevens Point into overtime on the road yet when the game is on the line. And it turns out he wasn’t just sandbagging. North Central tumbled to No. 13 in this week's D3football.com poll.

"We had 24 great seniors on that team last year and 20 of them played a ton of football for us on offense, defense and special teams," Thorne said. "We have a lot of faith in our guys now but they just need more time. It just takes experience to play good physical football and not make mistakes."

The biggest challenges for the Cardinals are coming on the offensive and defensive lines, where North Central has started to run out of bodies because of injuries. Thorne said he is hoping to start to get a few of those players back for the conference opener but was non-committal to even give a name or two of who could ready for to play again.

"Those linemen are hard to fine," Thorne said. "Losing guys on the line of scrimmage, offensively and defensively, is where it gets tough every week."

He said the people that have been affected most are his skill position people. Big-play wide receiver Peter Sorenson and team captain is averaging nearly 100 yards per game, but Thorne said he believes those numbers could be more if his sophomore quarterback Dylan Warren had more time to find him.

"He's off to a good start and he's really an amazing receiver," Thorne said. "I'm very happy with what he's doing for us. He had 80 catches for us last year with some 1,300 yards and in some of those games last year in only played one half. This year he'll probably have to play all four quarters so he'll probably have some pretty miraculous numbers by the time it's all done."

While running back Ryan Kent is averaging 127.3 yards per game, including a 100-plus yard performance against UW-Stevens Point, Thorne said Kent has done most of that with his ability to shed tacklers.

"We've had trouble blocking for him," Thorne said. "He's done a lot of it himself breaking tackles and turning short runs into long runs. Each week, he's been getting hit more at the line of scrimmage and in the backfield. If we can open up more holes for him, he could have bigger numbers."

Thorne said Warren has shown growing pains as any sophomore, but added that he believes his determination will eventually pay off. The Cardinal signal-caller has thrown four interceptions in North Central’s first three games with six touchdowns, four of those to Sorenson.

"He's very young guy," Thorne said. "He's made some dynamic plays for us and then he's thrown a few off target and turned into some pretty easy interceptions. Those are just mistakes young guy make, but he's hard worker. He played so well our first game (against St. Norbert) that I think we started to put too much on his plate and started to ask too much of him. We've started to back off that and tried to make things easier for him and not to make as many decisions."

Defensively, Thorne said he believes the Cardinals will be fine if he can just get guys healthy. Leading tackler, linebacker Michael Monterubbio had 22 tackles, 13 solo, in two games.

"We gave up a lot of passing yards last game and that was usual for us," Thorne said. "We've been able to force teams into field goal attempts once they get into the red zone, but everyone's is still new and still learning each other. We've never had our full defensive unit out on the field yet. I'm hoping we can do that soon."

Now in his final season as head coach, Thorne said his biggest challenge is getting his teams to grow up through the CCIW play and if they are fortunate to win their ninth straight conference title, make another successful run in the Division III playoffs.

"And I hope they learning things really fast," Thorne said with big laugh.

Williams helps Carroll remain undefeated

The Carroll Pioneers are still a game away from Midwest Conference play, but it is hard to ignore their 4-0 record after beating 32-27 Monmouth on Saturday and the contributions made by Lamont Williams.

Williams finished the game with 120 yards on 23 carries and three touchdowns, including the game winning 19-yard scoring run in the fourth quarter. It was the first time Carroll beat Monmouth in 12 games and the first time the Pioneers have been 4-0 since 1992.

Williams is just as big of a weapon as a kickoff returner. Two of the four kickoff returns this year have been brought back for touchdowns, the most in the nation among Division III players.

"Lamont is a team player who is a part of a very special position group with very talented athletes," said Carroll coach Mark Krzykowski.

"Because of this we feel we can rotate many players in a keep them fresh. I am very pleased with the entire team.  Lamont is a talented athlete, however he cannot do it alone. The offensive line does a great job up front as does the rest of the return team."

Williams, for his part, said is part of the team effort to help Carroll rolling as they prepare for conference play.

"I enjoy both," Williams said of kickoff returning and playing running back. "Both present the opportunity to help out the team. Our return unit does a great job setting up blocks which makes it easy for anyone to have great returns."

Game of the Week

Carthage (1-2) at Illinois Wesleyan (2-1) 2 p.m.: CCIW opener for both teams. Illinois Wesleyan has had two weeks to sit around and think about its 10-point loss to Simpson that knocked the Titans out of the Top 25. We will get the see if they spent that time throwing a pity party and ready to take it out on somebody.