Saturday saw the Wabash College Little Giant football program begin its 2025 campaign as they traveled to St. Norbert to take on the Green Knights in a rematch from last year’s shutout. The Little Giants went into the game with some question marks, but they came out with a lot of exclamation points. While the Green Knights were able to put points up on the board this time around, they could not outscore a Little Giant offense that dominated from start to finish en route to a 55–21 win for Wabash.
St. Norbert started the game with the ball, and their opening drive was looking promising until they approached the midfield mark. Michael Meneguzzo, the Green Knights’ starting quarterback, rushed to his right before losing the handle of the ball. Jerry McBee ’26 recovered the fumble and allowed the Little Giant offense to set up shop.
Brand Campbell ’27 did not waste any time getting his squad into the end zone. On the second play of the drive, Campbell connected with senior wide receiver Kannon Chase ’26 deep down the left sideline for a 47-yard completion, which put Wabash inside the red zone. Xavier Tyler ’26 sealed the deal with a three-yard touchdown run to put the scarlet and white ahead 7–0.
Three possessions later, Wabash’s defense forced a three-and-out, but the Little Giants were unable to handle the punt return, giving St. Norbert possession deep in red territory. The turnover allowed the green and white squad to tie up the game at 7–7.
Campbell only needed just over two minutes to respond in emphatic fashion. After the first two plays saw the offense pushed back four yards, Campbell completed a 16-yard pass to TJ Alexander ’26 to move the chains. The next snap resulted in another massive chunk play, a 63-yard touchdown toss from Campbell to fellow junior Carson Chadd ’27. Suddenly, Wabash was back on top 14–7.
Early on in the second quarter, however, the Little Giants had another turnover in their own territory, which allowed St. Norbert to tie the game up once again at 14–14.
After a second issue concerning ball security, Wabash buttoned things up and scored three more touchdowns. At the halfway point, the Little Giants earned a 35–14 lead going into the locker room, but Coach Gilbert expected more out of his squad.
“We had a special teams turnover and an offensive turnover,” said Gilbert. “If we just took one of those out there, it would have felt a lot better. All in all, I was happy that our team had to struggle and overcome a little bit. That’s good for the development of our team.”
Coming out of the break, it was apparent the team had no intention of taking their foot off the gas pedal, if not pressing down on it harder. Wabash lit up the scoreboard another four times throughout the duration of the second half and only allowed the Green Knights to add seven points in the remaining 30 minutes of play.
In the end, Gilbert’s team earned 537 yards of total offense. Campbell had a remarkable start to his season as he led the team in passing by completing 15 passes on 20 attempts for 305 yards and four touchdowns. 10 players rushed the ball, but Tyler carried a majority of the burden with 12 rushing attempts for 39 yards and one touchdown. Nine different receivers made catches, but Alexander was the most prominent target for Campbell as Alexander made six catches for 67 yards. Sharing the love was most certainly the name of the game, and it goes to show the depth at the wide receiver position.
“Overall, I thought the wide receiver core had a solid day,” said Alexander. “We had some mistakes, but we still took advantage of St. Norbert’s young secondary and made them pay when they sent pressure. As far as depth goes, I think this is the deepest wide receiver room we’ve had since I’ve been here.”
Looking forward to this weekend, Wabash will host Cast Western Reserve University, a team that Wabash holds a 3-1 advantage over in the all-time record. The last time these two teams met was in 2008, when Gilbert was the defensive coordinator for the Little Giant program. In that matchup Wabash came out with a 20-17 victory, and with Gilbert at the helm, he knows that it won’t be an easy matchup.
“They’re very sound, and they don’t make a lot of mistakes,” said Gilbert. “This is a true spread offense, and they really stress you out. Last year, they finished 22nd in the country in scoring and 6th in passing, so they’re tough to defend. Defensively, I think they’re pretty physical.”
Campbell expects this weekend’s game to be a huge turning point in terms of improvement for the offense.
“I think we need to tune up penalties for sure,” said Campbell. “We had a couple of false start penalties that we have to get rid of. They say that the biggest improvements are from week one to week two.”
The Little Giants will look to tack on another tally mark in the win column against the Spartans this Saturday at Little Giant Stadium at 1 p.m. EST.