Coach Thomas Rogish joined the Red Flash in the spring of 2019 in time for the spring football season.
In 2023, the Saint Francis defense ranked third in the NEC with 354.4 total yards of offense against and 168.7 rushing yards against. The defense also ranked 12th in the FCS with a 72.2 percent red zone defense.
Eddie Bierals earned First Team All-NEC honors and finished tied for seventh in the NEC with three sacks.
The 2022 Saint Francis defensive line recorded 25.5 sacks and helped the Red Flash to an FCS 18th-ranked 333 yards against per game. Donnell Brown became the first NEC Defensive Player of the Year in Saint Francis program history under Rogish's guidance and was a HERO Sports Sophomore All-American. Sebastian Benjamin was also an All-NEC First Team selection and tied a single-game program record with four sacks at Akron on Sept. 1.
In 2021, he guided the Saint Francis defense line that recorded the most sacks in the NEC (30). The defense was also top-four in the NEC with 19.1 points per game against and 146.4 rushing yards per game against. Under Rogish, redshirt freshman Donnell Brown earned All-NEC Second Team after he ranked tied for second in the conference with four solo sacks and top-10 with five total.
Senior outside linebacker Da'Jon Lee was named First Team All-NEC and a STATS FCS Third Team All-American, earning a spot as a Buck Buchanan Finalist, awarded to the best defensive player in FCS.
A two-time NEC Defensive Player of the Week, Lee led all of FCS in tackles for a loss (24.5) and posted five sacks to finish his career with 21, second most in program history.
Redshirt freshman Jaylen Parks also made tremendous progress under Rogish, finishing the season with 36 tackles, 5.5 tackles for a loss and 3.0 sacks.
As a team, the Saint Francis defense ranked 3
rd in the NEC and 13
th in FCS in total defense (318.4 ypg), and third in the NEC in scoring defense (21.8 ppg)
Rogish's linebackers came hard off the edge as Saint Francis led the NEC and ranked 7
th in FCS in tackles for loss (8.4 per game) and second in sacks with 34.
Coach Rogish brings nearly 50 years of coaching experience at both the high school and college level to Loretto. Most recently, Rogish has been a volunteer assistant at both California University of Pennsylvania and Seton Hill. He spent the majority of his coaching career as the defensive coordinator and associate head coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He was on the Crimson Hawks' staff when
Chris Villarrial starred on the offensive line. He also served as the head coach at Frostburg State from 2008-13.
