Xavier running back Seamus Kelly gets most of the attention given to the Knights – his nickname is “Famous Seamus,” after all.

“Every time I get on the field, [the other team says] ‘Watch No. 40, watch No. 40,” Xavier quarterback Matt Safko said.

But Saturday night Xavier proved that their offense isn’t just all about the senior from Breezy Point. Running back John Wilson rushed for two long touchdowns and quarterback Safko ran for another in Xavier’s 46-12 rout of Christ the King at Aviator in Brooklyn.

Of course, Kelly did have three touchdowns of his own to bring his season total up to 30.

“I’ve never seen someone that good,” Safko said.

The question all season has been: Is Xavier (7-1, 6-1 CHSFL ‘AA-A’) that good? And usually the inquiry has been directed at a perceivably porous defense. The Knights score a ton of points, but they give up a lot, too. Their one loss, back on Oct. 5, was in a 49-44 shootout against St. John the Baptist on Long Island.

But coach Chris Stevens thinks his team has that label turned around and Xavier went about proving it Saturday under the lights. Christ the King (4-5, 3-4), which had won three of its last four league games, has weapons on offense. Quarterback Terrel Hunt, running back William Hunter and wide receiver Peter Nwajei can all make plays.

Aside from the Royals’ first series and a 30-yard touchdown pass from Hunt to Nwajei against Xavier's 2nd team defense, Xavier shut down CK.

“We’re growing up on defense,” Stevens said. “We were young at the beginning of the year and now I think we’ve grown up.”

Perhaps, the Knights’ have undergone somewhat of an evolution on offense, too. Stevens said he could have tunnel vision sometimes when it comes to Kelly.  Especially when Kelly gets hot, Stevens likes to give him the ball on almost every play.

“The first few games I was sucking wind, because of the heat,” Kelly said. “But now it’s OK.”

But the coach wanted to show a bit of a different look and both Wilson and Safko stepped up big. It was Wilson’s 82-yard touchdown run with 3:27 left in the first half that really broke the game open, 32-6. He had a 62-yard touchdown run with 6:01 left in the first quarter that gave Xavier a 16-6 lead.

“When he gets into the open field, you can’t catch him,” Kelly said of Wilson.

A win here, in Week 9, was huge with the playoffs coming up next weekend. If all goes as planned, Xavier could be visiting traditional ‘AAA’ powerhouse Monsignor Farrell and the Knight's players are pretty excited about it.

As for Christ the King, a victory would have probably vaulted them into a ‘AA’ playoff spot, but now the Royals, barring unforeseen circumstances, will probably have to play for the ‘A’ title. Dropped passes and mistakes probably allowed for a larger Xavier margin of victory.

“A lot of our kids are young players,” CK coach Kevin Kelly said. “We just gotta hope that with maturity and age we’ll get a little better at some of those things. When you play a first-place team, you gotta execute your assignments if you want to win. We dropped balls and ran wrong routes and missed blocks.”