Lehigh Football Nation

The 1968 Lehigh/Lafayette Game

2023-11-17T02:42:00.005-05:00

I've written a lot about Lehigh/Lafayette history so much over the years. I've written a book about the early Rivalry between Lehigh and Lafayette, and I've blogged and recapped many Le/Laf games over the course of my life. Lehigh and Lafayette have met on the football field over 150 times, and each meeting is its own story. I know many of the stories well.

I've found during "Rivalry Week" for Lehigh and Lafayette that with the sheer volume of games, it's possible to find prior meetings that seem to match similar, but not exact, "vibes". There are narratives of titles on the line, teams with losing records upsetting teams with winning records... pretty much everything under the sun.

This week, 2-8 Lehigh will face off against 8-2 Lafayette. If the Leopards win, they win no worse than a co-championship with Holy Cross, win the Patriot League autobid to the FCS Playoffs, and - probably the best part of all - they get to celebrate a victory on Lehigh's home field, something Lehigh football hasn't been able to enjoy since November 12th, 2022.

Over and over I saw people bring up the year 1968 as a year in Lehigh football history that could, Lehigh fans hope, provide a blueprint, or at least a vibe, to provide hope going into this Saturday and into the offseason. The 1970s were a banner decade for Lehigh in many ways, including a Division II championship and multiple Lambert Cups. But it was that win over Lafayette in 1968, a disappointing two-win team beating an seven-win team expected for great things, that the alumni seem to all agree got the whole thing going.

***

The year 1968 today is commonly seen through the lens of history as one of chaos.

Lyndon Johnson announced he wouldn't run for a second term, in a way making the country seem somewhat leaderless. The Vietnam War, which had escalated through the late 50s and 60s, had the Tet Offensive, a bloody stalemate that even had Walter Cronkite concluding there was no way to win in that Southeast Asian country. The assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had the country at a boiling point of race and class, the turmoil of the streets and the South broadcast in people's living rooms every night.

And even at all-male Lehigh, with a Board of Trustees filled with Bethlehem Steel executives that hated any sort of change whatsoever, there were signs that some winds of change were coming.

"We find ourselves in Bethlehem, PA at a supposedly fine American university," student editorialist Bob Weintraub wrote in the first issue of The Brown and White in the fall of 1968. "Lehigh is a very traditional institution in a society of institutions which serve to perpetuate the values of the day. The majority of students here are establishment-bred types. They are accustomed to the comforts of suburban living and will admit that their environment had a great shaping influence on their thinking."

He continued, "The Lehigh success story, however, has always retained its materialistic point of view and does not represent new thinking. It has not adjusted to the changing times. The all-too prevalent singular aim of the student here is the acquisition of profitable employment and subsequent flight to comfortable suburbia."

In many ways this reflected the same ossified thinking as Bethlehem Steel, who was an industrial giant in the early 20th Century but even by the late 1960s was starting to get shoved aside by more innovative steel companies that innovated where Bethlehem Steel would not. As Mr. Weintraub put it, "it did not adjust to the changing times."

Throughout the pages of The Brown and White and The Lafayette in 1968 football didn't occupy the front page headlines that they did in years past. Most of that was because the editorial staffs in 1968 was much more animated by issues of racial injustice, environmental issues, and pushing to make both Lafayette and Lehigh co-ed, but also because the place of football in daily life was changing, too. To more people, football was your Dad's sport, not yours, even though Nixon had a huge lead in the polls and football was unabashedly Nixon's sport.

But football remained wildly popular with both parents and alumni at both schools. The Lehigh/Lafayette Rivalry was a cherished institution, though patience with Lehigh head coach Fred Dunlap had worn pretty thin after a bleak beginning to his head coaching career.

Fred Dunlap took over a fairly moribund Lehigh program in 1965 who had most recently tied Lafayette 6-6 in Mike Cooley's final game, which happened to be the 100th meeting between the two Rivals. "A real stinker," one of the attendees once told me as 1-7-0 Lehigh and 0-7-1 Lafayette both managed to score touchdowns, set up by turnovers and miscues from the other team, but both missed extra points.

The historic nature of the game, however, meant that national television and media outlets, including The New York Times, had put its shine on The Rivalry. Interviews, articles and TV hyped up the contest, making it of national interest, despite the "stinker" of a game.

But signs of the turbulent times of the 1960s also were lurking around, too. "The 1964 game was pretty quiet," Sports Illustrated wrote about the run-up to game and its legendary excesses. "Lehigh's flagpole was painted a Lafayette maroon and the Lafayette Leopard statue was painted a Lehigh brown, but not much else of interest happened."

With the entrance of Fred Dunlap, the losing didn't stop in his first season in 1965. "It's fair to say that Lehigh football in 1965 was a real rebuilding project," Fred Dunlap's son shared in his book "The Dunlap Rules" with a gift for understatement. "But Dad was optimistic that he could revive it and return it to the top Division II program it had been in the 1950s."

That was borne out that year by Lehigh's 0-8-0 season going into Dunlap's first Rivalry game, where the "Packers" beat Lafayette 20-14.

In 1966 Lehigh would be winless again going into The Rivalry at 0-8-0, but this time Lafayette would come out on top by a 16-0 score, ensuring Lafayette head coach Kenneth Bunn would end his time in Easton with a winning record. Emblematic of the tough times both Lafayette and Lehigh were in at that time, Bunn retired with a 7-28-2 record overall.

By the end of the 1967 season, after dismal 1-8-0 1967 campaign ending in a 6-0 loss to Lafayette, Dunlap's career head coaching record stood at - are you ready for this? - 2-25-0. Think about this a second - exactly two wins, one against their Rivals, Lafayette, that was almost blown after giving up two late touchdowns, and the other against Ithaca College (NY), an overmatched opponent at that time. Currently, the Bombers compete at the Division III level.

In 1966, Lehigh embarassingly lost to Drexel 12-9 in a game deeply affected by weather and a game where the "Packers" blew three different chances to grab the victory. Drexel, Lehigh's home opener, was scheduled for the expressed purpose of being a winnable game for Lehigh, and they couldn't manage it that season. That loss in particular had to hurt.

Going into 1968, Dunlap's contract was up at the end of the season, but according to his son, his father didn't think he would make it to the end of his contract after the loss to Lafayette in 1967. He thought he was going to be fired after the season.

"Dad and [Lehigh President] Dr.[Willard Deming] Lewis discussed the season," he wrote, "and how Dad thought the program was progressing. Dr. Lewis acknowledged that Athletic Director [Bill] Leckonby wanted to fire Dad. This explained why the meeting was with Dr. Lewis and not Leckonby."

He continued, "Dad presented data that Dr. Lewis had requested. Dad compiled the football budgets and financial aid allowances for all the teams Lehigh competed against. Dr. Lewis found the data enlightening. The meeting was an important milestone, eventually leading to more appropriate financial support for the football program."

According to his son, Dunlap was to get a one-year reprieve, while "admonishing him that the team needed to start winning." Hence, the 1968 season was a tense one for him, one he felt might make or break his name in coaching football. As detailed much more thoroughly in the book, it wasn't an easy decision for him and his family to stay for the 1968 season. Leckonby, and many Lehigh alumni, wanted him gone.

But he decided to stick out another year for his family and his players, and try to build on the foundation he was starting to build. 1968, for better or worse, would feature Fred Dunlap as coach.

*****

One offseason to turn around years of lack of funding and scholarship money is a daunting task in any year. Today, with transfer students and the portal, turnarounds can happen somewhat quicker, but in 1968, it had to have felt like a truly impossible task.

Though Dunlap had several years of recruits, he didn't appear to have full political support, so there was really no tomorrow. As made clear in "The Dunlap Rules", he needed to show progress, now, or he'd definitely be fired. And though it's not present anywhere in any documentation I've seen, I know one of the non-negotiables was that he needed to beat Lafayette.

The first game of the year offered some promise, as a sophomore-laded Lehigh team trounced a Drexel squad weakened by the flu, 59-21. "The Engineers slew the Drexel Dragons 59-21, coming up with the best offensive performance by a Lehigh team since 1959," The Brown and White reported. "Dunlap's charges displayed a well-balanced attack, gaining 311 yards rushing and 177 through the air."

But the reality of the rebuild came down the following week in a 28-12 loss to The Citadel down in Charleston, South Carolina. RB Jim McMillan had a 3rd quarter run of 66 yards for a touchdown that broke open a close 14-12 game.

Lehigh would then lose three straight to what was tough competition at the time.

Wittenberg, a small college power, throttled the "Packers" 37-14 and Penn walloped Lehigh 34-0.

More encouragingly, Fred Dunlap's team would give "Middle Three" rival Rutgers a very tough battle at home, but several critical miscues allowed the Scarlet Knights to get their 11th straight win over the "Packers" 29-26.

A Rutgers safety from a Lehigh ball snapped out of the end zone, and two late missed extra points were critical in the 3 point loss.

"A 12 yard pass completion moved the ball to the 32," The Brown and White reported, "but with 35 seconds remaining QB Rick Laubach's long bomb fell into the hands of Rutgers DB John Pollock, and the Engineers had lost their final chance."

Looking past the box score you see a team that is battling hard and competing well despite their record. In 1968, Rutgers went 8-2 and their 29-26 scrape was the Scarlet Knights' smallest margin of victory in any of their wins that year. But it still was a loss, and another excuse for Leckonby, and the fans, to call for his job.

*****

Meanwhile, in Easton, there was a Leopard resurgence.

After losing their season opener to Rutgers, the Leopards would run off four straight wins, trouncing Columbia, Hofstra, Washington & Lee and Drexel, not allowing a single point at Fisher Field.

The 7-0 win versus Hofstra in particular, the first in five tries for the Leopards, was a watershed moment with QB Ed Baker sneaking into the end zone in the 4th quarter for the game's only score. "It may be as the players say - we're on our way," Lafayette head coach Harry Gamble shared after the game.

Whereas there were plenty of moral victories and relatively hard-fought games on the Lehigh side, for Lafayette there were actual wins.

With two more home shutouts, one 37-0 against Gettysburg, and a 7-0 shutout against No. 18-ranked Merchant Marine who was undefeated at the time, Lafayette hadn't allowed a single point at home all season, and at 7-2 seemed poised to win their first-ever Lambert Cup.

"Pards To Clinch Lambert Cup Tomorrow As Maroon, Engineers Renew Rivalry" read The Lafayette's bold headline leading into the 104th meeting. "Lafayette's football team is already assured of its best record since 1948," the article notes, "but nothing is more satisfying than a victory over Lehigh."

Harry Gamble, noting that Lehigh "seemed to have more depth than prior years," didn't seem to be taking Lehigh lightly, but that was little solace for head coach Fred Dunlap, who seemed to think, win or lose against Lafayette, he would be out as Lehigh head coach.

"While Lehigh was losing most games, the team was far more competitive than it had been in the past," Fred Dunlap's son wrote in The Dunlap Rules. "Due to Lehigh's losses, the fans and the media in the area were calling for my father's head. The newspapers and the radio pundits were predicting there was no way Dad would keep his job. 'It's a formality at this point,' one reporter suggested. 'Dunlap will be removed after the season is over.'"

Even The Brown and White seemed to have forsaken the Engineers. "Something seems to be missing," the student reporter wrote under the headline Gridders Ready? Attidude Belies It. "In such a fierce Rivalry, exceptional spirit and psych [sic] are expected on both sides. The Lehigh football squad seems to have only a fraction of that spirit.

"As one of the players correctly said, yelling and screaming words does not produce a winning team. But on the other hand words -- including calmly spoken words -- do express an attitude. And the 1968 football team for some reason has not expressed a killer instinct for the Lehigh-Lafayette game."

The team, Fred Dunlap shared after the game, was "quiet all week, quiet on the bus coming over, and quiet in the locker room today," in seeming response to The Brown and White, the local and national press and the disgruntled alumni when his team scored three touchdowns on previously unscored-upon Fisher Field as Lehigh's killer instinct delivered Dunlap a sweet 21-6 win, denying the Leopards a win over their Rivals and also denying them the Lambert Cup in front of 16,000 fans.

Lehigh never trailed, scoring a touchdown on the first drive of the game and then never letting the Leopards, who were sporting special "Beat Lehigh" jerseys, truly back into it, delivering a fatal blow in the fourth quarter when Jack Paget scored a touchdown with seven minutes left to make it 21-6.

The MVP went to RB Jim Petrillo, who sustained a bunch of drives on 3rd down and gained the largest share of rushing yards on the day which set up the three touchdown drives. But Dunlap was the the one carried off on the shoulders of the players, obviously having won the respect of the players over a tough season.

Fred Dunlap got another extension after that season - and started Lehigh's next dominant stretch of football teams at their level. Against all the forces against change, happy to lose and keep things the way they were, Dunlap changed things and arguably set the table for a decade of success in the 1970s.

"How can a football season call its season successful when they finish with a 3-7 record?" The Brown and White's about-face began. "If the team is from Lehigh, and if one of the three wins is over Lafayette, the team can call itself successful."

Of Hamster Wheels And Losses to Georgetown

2023-10-18T01:18:00.010-04:00

I am an outlier.

I'm a fan of a 1-6 college football team, and I'm headed out to Bucknell next weekend, rain or shine, to watch two Patriot League squads with losing records face off against one another.

I realize somewhere in my head that normal people don't do this type of thing.

I have no kid playing for Lehigh or Bucknell. I'm not paid by either school. I am not paid to watch the game. But I'll still go. Like I've done so many times before, I'll still preview and watch the game.

And I might get excited, or mad, or want to rip my hair out. The outcome might cause a deep, gnawing pain deep in my gut or an overwhelming sense of cathartic relief. But I'll still do it.

Why? It's a question I've asked myself many times over the years.

Certainly a game like this weekend against Georgetown, a game were I look at my ripped-out hair, the deep, knawing pain deep in my gut, and the completely irrational anger I feel, definitely does make me pause. Why?

Wouldn't the more logical, rational reaction to seeing your team go 1-6 to abandon ship - to hop on a bandwagon of a more successful team? Possibly.

But I am simply not built that way.

I'm not the type of guy that leaves a game early, or abandons my team at the first sign of trouble. I am no front-runner. If anything, my writing career is living proof: after all, I went from chronicling Lehigh Patriot League Championships and FCS Playoff victories to losing seasons and dwindling national relevance. I'm still here. I still care. If anyone thought that I would stop doing this because times got tough, you were wrong.

It is so very easy to be a fan during the good times, casually reading the newspaper or checking the internet every week and seeing your college pound Rivals or play the role of plucky underdog upsetting the higher rated team.

But my fate lately has been to be a fan of a college football program that has gone from league championships and FCS Playoff victories to a very rough cycle of rebuilding that has involved watching, in person and at home, a lot of losses.

At some level, though, you have to believe that the pain is worth it, and that it will not last forever. All genuine fans can take some level of suffering. But only if that suffering leads to greatness later.

After after this weekend's loss to Georgetown, the crushing part is that it feels like greatness for Lehigh seems just that much farther away, making it feel like the program is stuck in the same hamster wheel it's been since 2015.

***

This past Saturday, Lehigh lost to Georgetown 17-7 at Murray Goodman Stadium. I've been to Goodman too many times to count, seeing iconic wins over Lafayette, gut-wrenching losses to Lafayette, FCS Playoff wins, an FCS Playoff defeat, and a lot of everything in between.

Losing at home is not an unusual occurrence for the Mountain Hawks lately, as Lehigh has only won three times at home since the 2020 football season.

What was unusual was that Georgetown that was the team that beat them.

Since entering the league in 2001, Lehigh had dominated Georgetown. In 2017, Lehigh hadn't lost to Georgetown once, anywhere, in the modern football era.

So when Georgetown finally beat Lehigh for the first time in 2018 at home, it was viewed as a disaster.

Not so much from the actual outcome - looking back at the tape, Lehigh was actually in a tailspin at the time, and Georgetown was "favored" to win, the balloon of the season having been punctured well before that game.

It was more about what the loss represented.

It's not like Georgetown has been horrible for 20 years. They have had some good teams and have come close to winning the Championship before.

One time in 2011 they came to Murray Goodman with the Patriot League title on the line, a game that was close throughout and could absolutely had gone the other way - it was 20-12 midway through the 3rd quarter - but Lehigh, behind QB Chris Lum and WR Ryan Spadola, prevailed. I know. I was there.

That 2011 game kind of sums up how the rivalry with Georgetown had gone overall during those "golden years".

The Hoyas had beaten every Patriot League team at least once through the ebbs and flows of the years, and has had some teams that have risen to compete for the title from time to time, but it seemed like Georgetown's best teams always seemed to run up against juggernauts like the 2011 Lehigh squad, that famously went 10-1 during the regular season and upset Towson on the road in the FCS Playoffs in one of the best, most satisfying non-Lafayette games in school history. (Lum was a Walter Payton Award finalist that year and was robbed of the award by Bo Levi Mitchell. Never forget.)

It's not right and it's not OK, but for a very long time games against Georgetown always were seen inside and outside the program a line in the sand, one that only became more pronounced the longer the streak got. "Even though we went 3-8 and lost to Lafayette in Yankee Stadium," I imagine other Lehigh fans said at the time, "at least we're not Georgetown."

So in 2018, after an excruciating, ugly 22-16 loss to Georgetown, I wrote a piece "So this is what rock bottom feels like."

"Here we are, in a brand new world where Lehigh can lose six straight and can lose to Georgetown," I wrote. "We are in a world where Georgetown and Lehigh are coaching and talent equals, tied at 9 after regulation and separated only by the will to win in double overtime. Simply put, Georgetown wanted it more. With zero disrespect meant to Georgetown, who 100% deserved their win over Lehigh, the Mountain Hawk program is right now at rock bottom."

I can't lie - there was so much in that 2018 loss I saw this past weekend, too.

It is now 2023. I had to honestly pause and think: Have we progressed from that "rock bottom" day in 2018?

Both games saw 60 minutes of football with Lehigh's offense scoring single-digit points: 9 (2018, a touchdown with a missed extra point and a field goal) and 7 (2023).

Both games saw Lehigh with less than three trips to the "red zone": 2 (2018, one ending in a field goal and the other a touchdown in overtime) and 1 (2023, ending in a touchdown).

Both games saw Georgetown out-gain Lehigh and gain more than 350 total offensive yards against the Mountain Hawks: 363 (2018, vs. 358 for Lehigh) and 457 (2023, vs. 337 for Lehigh).

Both games were sloppy: both games had combined 11 penalties, with 3 of them becoming 1st downs for the other team.

In both games Lehigh lost the turnover battle: Lehigh -2, Georgetown +2.

There are more similarities too, ones off the stat sheet - what I'll call the "Chuck pulling his hair out" stat.

Watching both games was a pull-my-hair-out experience in the sense that it didn't seem to take much more in the form of execution or coaching to change it from a L to a W. As much credit Georgetown should receive and deserve from this win - Hoya QB Tyler Knoop had a tremendous, efficient passing day, getting first down after first down, at one time completing 16 of 16 pass attempts and holding onto the ball for more than 40 minutes - it's very hard to not also see very huge errors on the Lehigh side, like 12 men on the field during a Georgetown punt, that were hair loss leaders.

As the game went on, I was wondering why Lehigh didn't try to establish the run more - and after the game, I was still wondering. Lehigh averaged 5 yards per carry running the ball. Why only run it 25 times, especially when you're only down 10-7 and need to give your defense a break?

The 2018 game was little different in the hair loss department. QB Brad Mayes kept throwing the ball even when it was no longer working, going 16 for 40 with 2 interceptions, including the crusher in double-overtime. The only reason the game was tied at 9 at regulation was because Lehigh scored a touchdown, tried to kick the extra point, and it was returned for two points the other way by Georgetown.

In both games you can point to one or two plays like that which were such huge differences. It's hard to escape the conclusion that Georgetown won both games because the staff and players were more mentally prepared, had the right gameplan to win, and were tough enough to force the issue late to seal the win.

Is this a hard thing to communicate? Damn straight it is.

The 2018 season and the unfolding 2023 season are not identical. Few remember that the 2018 team was receiving poll votes when they started the year, coming off an improbable 5-6 Patriot League championship year and seen as the preseason favorite to win. The preseason expectations of that team were extremely high, and each loss that year felt inexplicable.

2023, on the other hand, was a rebuilding year from the get-go, and the rest of the Patriot league knew it, picking the Mountain Hawks to finish fifth in the preseason. Head coach Kevin Cahill figured out pretty quickly that his main task is to rebuild the culture here at Lehigh and to build up the team, and that it wasn't going to be an instant fix.

And I understand that there have been a lot of additional challenges this season in particular in terms of continuity and injury. For example, the Mountain Hawks lost starting center and team captain George Padezanin the first week of the year and have been shuffling the offensive line every week due to injury ever since.

Yet that can't be an excuse, either. You still have to be mentally tough and find ways to succeed against the opponent, As coach Cahill himself might say, "the opponent doesn't care about your excuses".

Culture building and program building is hard. It can be a long process (just ask any Georgetown fan) and certainly coach Cahill and the staff deserve some leeway for them to build and present their vision of Lehigh football, and one game doesn't change that.

But there's "rebuilding" and rebuilding, and while it was certainly understandable to see the team struggle against Villanova and a team with a lot of injuries struggle against Monmouth, Lehigh Nation (and I think a lot of other people) expect to see enough improvement over the course of five games in order to beat Georgetown, or at least make it feel like a close game. Fair or unfair, that's a program bar that was set, and now Georgetown has broken the seal.

And I think more than anything that's what the crushing reality was that came along with the 17-7 loss - that Lehigh feels even further away than fans thought. We thought that the 2023 team was different enough, that culture was changing and outcomes were improving, but what was presented last Saturday was the same product Lehigh Nation has been seeing since at least 2018, ending in something that's been seen far too often this decade at Murray Goodman Stadium - a depressing loss.

Maybe it was a one-week regression, and maybe it wasn't, but the fact is the 2018 and 2023 losses were scarily similar. It would be reporting malpractice to not say so.

I make zero apologies for having high expectations for the Lehigh football program. I don't expect Patriot League Championships every year, but I expect the team to be put in a position to win games and the players to improve every week and to beat Lafayette every year.

I've also seen the roots of future championships start at the end of losing campaigns the prior year, where young teams start to "get it" and then the remaining athletes take those building blocks and become contenders in future years.

Frankly, I still don't know what this 2023 team will end up being. The only thing for sure is that I'll be there next week, starting the process of discovering what exactly that is. Because for better or for worse, I'm the type of fan that is waiting for the hamster wheel to break, and I want to be there when it happens.

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

2023-10-12T14:46:00.002-04:00

We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season. The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League.

I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half.

The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League. In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play. Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry.

Can they do it?

Culture Changing: B+. I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care. Every face was glum. They didn't even seem sad. More frustrated and angry.

That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked change from many of the Lehigh teams I've seen over the last seven years. To me, that's a sign that the culture change, talked about by Lehigh players and coaches alike, has been taking hold.

It may not seem like it during this 1-5 start, but I tend to believe that the hard lessons during the five losses are making a positive difference in this team. With a sophomore QB-WR combo and a ton of underclassmen in key roles, I have little doubt this will pay off over the next few years. The "culture change" seems to be happening, and it's worth a good grade. (It would have been an A with another win or two, however.)

Fighting Through It: A. I am struck how this team has been handed nothing.

Head coach Kevin Cahill's first win came against Merrimack at Harvard, after venue changes, time changes and torrential downpours and wind. Injuries, weather and strange circumstances - like a trip to Dartmouth after legendary Big Green head coach Buddy Teevens passed away - just seem to indicate that this team is going to get everyone's Hero Game, with no help from officials, turnovers, or anything. Everything they get they have to earn.

I hate calling it "adversity", but you could make that case with this team. And despite the tough record and the circumstances, the kids seem to be battling and getting back to it every week. They could quit, but as coach Cahill actually told me, "they won't". He's right.

Underclassmen: B+. If there's one thing I know about coach Cahill is that he's not a guy who tolerates excuses. Having said that, Lehigh's injury list has been extensive, forcing underclassmen into key roles.

Putting aside the fact that QB Brayten Silbor and WR Geoffrey Jamiel are only sophomores, last week at Fordham the starting offensive line was senior OL Renach Gena, senior OL Christian Jablonski, senior OL Jackson Wiles, freshman OL Austin Huff, and sophomore OL Langston Jones. Only two of these players started the first game at Villanova - Jones and Jablonski - and neither of them were starting at the same position on the O line.

In fact, due to injury Lehigh lost team captain OL George Padezanin the first week of the year and every week since the Mountain Hawks have been starting different O line combinations. But Huff did a great job against Fordham, as did freshman RB Luke Yoder, who won Patriot League Offensive Player of the Week with a 100 yard rushing effort behind that O line.

It's not just the offense. Only sophomore DB Nick Petelkian in the secondary has started all season long. Last week, three freshmen started alongside him. Sophomore LB Tyler Ochojski went out with injury in the middle of the Fordham game and freshman LB William Parton had to step in and did a really good job, with 2 tackles for loss, 1 forced fumble and 1 sack.

Lehigh has had to play a bunch of underclassmen out of necessity, and for the most part they have really done a phenomenal job jumping in due to the circumstances. They've had to grow up fast.

Tackling: C. Against Monmouth, I winced a bunch of times when I saw Mountain Hawks try to arm tackle RB Jaden Shirden and RB Sone Ntoh. You simply can't do that against grown ass men like Shirden and Ntoh, who are not just seniors and great athletes but two of the best runners in the CAA and maybe FCS as a whole.

Overall it's been a concern, and it really was an issue in a close game vs. Fordham, where just one more stop or one fewer yard might have been the difference between a win and a loss, or maybe just overtime. Maybe it's partially chalked up to youth, but it's definitely an area for the whole defense I'd like to see improved.

Finishing: D. Finally, the toughest lesson and grade of them all. Putting aside the very tough games against Villanova and Monmouth for a second, closing out halves and closing out games have been a consistent problem with this team.

In the win against Merrimack, at the end of the first half up 14-3, the defense gave up a drive that went the length of the field to give up a FG to be down 14-6 at half. It could have really come back to haunt this team, but thankfully it didn't. This team, however, has made a habit of giving up a lot of points at the end of the first half. The defense is averaging giving up more than 14 points in the second quarter, most of them during the last five minutes.

Against Fordham with a 35-24 lead with 10 minutes to play, too, the tendency reared its ugly head and it cost Lehigh the win. It wasn't just on the defense - the offense couldn't get a couple more first downs that might have run out the clock. Lehigh had a chance to go for it on 4th and 1 in Fordham territory, but the staff elected to try to punt and pin them deep. It didn't work, and instead, Fordham drove the length of the field to tie the game with an improbable 42 yard FG.

It's easy find moral victories in the loss against Fordham. Almost half the team out there were underclassmen, many of them in their first game action. Lehigh wasn't picked to win by anybody, including me. By any measure the Mountain Hawks overperformed. But in the end, all that wasn't enough.

A win against Fordham would have been an instant reputation-changer. The Rams, after all, are still the league's best shot at ending Holy Cross' reign of terror atop the Patriot League, and they have an FBS win to their credit too, a 40-37 win over Buffalo. But the team couldn't finish, and thus the 1-5 record still says who the Lehigh Mountain Hawks are at this moment.

In order for Lehigh to finish strong, and to achieve the visible goals still in front of them at the moment - winning at least three more games, playing meaningful league football in November, and beating Lafayette - finishing, more than anything else, needs to be improved.

"Welcome to Wrexham, I Mean Lehigh Football Nation"

2023-09-14T13:37:00.003-04:00

One of my guilty pleasures last fall during the Lehigh football season was watching the FX show "Welcome to Wrexham". It was a surprising balm on a tough 2-9 year.

It only came about - surprisingly - at the insistence of my wife.

She had just returned from jury duty in Philadelphia, and one of the people she chatted with recommended the show. She was excited to see it. For my part, I thought, sure, a show about sports and English soccer? Sign me up.

The story of how two Hollywood stars bout a Welsh soccer team is interesting. During the pandemic, the British actor Humphrey Ker suggested to actor Rob McElhenny (creator, writer and star of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) watch the excellent sports docuseries “Sunderland ’Til I Die,” which documented the doomed task of Sunderland and their fans as they tried to bring their club back up to the Premier League alongside international brands Manchester City, Liverpool, and Manchester United where they had competed for more than a decade. Instead, it showed the descent of the Black Cats down to Division One, or two levels below Manchester City.

I have this habit of scanning through the different streaming services at our disposal. Every time I saw "Welcome to Wrexham", I'd shake my head and move on. Sure, I knew I would like it, but for her, I had doubts. Bros? Hooliganism? The dark side of sports? I figured it wasn't a viewing match for her.

But I was spectacularly wrong.

You have to understand something about my wife - she's the biggest Anglophile I've ever met. She is mostly Greek and Italian heritage, but she is enthralled by everything English, from tea to scones to the Monarchy to Downton Abbey to the Great British Bake-Off.

She was also born in Philadelphia, and grew up there for a while before emigrating to the suburbs. Like many people here, she supports and roots for pretty much any organization with the name "Philadelphia" emblazoned across the front. This Philly connection would have be critical in terms of her enjoying the show.

"Welcome to Wrexham" ended up, basically, the perfect blend of Philly (McIlhenny) celebrity (Ryan Reynolds, of course) and Wales (the town of Wrexham, and the type of working class city it is).

And just this week, Season 2 of the series just kicked off. In the first episode of this season they talk a lot about meeting the former Prince of Wales (you may know him), and they set up a series of storylines based on their season from last year. Like Season 1, the series does a great job of creating storylines and some drama that even someone who knows the results (like I do - I do indeed follow the team now and watch them when I can) can enjoy the series.

You probably know me best for freaking out about Lehigh football (of the American Football kind), but the truth is being a fan of FCS football and being a fan of a National League club in England has a lot of similarities.

In fact, as I slowly warmed to the idea of becoming a Wrexham fan through the series and the documentaries, the similarities of Lehigh Nation and Wrexham Nation became even more apparent to me.

*****

English football, er, soccer, is an amazing construct.

Built over hundreds of years, with thousands of clubs from the most amateur to the most professionals, there are a dizzying number of competitions and levels.

There are league games, elimination trophy tournaments that get waged in the middle of the season, and most importantly promotion and demotion from leagues.

The leagues are unabashedly capitalist at their core; the TV contracts dictate that a promotion from the National League to the Second Division allows a club to get more TV money, have fewer restrictions on signing international players, and generally drums up more excitement for the local area.

Although this is becoming an antiquated concept, you can think of it as winning not only a championship, but also winning a deal to have their games broadcast on their own cable network across the state. It brings in money for the club and the town.

What smaller English soccer teams and FCS college football teams have in common are a tight local link to a smaller cities.

In Welcome to Wrexham, Rob McElhenny mentions at the beginning of Season 1 the similarities between Philadelphia and Wrexham, but in truth to me Wrexham (61,000 urban population) has a lot more in common with a city like Bethlehem (116,000 population) than Philadelphia (over 56 million people live within 250 miles of its metro area). At least when I look at Wrexham, I see it more like a Lehigh Valley type industrial town in Wales, not a Philadelphia sized city.

The genius of the documentary is how it's not just a wonky explanation of their National League, the fifth level (and the highest semi-professional level) of English soccer, and Wrexham's quest to make it to Division Two, the lowest rung of fully professional soccer (and four leagues away from the Liverpool's and Manchester City's).

The city of Wrexham, its residents, the celebrity owners, the players, and even Welsh (the language), feature at different times. It's presented such a way that it shows lots of backstories, the sometimes quirky history of some of their fans, the employees, the pub attached the the stadium (and its owner), the coaches, everything.

Even the name of the documentary series, Welcome to Wrexham, doesn't necessarily mean they're talking about Wrexham AFC, the soccer club - they're could just as much be talking about Wrexham the town, which is the point - yes, the story is a lot about the soccer club, but it's also about way more than that.

I think that's why I feel such a kinship to the series - after all, I know what it's like to fall in love with the community around a mid-sized city with a steel and manufacturing background, adopt the local sports team, and try to cover them and give everybody a great experience.

I understand and realize it's not the same thing, but when I chose to attend Lehigh, it was similar to McIlhenny making a decision to put myself in that community.

I had multiple places I could have gone to college, but I chose an postindustrial town whose steel jobs had decline and would eventually leave for good. In Wrexham, McIlhenny chose the club and town of Wrexham to, effectively, support.

I don't know if something similar is happening in the mind of Rob McIlhenney (or for that matter Ryan Reynolds), but I will say watching the show, I really felt a very deep level of involvement with the club, maybe in a way that others don't.

It seems like the stone age, but when I started writing about Lehigh football on the internet, there weren't really a lot of good templates to follow on what to do.

Local papers hadn't even mastered putting their articles in a timely way on the internet. In the early days I had to find Morning Call and Express-Times articles, and print them out before they were yanked or archived (if they went up at all), and then look them over and see what they were doing and how they were covering things.

And I didn't think of myself as a journalist at the time - I felt of myself as more of a amateur humorist and a bit of a dreamer, maybe trying to impress my family and friends, trying to write about a subject I had a lot of passion about. Somewhere along the way I developed journalistic skills (yes, Virginia, I have indeed used FOIA requests to get information), but back then it was more about looking and sounding like a journalist than actually being one.

(I think there was always a journalist inside of me, even in college - but I never had the courage to join the student newspaper, The Brown and White, to try to find out. That was probably my deepest regret as a Lehigh undergraduate by an extremely wide margin, because I know it was something I had thought about.)

When I was in that wilderness, a fan of a team but not really a journalist yet, I took what the local papers had were writing about the team and tried my best to learn. I had a luxury nobody else really had - I could look over everything with a fresh pair of eyes, crafting how I wanted the story of Lehigh football to be portrayed and seen on the Internet, without anyone else's ideas.

It was in that vein I looked to the early websites of English soccer - third division and national league clubs in particular - to figure that out. (Yeovil Town's website in particular was one I really referred to a lot in those days.)

To me, it made perfect sense logically.

It helped that I had grown up overseas in France, so I knew how deep passions for the football, er, soccer, ran over there. France was not the most passionate of sports countries, but you could still see it was important if you looked closer.

Paris-Saint Germain wasn't a global brand yet bought by Middle Eastern billionaires (and it still makes me laugh that Saint Germain is a suburb of actual Paris - it's a little like if the Giants were called the New York-New Jersey Giants). When I lived there, PSG was a middling team that never seemed to live up to its contracts or potential, kind of like the 1983 Yankees.

Instead, it was Saint Etienne in the middle of the country, far away from wealth and glitz, that assembled a team of French superstars that dominated the league. Midfielder Michel Platini was a national hero, but that team was loaded, and when they beat Astroturfed teams like PSG and Monaco French fans loved it. (Plus, the kits couldn't be more 1980s if they tried.)

I think soccer fans in France always were much more closely bonded to the national teams rather than the clubs, which seems to still hold true today. You don't see a lot of PSG merchandise in Paris, but you do see some French National team jerseys.

I lived in France during two World Cups, one broadcast from Argentina live, the other broadcast from Mexico live, experiencing that madness twice.

When France beat Brazil in the Mexico City, I was sitting with my family in a little French farmhouse, sitting with the dairy farmers who were renting the place to us, watching the game on a TV with rabbit ears. Watching the Brazil fans despondent, their hands behind their heads, when lightly-regarded plucky France were celebrating was a treasured fan memory for me.

The passions were great, but they were also, at times, deadly.

I was not in Europe for Hillsborough, but I was there for Heysel, when the wall collapsed between Juventus and Liverpool supporters before the start of the European Cup final in the Netherlands. While there had been death, tragedy and hooliganism before, seeing it dominate the news for weeks in Europe showed that this wasn't just an English problem or an Italian problem anymore. Sports passions were not always good.

Basically, based on my upbringing I always knew that small cities all over Europe harbored deep passions for their local soccer teams, with England, Wales and Scotland probably topping the list.

So when I was trying to figure out how to write about Lehigh football, I knew I wasn't going to go for a national presence, like in France - I wanted something really home-grown and with coverage based on a home-grown love for their club.

I wanted for Lehigh fans to get that from anything I created - no matter where they were from in the world. Once you've gone to Bethlehem, part of it gets into you. I heavily suspect the same about Wrexham.

College sports is regional in nature, with plenty of David vs. Goliath stories. Lower division English soccer does too.

App State over Michigan. arguably the biggest FCS over FBS win in history? When Wrexham beat Arsenal in the 1992 FA Cup, it was a similar earthquake that the locals will never stop talking about.

The long-standing Patriot League Rivalry grudge match, Lehigh vs. Lafayette? Wrexham has local Rival Chester, a spicy local matchup where their stadiums are separated by twelve miles (sound familiar?), and they've competed at the same level for most of their history. (Plus Wrexham is firmly in Wales, and Chester straddles the England/Wales border, adding nationality to their Rivalry, "the Cross Border Derby".)

It shouldn't have been surprising to anyone that I was able to effortlessly consume the story of not just the club, but also the town or Wrexham and the ownership, and, without much effort, get on board.

What is massively surprising is that my wife is the one getting me up for early FA Cup ties involving Wrexham - and listening to scratchy audio commentaries of the action where the announcers critique the local food. However it came to be, it was clearly meant to be..

*****

From the documentary, is there anything we can learn for Lehigh?

I think the biggest thing might involve the local Bethlehem community.

In the documentary, the ties between Wrexham AFC and the city of Wrexham is emphasized. The folks in the town are talking about them in coffee shops and in the streets.

There was a time, I think, where Bethlehem did the same about Lehigh football.

Before he passed away, the legendary Philadelphia Eagle legend Chuck Bednarik sat down with an interview with my friend and colleague Dave Coulson years ago.

He told Dave he started his love for football sneaking into football games at old Taylor Stadium (now the site of the Rausch Business School). His parents, immigrants from Slovakia, worked for Bethlehem Steel, and he was free to roam the streets during the day, where he found himself watching Lehigh football, and falling in love with it.

He told a story of the cops looking the other way as he snuck into the stadium. Had the cops been different, or Lehigh football or Taylor Stadium not been there, there may not have been Chuck Bednarik, Philadelphia Eagle and 1960 NFC Champion.

Head coach Kevin Cahill has talked about making Murray Goodman Stadium a tough place for opposing teams to visit. You can argue that that's exactly what Wrexham has done the past two seasons.

Whether it's the presence of the docuseries, or the renewed local interest in the club Wrexham AFC with the injection of money, talent and resources, there's little question that they are bringing more fans to their historic field, and it's helping the team.

Lehigh (or me, for that matter) doesn't have a docuseries in the works on Lehigh football or the Bethlehem area (Welcome to South Mountain?), so that (for now, at least) isn't on the table. But there's definitely more that could be done to involve both students and community members.

Nobody will be sneaking kids into Murray Goodman stadium today for Lehigh football practices, but shouldn't there some sort of similar program to give free tickets to Bethlehem residents who want to catch a game, get a hotdog and a drink, and watch the Marching 97 play at halftime?

Back in the late80s or 90s, one of the biggest attended days at Lehigh was something called "Scout Day", where scores of scouts (I think they were all boy scouts) got to go to the game for free, and were honored at halftime on the field. (I remember because I was at that game.) I believe it is still on the Top 20 record non-Lafayette attendance lists.

I have no idea if the game was a moneymaker for Lehigh or not, but - how great was that for the kids that attended the game? How great was that for the local area? How many of those kids and their parents came back for more football games later in their lives?

This season, there are five home games. Maybe don't do it on senior day, or homecoming, but why couldn't there be a day where local kids, from the pee-wee leagues to high schools, can go to the game for free?

Even better, why not do a "Youth Sports Day" at Murray Goodman?

With lights, in early September, you could have a game with a 3:30 PM start time, or even a 5:00PM or 6:00 PM start time after youth sports for the day is over. That would allow pee wee football, soccer and all sorts of youth sports to conclude their activities in the mornings and afternoons, and open them up for a free or deeply discounted afternoon out at a Lehigh football game. (It also would expose them to what excelling at a sport can possibly do for them - be a ticket for a world-class education.)

I'm not here to disparage the existing theme days at Lehigh sports events, all of which I enjoy. But watching Welcome to Wrexham showed me what it can be - and in their case is - even more intertwined with the local community, especially in terms of sports.

Maybe Lehigh could do some different things to spur engagement - and maybe it will spark some imaginations to come back for those same fans to see Lehigh football games in October and November in future years.

You don't need a docuseries to do all that. It does, of course, require some resources and some ingenuity, both of which Lehigh fans and boosters have.

In the end, I'm a fan. I'm a fan of Wrexham, Lehigh University, and Bethlehem. All of my fandoms for these places were unexpected, but in the end, there's nothing quite like rooting for a team from a city with an industrial background that has had this habit of taking down giants. And I think it's a really good idea to incorporate good ideas from one another. It's not just a lesson about fandom, it's also a lesson about life and business.

My Lehigh Football Head Coaching Shortlist of 15 Names (and three more)

2022-12-01T18:01:00.004-05:00

We didn't want to be here, but we're here now once again. Lehigh fans have entered this offseason wondering who might be on the Lehigh Athletic Department's shortlist for the next head football coach of the Lehigh Mountain Hawks.

I do not know who has applied, or who is under active consideration for the position. However as the biggest Lehigh football follower you know, I have some ideas, ideas I am sharing with you now. (For free!)

I've come up with a list of fifteen possible names, some which I've heard whispered as candidates, others which might be good fits at Lehigh for a variety of reasons. What all of these candidates have in common is that any one of them would be tremendous candidates to be Lehigh's next head football coach.

Let's get to it.

UPDATE: Four more names.

John Allen

Current Position: Wide Receivers Coach/Passing Game Coordinator, UConn (2022-present)

Resume: Allen, with a long list of qualifications, is well known, as his UConn bio notes. “To find a coach with more experience than John Allen would be a difficult task, and I’m thrilled that he will be joining the UConn football family,” Mora said. “John is an excellent recruiter who knows the commitment it takes to be successful at this level. John’s knowledge of the game and coaching acumen will make an immediate impact on the young men in our program and I know he is going to hit the ground running.”

Area Connection: He's well-traveled and has had stints at Bucknell and Penn State early in his career.

How he fits: UConn was always going to be a tough job for any coach, but Allen's experience has to have been a part of what has made "bowl eligible UConn" a thing in 2022, something few would have predicted last May. For a team that is looking to become "FCS Playoff eligible Lehigh", that holds a lot of appeal.

Analysis: His combination of experience, recruiting, and his presence in "bowl eligible UConn" makes him an interesting name to consider.

Bryant Appling

Current Position: Head coach, Buford HS (Georgia), 2019-present

Resume: Appling, who got the head-coaching job in 2019 after 15 seasons as a Buford assistant, is the first coach in GHSA history to win three state titles in his first three seasons as a head coach. His team went undefeated in league play but lost in state playoffs this year.

Area Connection: He's a beloved former Lehigh university linebacker who has had tremendous success in the state of Georgia.

How he fits: Appling put in a tremendous amount of time as assistant coach at Buford and it paid off in a huge way through transition (the school physically moved and changed classifications twice). His knowledge of Georgia, a Lehigh recruiting hotbed, is unmatched. He's also a proven winner.

Analysis: Folks seem to think lack of D-I head coaching experience should disqualify candidates, but I don't. Plenty of candidates have gone from high school to Division I head coach. Could Appling come "home" to Lehigh to do it? Would he?

Terence Archer

Current Position: Assistant Head Coach/Wide Receivers/Pass Game Coordinator, 2022-present

Resume: Returning to the East Coast after a successful time at Sam Houston, Archer came back to Delaware this past year and rejuvenated an offense that had flatlined to some degree at Delaware. This season, Delaware returned to the Top 20 offenses in all of FCS, won a first round playoff game, and is still playing.

Area Connection: He lives closer to Lehigh than he does Delaware, and he went to school at Monmouth.

How he fits: Terence is a proven offensive commodity at the FCS level, and his rapid turnaround of Delaware's offense definitely bears notice.

Analysis: Archer's has a fairly interesting resume in that he's got both the track record at the FCS level and also experience with a quick offensive turnaround.

Chris Boden

Current Position: Assistant Coach (Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks), Villanova (2019-present)

Resume: Developer of Villanova QB Daniel Smith, Boden's offenses have been on display against Lehigh now for the last three seasons. Boden helped the Wildcats averaged 30.1 points per game and 380.0 yards of total offense per contest in 2021, while his 2019 offensive unit amassed 37.3 points per game and ranked eighth nationally in scoring.

Area Connection: His "area connection" is in large part from his time at Villanova, where he is a former QB and NJ/PA recruiter. Notably, he's consistently delivered a large number of high-academic recruits to Villanova.

How he fits: Ever looked at Villanova, especially on offense, and thought "that's what Lehigh should be aspiring to these days"? Boden's one of the guys who could actually do that.

Analysis: Boden is one of a surprising number of candidates on my shortlist that don't have a direct link to Lehigh in terms of coaching trees, or even Patriot League experience. That shouldn't matter. Boden is simply really good at what he does, and Lehigh fans have seen this up close.

Vincent Brown

Current Position: Associate Head Coach/Defensive Coordinator/LB coach, William and Mary (2019-present)

Resume: Brown, a three-time All-Pro linebacker for the New England Patriots, has been a trusted right-hand man for William and Mary head football coach Mike London in all his stops in Division I football (Richmond, Virginia, Howard, William and Mary). Brown was a standout player at Mississippi Valley State, and there isn't much that he hasn't seen already in his coaching career.

Area Connection: Clark was a key coach for standout DT Bill Murray at William and Mary, where he had 143 tackles, 32.0 TFL, 19.0 sacks 10 blocks, six PBU, four forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.

How he fits: Brown could be one of the best-qualified African-American candidates in the FCS coaching landscape today. His knowledge base is unique and could truly bring a great new perspective to the Patriot League head coaching ranks, all based in successful scholarship FCS recruiting and high academics.

Analysis: As a defensive guy, he probably doesn't fit the presumed mold of "offensive savior" that many Lehigh fans might be expecting. But if I'm Lehigh, I am definitely fielding this phone call, because I think he would be a tremendous head football coach.

Clayton Carlin

Current Position: Defensive Coordinator/Safeties, Sam Houston (2016-present)

Resume: Carlin has had a long and storied career at the FCS level in assistant coaching, with a multitude of stops including Nebraska, Cornell, Villanova, and Bucknell of the Patriot League. Most recently he helped build Sam Houston's defense into one of the best in the nation - a FCS National Championship-caliber defense.

Area Connection: His father, Leo Carlin, worked with the Philadelphia Eagles for 55 years as their ticket director, so for Clayton this would be a homecoming.

How he fits: Carlin would be a homecoming for a coach that started off on Tom Osborne's staff in Nebraska to the FCS National Championship with the Bearkats. His national experience and ability with defenses make him an intriguing name.

Analysis: His presence on the national scene, and his seeming desire to head back "home", makes him an interesting, splashy wild card.

Jim Clements

Current Position: Head Coach, Kutztown (67-25, 8 seasons)

Resume: Former head coach at Del Val (D-III). He is the winningest coach in Delaware Valley history with an overall record of 66-24 from 2006-13, including a perfect 10-0 regular season in 2011. At Kutztown, he's never had a losing record. In 2021, KU matched a program single-season record with 11 wins, earned its second PSAC crown and won a NCAA Second Round game, advancing further than any team in its 105 season history has. Clements earned his second straight American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Division II Region 1 Coach of the Year and PSAC East Coach of the Year that year as well.

Area Connection: Has extensive ties to the area as former Del Val head coach and is a PA resident. He followed Drew Folmar as Kutztown head coach after Folmar left to become Lehigh's offensive coordinator under Andy Coen, and Kutztown didn't miss a beat.

How he fits: Clements is simply a winner, and was allegedly considered in 2018 for the head coaching position at Lehigh. You have to think he would a strong candidate again this time around. His knowledge of PA recruiting would certainly be a huge factor.

Analysis: It feels like Clements has been here before - that's because he has. Everything that's been said about him still applies - he coaches defensive minded teams that win. Eventually he's going to get a Division I head coaching job - it's just a matter of time. Is this the time?

Billy Cosh

Current Position: Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks coach, Richmond (2021-present)

Resume: He's still working in the FCS Playoffs right now coaching QB Reece Udinski, the phenom QB he also coached when he was employed at the same position at VMI. He deserves a huge heap of credit for discovering Reece Udinski, and recruiting him to VMI which as any Division I head coach will tell you is not an easy sell. He's also got coaching in his blood:he is the son of long-time collegiate coach Chris Cosh, who has been a defensive coordinator for eight FBS schools and also served as the Spiders’ defensive coordinator in 2016.

Area Connection: He doesn't have any true ties to the Valley. However, his recruiting of Pennsylvania, notably local product WR Jakob Herres, really bears notice.

How he fits: I am impressed with this young coach in a big way - not only how he recruited Udinski when few others did, and how he developed him into one of the best QBs in FCS. His offense, which depends on Udinski's precision, resembles "Air Lehigh" a lot more than people realize.

Analysis: Cosh's rise has been fast (he's only 30 years old). He's grown up around football and understands how it works. He understands some of the intricacies about recruiting at a high-academic place like Lehigh. I have no doubt he'd adapt fast at Lehigh and do well here.

Drew Folmar

Current Position: Associate Head Football Coach (Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks), Elon (2017-present)

Resume: Drew coached three years at Lehigh as offensive coordinator/QB coach and had great success here. Folmar's Lehigh offense run by QB Nick Shafnisky put up 483.8 yards per game, ranking sixth nationally in total offense in 2016. Lehigh averaged 38.8 points per game to rate ninth nationally. At Elon, he has developed several great QBs, notably QB Davis Cheek.

Area Connection: The first of our candidates who are part of the Lehigh "coaching tree", his offenses ranked in the top 10 in passing efficiency (fifth), passing offense (sixth) and third down conversion percentage (sixth).

How he fits: His success at recruiting and developing QBs is exciting, and he knows Lehigh, The Rivalry, and everything around South Mountain.

Analysis: Folmar returning to South Mountain unquestionably would be a jolt of excitement to the program, and instantly bring back some positive vibes from the "Shafnisky-tossing-aside-the-Lafayette-DB" years of the program. But does he want to return to Bethlehem?

Jeff Gallo

Current Position: Offensive Coordinator/TE Coach, Monmouth (2019-present)

Resume: A former all-conference player for the Hawks and veteran of the Monmouth coaching staff, Jeff Gallo has been a member of Jeff Callahan's staff for the last eighteen years. His offenses have been electric, leading to a pair of Big South titles, FCS Playoff appearances, and an invite to the CAA. RB Jaden Shirden is the leading rusher in all of FCS, and it was under Gallo's offense.

Area Connection: Gallo is a resident of South Jersey, and a graduate of Cherokee High School, but no true Lehigh Valley "connections". To me, however, South Jersey is a pretty "local tie".

How he fits: His resume in terms of offense speaks for itself - so many great Monmouth offensive players have been a part of his teams.

Analysis: You could consider him an out-of-the-box hire, but should you? He hasn't been a part of a Patriot League staff or had to deal with Patriot League rules, and he's not part of the Lehigh head coaching tree. But he's undoubtedly an exciting offensive mind that would generate buzz, and you can point to his development of some great FCS offensive names.

Kevin Higgins

Current Position: Associate Head Coach/Wide Receivers, Wake Forest (2013-present)

Resume: The head football coach at Lehigh under arguably the most dominant stretch of Lehigh football in history, 1998-2000. During that stretch the Mountain Hawks went 32-1 during the regular season and made the playoffs three times, winning iconic games at both Richmond (1998) and Western Illinois (2000). In 1998, Higgins' team was 1st and goal away from upsetting the eventual I-AA National Champions UMass. Oh yeah, he's also been incredibly good at Wake Forest with fellow Lehigh coaching alums Warren Ruggerio and Dave Clawson, too!

Area Connection: Did you not just read he was the head football coach at Lehigh under arguably the most dominant stretch of Mountain Hawk football in history?

How he fits: He fits as a sort of Mack Brown type who can recruit at Lehigh (he's done it before!), and you don't need to make a powerpoint showing him what the Rivalry is.

Analysis: If he comes back to South Mountain, he'll be 67 years old. But he would be a great guy to build the program back again in intangible ways. And if any guy could assemble a great staff, it's Higgins.

Pete Lembo

Current Position: Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator, South Carolina (2021-present)

Resume: A nominee for this year's Broyles award (given to FBS Assistant Coach of the Year), Lembo has built a great reputation at the FBS level in developing special teams units at Maryland, Rice, Memphis, and now South Carolina. He also was head football coach at Elon and Ball State.

Area Connection: Kevin Higgins isn't the only former Lehigh head football coach in the mix for the Mountain Hawks' job. Pete Lembo, of course, coached Lehigh from 2001-2005 and guided Lehigh to their first home victory in the FCS playoffs. Lehigh's winning records in those five years: 11-1, 8-4, 8-3, 9-3, 8-3.

How he fits: Although the press box has flipped sides since Pete was last head coach, he knows where everything else is and he knows what he's getting into. His expertise in special teams is a much, much bigger asset as a Patriot League head coach than many people realize.

Analysis: Could a Pete Lembo homecoming be forthcoming? I could see it.

John Loose

Current Position: Assistant Head Coach/LB Coach, Army-West Point, 17 overall seasons

Resume: The vast majority of John Loose's career has been spent at two institutions: Army-West Point and Lafayette. Everywhere he's been he's presided over tremendous defenses.

Area Connection: Even while still at West Point, his ties to the Lehigh Valley have persisted. Loose and his wife, Marianne, started Lauren’s First and Goal Foundation. The organization was founded in 2004 and raises money for pediatric brain tumor research. The Foundation has generated more than $2 million and blossomed into the largest one-day football clinic in the country, which takes place through Lafayette College and involves a nationwide network of head coaches and assistant coaches.

How he fits: Loose has embodied the positive spirit of Lafayette athletics for decades, and he's lived and breathed The Rivalry his whole adult life, even while still up at Army-West Point.

Analysis: It would admittedly be a shocking "good guy" turn for someone who has been very closely associated with Lafayette athletics (though it's happened before in the history of The Rivalry). Getting someone of his caliber of high-academic recruiting and overall football knowledge would be a coup. But he didn't end up moving down from West Point to pursue the Lafayette job opening last year. Would he end up moving for the good guys instead?

Shawn Lutz

Current Position: Head Coach, Slippery Rock, 2016-present

Resume: In the six seasons SRU has played since he was named head coach, Lutz has guided the program to four PSAC West titles, four trips to the NCAA Division II Playoffs and an overall record of 58-17, the best in the PSAC over that stretch. Last year he guided the Rock to a 10-3 record, beating Bob Chesney's old team, Assumption, in the first round of the Division II Playoffs 17-14 despite a deeply depleted squad.

Area Connection: Slippery Rock is in Western PA, more Sheetz than Wawa. But Western PA is a hotbed of Lehigh talent over the years.

How he fits: Aside from the success on the field - Lutz has spent 21 years at Slippery Rock, first as an assistant, then as a head coach - Slippery Rock has had two national finalists for the William Campbell Trophy (academic Heisman) under Lutz with Marcus Martin in 2017 and Henry Litwin in 2021. No other PSAC school has had one finalist let alone two - that speaks volumes about Lutz' commitment to the academic side of the house, which is important at a place like Lehigh.

Analysis: Lutz' success at the D-II level - a former D-II head coach of the year - cannot be understated. Would he want to trade Sheetz for Wawa?

Marco Pecora

Current Position: Associate Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator, St. Francis (PA), 2019-present

Resume: A member of the Red Flash coaching staff for eight years, five as defensive coordinator, Pecora seems destined to be a head football coach at some point, and the Red Flash's NEC championship this year (and FCS Playoff bid) might be a logical point to start.

Area Connection: His roots are more in Western PA from Richland High School and Pitt, but it is a hotbed of football talent that Lehigh has had success with in the past.

How he fits: A young up-and-coming coach that just needs the opportunity. He's helped make the Red Flash one of the strongest programs in the NEC. Before Chris Villarreal and he got there, they were one of the toughest places to recruit in all of FCS.

Analysis: At St. Francis (PA), in only his third year as offensive coordinator, the Red Flash leapt to become a Top 20 offense in FCS. That alone should be a ringing endorsement as to what he could bring to the table at Lehigh.

Adam Scheier

Current Position: Special Teams Coordinator / Tight Ends Coach, Temple (2022-present)

Resume: Scheier is a long-time assistant coach who has climbed up the coaching ranks and spent time on a variety of different coaching staffs. He really grew to prominence with his special teams units under Dave Clawson, and soon afterwards he found himself on the coaching staffs of Urban Meyer at Ohio State, Cliff Klingsbury at Texas Tech, and Greg Schiano at Rutgers. Each step of the way improvements in special teams have followed.

Area Connection: Scheier was a former special teams coach for Lehigh for both Pete Lembo and Andy Coen. He also did double duty on South Mountain, also coaching wide receivers and running backs at different times.

How he fits: He's a direct member of the Lehigh coaching tree with the added bonus of having been around in the world of power college football.

Analysis: He's a Lehigh guy through and through, with a link to not just the Coen and Lembo eras but also to Kevin Higgins via Dave Clawson.

Chris Smith

Current Position: Offensive Coordinator, Holy Cross (2022-present)

Resume: Smith, a former Holy Cross player, has leaped from strength to strength in his rise through the coaching ranks, first at New Haven and now at Holy Cross. Smith came in Year One with head coach Bob Chesney and has arguably had a piece in every part of their success there - starting with the offensive line (4 years), the offense (this year in their 11-0 season), and recruiting (all six years).

Area Connection: None, though he's faced off against Lehigh a multitude of times as a player and a coach. He played offensive line at Holy Cross at a time when Tom Gilmore was head coach.

How he fits: He knows the Patriot League, and knows how to recruit and win in this league, and he literally has the exact toolset needed here.

Analysis: On paper, it feels like it's Smith's time to be a head coach somewhere, and he brings an absolute ton to the table. So why not Lehigh? But technically he would be outside the typical Lehigh coaching tree.

Phil Stambaugh

Current Position: Notre Dame-Green Pond High School Head Coach (2017-present)

Resume: He's a Lehigh Valley legend for a myriad of reasons - Pius X football star; Lehigh University star QB from 1997-2000; and hugely successful head football coach at Pius X, and later Notre Dame-Green Pond.

Area Connection: You literally could not pick someone more in tune with the area than Phil Stambaugh. He was one of the "overlooked" FCS players of the area recruited by Kevin Higgins; you could bet there won't be any stone unturned in terms of local football talent.

How he fits: Phil's reputation as a high school coach in the Lehigh Valley is top-notch. He has a very loyal group of fans that would likely be very excited for him to get this opportunity - and this shouldn't be underestimated. His involvement would really engage the local area in a way other hires wouldn't.

Analysis: Like Appling, the argument that a high school coach couldn't step in and coach at Lehigh doesn't hold too much water for me, as long as they can get the job done. He's clearly done that at ND-GP.

Mike Willis

Current Position: Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator/TE Coach, Princeton (2016-present)

Resume: Willis has had a meteoric coaching rise at Princeton. A former Tiger offensive lineman, in the span of five seasons he went from the youngest position coach in the Ivy League to Assistant Head Coach and offensive coordinator. Lehigh fans have seen up close and personal what Willis' offenses have been able to do over the years against the Mountain Hawks- 29-17. 32-0, and (shudder) 66-0.

Area Connection: Princeton is by definition a "local tie", but also very encouraging is that he is one of Bob Surace's key recruiters in New Jersey, i.e. Princeton's (and Lafayette's and Lehigh's) backyard. He's originally from Rutherford, New Jersey.

How he fits: You can't argue Willis' outstanding success at Princeton. Not only would he bring his recruiting savvy, he may also bring some of Princeton's dynamic offensive style to Lehigh as well, revitalizing the offense.

Analysis: He's risen to every challenge given to him at Princeton, and it would be hugely exciting to see what he could bring to the table. Is he willing to leave a lucrative spot at Princeton to do it, and would Lehigh be serious enough to make an offer for him to seriously think about it?

The Tom Gilmore Era

2022-11-22T21:19:00.003-05:00

I really wanted the Tom Gilmore Era to work.

I did not first meet Tom Gilmore when he was a fiery defensive coordinator for some of the best Lehigh teams in history, but I thoroughly enjoyed what he created.

His defense was the final piece of the puzzle in 2001 when the Mountain Hawks earned a first round game in the I-AA Playoffs, a 27-24 win over Hofstra that was one of one of my favorite all-time non-Lafayette wins in program history.

In that game, Lehigh fell behind 14-0 and lost their starting QB, but his defense, led by guys like LB Tom McGeoy, held them to 10 points the rest of the way and ended up winning the game in overtime - where, fittingly, the Mountain Hawks prevented the Pride from scoring.

I did later meet Tom Gilmore in person after a rainy afternoon at Murray Goodman Stadium in 2005. By then, he had taken over a program profoundly in trouble, the Holy Cross Crusaders, and he was in his second year at the helm.

When he took over at Holy Cross in 2004, it seemed like a pretty foolhardy decision by him - it seemed like they were on the brink of folding the program, and after taking over for head coach Dan Allen, who struggled to a 1-11 season before he got there, Gilmore helped make a program that had struggled mightily since giving up football scholarships into a Patriot League football contender.

In that game in 2005, it was a miracle the game got played at all. The game was played in an eerie overcast and consistent downpour, and Murray Goodman Stadium, famously, doesn't have lights, and the current field drainage system wasn't in place. It was won by Holy Cross 13-10, and Tom Gilmore's team won the game on true grit - Lehigh's vaunted passing attack was grounded by the weather and Holy Cross' defense, and the Crusaders relied on a 66 yard punt return by RB Steve Silva and a late touchdown pass by QB John O'Neil to get the win. The Crusaders flopped in an enormous puddle in the end zone when they upset No. 10 Lehigh in that game.

In 2007, Andy Coen's second year at Lehigh, Gilmore came to Murray Goodman again and sent a message, with one of the biggest home beatdowns at the time, a 59-10 butt whooping that was comprehensive and humbling. It was the definitive end to the Lehigh mini-era of home playoff games and success that was started by Kevin Higgins and thrived under Pete Lembo. Lehigh wasn't going to coast off legacy any more; Tom Gilmore not only was going to make a statement, he was going to comprehensively show that the Lehigh era was over.

I remember asking a question of Tom Gilmore that day. I asked him something along the lines of whether he took some satisfaction of beating the team on which he was formerly the defensive coordinator. His response surprised me. "I fully expect Lehigh to rebound and learn something from this, just like we would," he said at the time. "It's a tough pill for them to swallow, but I know what the people here at Lehigh are all about, and I know they are going to respond in a positive way."

There is something about Lehigh that many people love, including Tom Gilmore. He loved the sense of family around the place, the Rivalry, and the added coverage and scrutiny that teams like Bucknell, Georgetown, and Lafayette simply don't have.

And it's something that Tom alluded to when he came back to Lehigh to be head coach in 2018 - a very big surprise to many, including me. He knew the people, he knew the culture, and he wanted to build the program back into what it had been during the height of the Andy Coen era. After his opening press conference, I realizes that I was surprised he came back to coach here, but I thought I probably shouldn't have been. He's always been in love with the place, even when he was up in Worcester.

***

Like I said, I really wanted the Tom Gilmore era to work.

He had a 72-81 record overall, but some of those years were spent on a ground-up rebuild with a 3-8 record. Those post Dan Allen years were very lean, and it took time for him to build the program back up, building to a run of seven straight years of winning records, including a Patriot League championship and FCS Playoff game when QB Dominic Randolph was his signalcaller. I remembered those days a lot more than the struggle years.

When Randolph graduated, it felt like Holy Cross was a program just on the brink of being perennially in the Patriot League title chase, but then things started to level off and some of the struggle years returned. I didn't pay much mind to the end of his time at Holy Cross, where he was terminated on a bye week by an ambitious athletic director that left Holy Cross for Air Force shortly thereafter. But the record didn't lie. There were some tough 2-9 seasons and no season better than 6-5.

At Lehigh, in Andy Coen's final years as head coach, the Mountain Hawk defense had devolved. In 2017, Andy's final title year, the Mountain Hawks gave up a staggering 41 points a game, including 56 to Yale, 65 to Penn (losing that game 65-47!), and 37 points to a Wagner team that wasn't exactly an offensive juggernaut. At 5-6, Patriot League Champions they were, but they definitely felt like flawed champions.

If there is one thing Tom Gilmore, an all-time linebacker a Penn knows, it's defense, so in a way it made sense - if you paired Lehigh's offense scoring 30 points a game, and match it with a Tom Gilmore defense, that could be a potent combination. I saw the vision. I thought it could work. I wanted it to work.

But there was a lot going on at Lehigh.

When Tom came to South Mountain, he inherited a very hard situation - one that nobody could have imagined.

The end of the Andy Coen era was very tough. His final season in 2018 was 3-8, and at the conclusion of the season it was revealed that Andy was retiring so that he could battle early-onset Alzheimer's. Andy got through the season - barely, just enough to tie Bill Leckonby for head coaching wins at Lehigh in his final game - but it was hard on everyone in the program to keep things together.

Gilmore came into the program with the task of bringing the program back. And for a stretch in 2019, it felt like it might have been close by.

That season, Lehigh started out slow against some really tough competition - Villanova, of course, but also a trip out to UC Davis of the Big Sky - but after those tough games, all losses, it seemed like they were ready to turn the corner with four straight wins.

They weren't the types of wins Lehigh fans were used to getting - 10-3 over Merrimack, a last-second 21-14 win preserved over Colgate - but they were wins, giving Lehigh fans hope that the rebuild would be short. Especially when the offense started to gel.

It never happened.

It didn't work out that way fans wanted. The Mountain Hawks would lose their next four games to Holy Cross, Bucknell, Sacred Heart and Lafayette to finish 4-7. The total number of Lehigh offensive points scored in those games: 46, or less than 12 points per game. The loss to Holy Cross in particular stung - as it turned out, Tom Gilmore never won a game against the Crusaders as head coach at Lehigh.

It wouldn't get any easier once COVID-19 made its way around the world.

A mini three game season was played in the spring of 2021 that resulted in three losses, but it's hard to call them games in the traditional sense because all three games the Mountain Hawks only barely had the personnel to actually field a team.

There were a ton of postponements, and the Tuesday before their second game, Lehigh was told they were not going to play against Lafayette, but would be suiting up against Bucknell instead. When they did suit up against Lafayette the following week, Lehigh only had eight healthy linemen, meaning two defensive players had to prepare to play offensive line to be able to field enough players in the game. It would have been a thowback to the 1880s type football for the wrong reasons.

So in that sense, it feels unfair to judge the Tom Gilmore era on these pseudo-"games" with seriously undermanned teams in a unique and crazy situation. Yet the Mountain Hawks didn't win those games, and only scored two touchdowns in the spring - a 49 yard TD run by RB Rashawn Allen and a 4 yard TD pass to WR Jorge Portorreal, both against Lafayette in a 20-13 defeat. QB Nigel Summerville, who came in for the injured Cross Wilkinson and was sacked three times, was in position to win the game with a miracle heave, tried, but it fell incomplete.

In the spring, Lehigh QBs were sacked a staggering 15 times in 3 games, including 6 times vs. Lafayette.

But Tom Gilmore never made excuses for losing. He did make a plea for more time to get his team in place, to find more consistency, but he understood that winning was the most important thing, and that the wins were not happening. He knew this is a results-oriented business.

When the fall of 2021 started with a a six game stretch without an offensive touchdown, it was something was clearly broken. It was beyond recruiting classes or COVID-19. Though it wasn't all on the offense, their struggles clearly put a lot of pressure on the team.

The Mountain Hawks did rebound to win their last three games and played Fordham tough in the Bronx in a 35-28 defeat, making it seem like perhaps the offense had finally started to figure things out. A 17-10 win over Lafayette, however, wasn't an offensive showcase - the highlights were a blocked punt return for a touchdown, and a pass from QB Dante Perri to RB Jack DiPietro for the only other touchdown. Lehigh won with 244 yards of total offense and averaging 2.0 yards per carry on the ground - and Gilmore's only win over Lafayette as head coach, as it would turn out. Still, it was a joyous occasion to beat their Rivals and gave the fan base something to look forward to next season. It would be the only time Tom Gilmore would end up beating Lafayette as head football coach.

The fall of 2022 opened with some promise, but quickly it became apparent that Lehigh wasn't going to be able to keep up with the teams on their loaded schedule.

Villanova, Monmouth and Princeton were all legitimate CAA and Ivy title contenders for most of the year, while Richmond, Fordham and Holy Cross all made the FCS Playoffs. The losses to these teams were substantial, even if it seemed like every single week Lehigh was facing off against Walter Payton finalists or future NFL players. Still, Tom Gilmore carried very high expectations in these games. He expected to win them. I know this because he told me.

Despite the losses, Tom was quick to point out that there were definitely good things happening at times, but the consistency wasn't there. To his credit, he never tried to cast the blame elsewhere for that inconsistency. You didn't need to remind him that it was ultimately on him. He made that clear.

Eventually, though, losing two heartbreakers to Cornell (19-15) and almost unforgivably, Bucknell at home (19-17) showed that the record was not going to correct itself. Overall, the team shot itself in the foot too many times - both the team and the staff.

Lehigh would manage a highlight win on Senior Day against Colgate, 36-33 - a game where everything seemed to come together, finally, on a game-winning drive - but the Gilmore era would end with Lehigh losing 14-11 to Lafayette, unable to put the ball in the end zone with two minutes to play, with four shots from the 15 yard line. In that game Lehigh would have 404 total yards on offense, but only one touchdown to show for it - an amazing one-handed grab by WR Eric Johnson. Lafayette, conversely, won with 180 total yards on offense and their scoring coming on two big plays - one a 50+ yard run, and the other a pick six.

In a way, this weekend's game was a microcosm of the Gilmore era.

The defense was a huge improvement from 2017, for the most part. At times, the offense could manage highlight-reel grabs and great individual play. The offense threw for more than 300 yards, and move the ball well most of the game. Number of sacks by Lafayette: One.

The defensive front stuffed the Leopards offense for the most part. They handed the ball over to the offense, and gave the team opportunities. At times it felt close to all coming together.

But they couldn't do it consistently. They kept falling victim to big plays, often at the worst possible times. Key mistakes on punts, and a missed makeable FG, loomed large. And they kept shooting themselves in the foot after positive plays.

If you're not consistently executing at the Division I level, and keeping your mistakes small and big plays at a minimum, you're not going to win football games. And Lehigh didn't win against Lafayette this weekend because of it. It's hard to escape the conclusion that this game was very winnable, and a better executed play here, a penalty-free play there, a made FG here, a reception there - this came could have been won. That's on everyone who was on the sideline during the game this weekend, but ultimately the buck stops with the guy on top. And Tom Gilmore knew that.

*****

It's strange wanting someone to "work" at Lehigh, then looking at the record and seeing how it didn't happen.

I look back and saw much to like about Tom's time here, weirdly. I never felt like he put himself over the program, like so many head coaches seem to do - he seemed to very much cherish what Lehigh is.

In terms of the tradition of Lehigh, talking about the Rivalry, and talking about his players, he definitely seemed to understand Lehigh the institution backwards and forwards - in fact, he knew coming in what he was getting himself into, both the good and the bad. He didn't always agree with me personally, but he never refused an interview with me, even when things were tough, and never treated me badly.

Tom Gilmore, the man, seemed like a stand-up person, if a bit of a perfectionist at times. He was a straight shooter from Philly, and never played to athletes' egos, which I heavily suspect is why some people in the fan base seemed to dislike him.

My impression from him every week for four seasons, and talking to his players, is that he looked out primarily for their success in academics and football - which makes sense from an Ivy League graduate (Penn) and someone who has been around Lehigh so extensively.

It also said an awful lot to me that during the course of this tough season not a single player entered the transfer portal - even though times were tough, they stuck together and didn't quit. Every week the kids went back to practice, and in the words of DE Dean Colton, "tried to see how we could get better". That's a true credit to the players, especially in a season where they wanted more success, but that's credit to Tom, too. I will always remember that.

In many ways, I really liked Tom, even when the results weren't there. I really was rooting for him, and the kids, to succeed. It just didn't turn out that way.

Bryce Harper's Home Run Caused An Earthquake In Philadelphia. Lehigh's Loss to Bucknell Last Weekend Should Cause One In Bethlehem.

2022-10-26T17:20:00.000-04:00

Bryce Harper took control of the city of Philadelphia on a 1-2 pitch.

He fouled off two 99 mph fastballs, took a changeup just low, and then crushed Daniel Suarez's 98.9 mph sinker into the left-center stands.

At that moment, so many people in the Philadelphia area erupted that it felt like it registered on the Richter scale.

Citizens Bank Park, filled with many fans who just two months ago might have been cursing the organization for being stuck in third and very possibly falling out of contention, were jumping around, waving their Red October towels, in the midst of a wild party they will never forget.

For Phillies fans and Philly fans, it was a moment they had been waiting for after an eleven year playoff drought. For my wife, who listened to the radio call on WIP on our way out to dinner, it was a goosebump-inducing experience.

It's probably not accurate to call Philly fans "long suffering" (ask any Mariners fan), but in a lot of ways in this case it's not so much that they won, it's the way they won - winning the damned pennant after never coming closer than 3rd place in the NL East, an afterthought by most Major League Baseball fans, even in October.

(If you want to be beloved in Philadelphia, win the whole thing with a bunch of loveable, flawed players who were counted out by the elites. Every time A-Rod says something good about the Phillies' opponents, the Phillies get stronger.)

I don't know how the Phillies will do in the World Series, but it's unquestionably a glorious moment for their fans. They'll remember this run the rest of their lives.

It's a glorious moment for them. But there's an opposite side to each glorious moment, a deep-seated low point as another fan base gets the tremendous high of victory.

As the biggest Lehigh football fan you probably know, it feels like I've been living the polar opposite of that Bryce Harper home run now for the latter part of five years.

The last five minutes of last weekend's excruciating 19-17 loss to Bucknell seems to embody that.

For most Lehigh fans, it registered not as much a earthquake. It was probably perceived as a quiet loss, one of a bunch of others this year, in front of 3,582 fans.

It's not a loss that registers on any Richter scale (except perhaps my own), which I think is a huge part of the problem at Lehigh right now.

Shouldn't it be warning sign? A call to action? For higher expectations?

The expectations of competing for Patriot League titles, FCS playoff wins, national championship games - they're gone at Lehigh right now.

The theme of Lehigh football right now is "rebuilding" - the same theme, the same story, since at least 2018. It will also be the theme in the spring of 2023, too, as Lehigh is already at 1-7 on the season. In the Sunniest of Sunny scenarios, Lehigh ends the season at 4-7.

For those that don't remember, that wasn't always the case. Lehigh used to have expectations of Patriot League championships, and FCS playoff games, on a regular basis.

But that was six long years ago.

When I started writing about Lehigh football long ago, back in 2003, head coach Pete Lembo entered The Rivalry with a 7-3 record - and at the time it was seen as a disappointing season, because they lost to a nationally-ranked Ivy League team (Penn), a transitioning FBS team (UConn), and a team that would end up in the FCS National Championship game (Colgate). 8-3, with no Patriot League title or playoffs? A disappointment. Even with a resounding win over Lafayette to end the year.

Those years. and expectations, seem like ancient history now. Lehigh was last nationally ranked in the beginning of the 2017 season, and hasn't sniffed the national rankings since losing 38-35 to Villanova.

Isn't it worth exploring what happened?

****

I'm going to rip off the band aid of last weekend's loss to Bucknell to look at where things are at right now. The analysis shows where the program is now.

This past Saturday, the 1-7 Mountain Hawks were up 17-10 on previously winless Bucknell with under 5 minutes to play.

After struggling to put up points on the Bison, Lehigh's 7 play, 24 yard drive off a forced fumble by DL Dean Colton finally gave the Mountain Hawks a lead in the 4th quarter, punctuated by a 1 yard plunge by RB Gaige Garcia. It was Lehigh's first offensive touchdown of the game.

If the defense then makes one stop of the Bucknell offense, the Mountain Hawks almost certainly win.

But they didn't. Bucknell QB Nick Semptimphelter, son of the former great Lehigh QB Scott Semptimphelter, went 3 of 4 passing and RB Rushaun Baker plunged into the end zone with 2:01 remaining.

Nick Semptiphelter probably could have attended Lehigh had they shown enough interest. But they didn't, and Bucknell happily recruited him and he signed the dotted line for the Bison for a Bucknell education. The fact is Lehigh could have had him, but Bucknell had him, instead, so he was on the field competing against his dad's alma mater.

After the touchdown, Lehigh's special teams then made a terrific play that could have won the game, when WR Tommy Lewis attacked the kick from the right and blocked Bucknell's extra point.

Lewis scooped up the ball, and made it about to midfield before - sadly, as it turns out - he was tackled.

Although it was a big ask, Lehigh couldn't tack on the 2 extra points that would have heaped extra pressure on the Bison. But they were in a position to score those 2 points, and didn't get it done.

Then the Mountain Hawks' special teams unit couldn't pounce on the onsides kick that the Bison recovered at the Lehigh 47. (The Lehigh 47!)

Lehigh's special teams could have won the game, or at least made it difficult for them to win it in regulation. But they didn't.

Lehigh's defense then could have stopped Bucknell from getting into field goal range. But they didn't. Two second down conversions by Sempimphelter brought Bucknell to the 25.

Lehigh's defense could have made the FG try more difficult from there. But they didn't. With 42 seconds left, Sempimphelter threw a deep pass to Charlie Kreinbucher, who came down with the ball at the Lehigh 2 yard line.

Shortly thereafter, after a chip-shot field goal attempt by PK Matt Schearer, it was Bucknell 19, Lehigh 17, with 18 seconds to play - and for Lehigh fans, Bryce Harper's home run, but in reverse. A late hook-and-ladder play went nowhere, and the loss was complete.

It's not the first time this season Lehigh fans would bemoan missed opportunities to win, and you could certainly add more than just those I mentioned. Had the offense managed to score more than one touchdown, had Lehigh not been flagged with 12 penalties for 110 yards, had the Mountain Hawks not turned over the ball three times.. Lehigh would have most likely won the game.

More importantly, though, there are countless other Lehigh football teams over the years that would have found a way to win this game. And that's why this should be a bigger moment than it has seemed.

Personally, I have always had high expectations for the program. I will make no apologies for being an optimist every spring and summer, sometimes seeing a team about to turn the corner that doesn't do so. I expect Lehigh to compete for, at a bare minimum, Patriot League Championships on a regular basis. Every Lehigh football player has a reason to expect a serious chance to win at least one ring.

Not win every game - not win every Patriot League game by three touchdowns - but play hard, bring out your best self, and respect the stage. I'll happily write recaps of heroic efforts in losses, if I see a team battling and getting better. I respect what it takes to field any football team, let alone a winning one. But it comes with some high expectations. Occasionally, they need to be met.

*****

I went through the history to figure out the last time a Lehigh/Bucknell game had true national implications - a Lehigh/Bucknell game that didn't feel like a battle of Patriot League teams that were playing out the string.

2016's matchup, a thrilling 20-13 win, fit that bill. (I wrote a nifty 7,500 word recap of that game at the time.)

Win, and nationally-ranked Lehigh would be Patriot League Champions, and lose, the 7-2 Mountain Hawks would have been in danger of crashing out of the title chase and the FCS Playoff chase.

The uniform combos of both teams in 2016 and 2022 were the exact same, and oddly, the scripts of the games were similar too.

Uncharacteristically for that season, it was a defensive struggle. The prolific Nick Shafnisky-led offense was held to a single first half touchdown, while the defense clamped down on Bucknell in the second half as the offense embarked on some long, sustained drives and relying on field goals to trim the deficit.

But Lehigh's offense would get things together just enough to win - and the defense and special teams would make enough plays to shut out the Bison in the second half - to win 20-13.

It was only after LB Pierce Ripanti sacked Bucknell QB R.J. Nitti on 4th down, as the Bison were driving for the go-ahead touchdown, that the Patriot League title was assured.

That should do it! Big sack on 4th down gives ball back to Lehigh with 1:06 left and LU up 7. #lvvarsity pic.twitter.com/pHHevbaW9j
— Keith Groller (@KeithGroller) November 5, 2016

But the staff, the team, and even the fans just had this belief that things were going to work out, and they did.

When you sit and reflect, it's pretty remarkable how the game narrative of this high point of recent Lehigh football history - and the low point of last weekend's game - are similar.

They were close, hard-fought games. They went down to the wire. Both offenses struggled on that day, and both defenses played well. Both teams made special teams plays, and missed some special teams plays.

But one team just had this belief that things were going to work out.

"It was composed," Ripanti said about the halftime locker room mood down 13-7. "We've played from behind before. Teams have gotten off to a good start before. Colgate scored on their first drive. Holy Cross scored on their first drive. Teams have gotten touchdowns early; we were used to that. We told ourselves, 'Get ready to win the game.'"

I think more than anything this is what this 2022 Lehigh team right now is missing is this type of confidence. Down 13-7? Get ready to win the game.

Sure, the 2016 team approached this game from a different place - but they had on their backs a huge amount of pressure to win, with a championship on the line. But there was zero reason why Lehigh shouldn't have approached this 2022 game with a similar level of confidence. Lehigh beat Bucknell last year to break up a 15 game losing streak, and there wasn't any reason to believe that they couldn't win it again in similar fashion.

I was really struck by the expectations the 2016 team created by themselves, for themselves and their fans. I was in attendance. At halftime, I sat there in the old Murray Goodman press box, and although I was nervous (as I always am in these situations), I also had a lot of confidence that the team was going to figure it out to some degree. I knew the team would play better in the second half. I didn't expect 50 points. But I expected a decent chance to win.

And the question needs to be asked - at least in terms of the Bucknell game this past weekend - wasn't 'confidence' really the only difference between the two teams? The teams on paper were remarkably similar. But one team thought against all odds they had a chance to win the game - and found a way to do it. The other saw bad things start to happen - and they continued to snowball. Isn't that really the story of the game? Isn't that, more than anything else, that needs to change before anything good returns?

*****

I can't speak for every former player, football fan, or Bethlehem resident who casually follows the Lehigh Mountain Hawks.

But it's time to state the obvious to everyone. It ain't 2016 anymore.

Six years of reloading and rebuilding have gotten Lehigh no closer to consistent Patriot League championships, Top 25 rankings, and a legitimate shot making a run in the FCS playoffs.

Too harsh? Look at the record. 2016 was the last time Lehigh had a winning record. In 2017, the Mountain Hawks won a fluky Patriot League championship with a 5-6 record, and got hammered in the playoffs by Stony Brook.

The following year, 2018, saw Lehigh go 3-8 and lose in overtime to Georgetown. And since then, the most wins the Mountain Hawks have had in a season have been four.

In the last six years, no Lehigh victory has come over a Top 25 team. None of those wins came over a CAA team, even unranked, and there were no wins against any Ivy League teams. In fact, in the last six years, Lehigh has only beaten teams from the Patriot League or NEC (and notably lost to Wagner and St. Francis (PA) during that stretch).

There are people here in the program right now that can bring this program back to the lofty expectations of 2016. I know this. It is what I, and I suspect everyone involved with the program at the ground level, truly wants.

But it involves doing something different. What's happening on the field now is clearly not working.

Until that registers on the Richter scale with people that matter, I'm expecting a Lehigh football team that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory - if victory is in reach. And I'm just reflecting the expectations that have been set, and have been setfor quite some time. The sooner everyone sees that, the sooner it changes.

It will take a whole lot of people - starting next weekend against Holy Cross - to change where the program is now. Including me.

Lehigh's First True Spring Game In The Last Four Years Builds Off of Positive Momentum Last November

2022-04-28T00:56:00.002-04:00

BETHLEHEM, PA - It's amazing to contemplate that only two players on Lehigh's spring roster, both fifth-year seniors, experienced anything resembling a regular, fifteen practice, spring season.

LB Nate Norris had played in 2017 as a freshman in head coach Andy Coen's final Championship season, mostly on special teams. He took part in spring activities in 2018 and 2019, only a few months after head coach Tom Gilmore took over the program.

He was joined by rising sophomore TE Alex Snyder, who started a couple of games as a true freshman in Andy Coen's final season.

And then nothing resembling a typical college football schedule was able to occur for the next three years.

"It really is incredible that none of our players [except Nate and Alex] have gone through Spring Ball until now," head coach Tom Gilmore told me this week. "The pandemic hit everyone at the same time, but we were in a very unique stage with our program at that point. Having just gone through a coaching transition and the tragic events surrounding Coach Coen's health, we had a very young and inexperienced team going in, which presented some unique challenges during those semesters that we were locked down or under strict protocols."

The national lockdown in March of 2020 happened just before Lehigh was scheduled to open spring practice of that year. It was one of the first sports activities cancelled due to COVID-19, followed by the regular fall 2020 schedule. An abbreviated spring schedule took place instead in the middle of the pandemic instead, which was chaotic and pretty much didn't follow any of the regular norms that a developmental fifteen practice spring would have. A fall 2021 schedule followed quickly thereafter.

"Coming out of it, we had very few seniors and with them now graduating, most of our team is just completing a somewhat normal academic year for the first time," Gilmore continued. "The returning players are completing their first full cycle of regular season - winter workouts - Spring Ball. It was a completely new experience for them and they now understand how much development happens from the end of the season to the start of the following preseason camp."

At times it felt like a struggle for Lehigh football to get through - losing all three spring games and then starting the season 0-8 - but in November, things started to finally click, with the Mountain Hawks winning three straight games to end the year. Most satisfyingly, their 17-10 win over Lafayette would give Tom Gilmore his first win over Lafayette as head football coach and create a tremendous headwind going into the spring season.

"Winning the last game of the season always sets a positive tone for the off-season, but winning the last three, created an even stronger positive vibe," Gilmore said. "That is a good thing as long as you keep it going - you can't assume it will keep going by itself. You have to use that momentum to energize your work in order to continue the necessary improvements needed to beat the best opponents."

.@LehighFootball head coach Tom Gilmore recaps spring camp and the Brown and White Game on the season finale of Lehigh Sports Central presented by Lehigh Valley Orthopedic Institute, part of @LVHN

Full Video 👉 https://t.co/qvLJCxY5Bh pic.twitter.com/JXqVw3ZqES
— Lehigh Sports (@LehighSports) April 27, 2022

This Saturday at Murray Goodman Stadium, in an unscored scrimmage, what was once a young, inexperienced team last year looked sharp and had some good moments, especially with the first-team players that gave the Mountain Hawks success at the end of 2021. QB Dante Perri, especially, seemed to pick up where he left off with a strike to WR Eric Johnson, looking nothing like the QB who started the fall of 2021 fourth on the quarterback depth chart. His meteoric rise to the top of the depth chart gave desperately-needed stability to the position and set up their November success.

Lehigh quarterback Dante Perri, 12, releases a pass while pursued by Lafayette’s Malik Hamm, 99, during the first half of their 157th rivalry game at Lehigh’s Goodman Stadium last November. Lehigh won the game 17-10. (Douglas Kilpatrick / Special to The Morning Call)

"One of the best things that we can take from last fall is the experience so many players acquired. We had a younger roster so many returning players had opportunities to play, including Dante at the end of the year," Gilmore said. "He is a good example of making the best of that opportunity to get actual game experience. He worked hard to improve his game and it showed in his performance as he gained more experience and confidence. I think the same is true for the entire program."

“For the most part we’re making good strides,” Perri told Keith Groller of The Morning Call. “A lot of the guys are getting good experience, which is something we lacked last spring because we were preparing to play games and didn’t have a lot of time to get guys reps. Getting reps under our belt, seeing different looks, playing together, and getting more comfortable with each other is benefiting us right now.”

Other standouts were RB Zaythan Hill and RB Jack DiPietro, who both had some big runs, DL Mikhari Sibblis, who registered a sack and a pass breakup, and DL Trevor Harris, who had two sacks as well.

Four QBs saw action: Perri, junior QB Hank Shapiro, senior QB Nigel Summerville, and sophomore QB Matt Rauscher.

"Going into the spring game, I would have to say that the defense was a little ahead overall but the offense had its best day on Saturday," Gilmore said. "That means the defense didn't perform as well on that particular day, so they were rightfully disappointed afterwards. However, there were plenty of positives for them, in particular with the first unit, and they made significant strides over the course of the month. It was great to see how the offense progressed over those fifteen practices. It makes everyone that much more excited about what we are capable of doing if we put in the time and effort over the summer to keep the momentum going."

Before the game, junior DL Ben Murphy was awarded the James S. Gum scholarship. The scholarship was established in August 2006 and is to honor James S. Gum who lost a six-year year battle with A.L.S. in May 2006. Murphy is a native of Haverford, Pa., and made five starts of the 2021 season on the defensive line.

"Now, it is important that we build on that experience and improvement to get to the competitive level we need to beat our opponents this fall," Gilmore said. "We are certainly not there yet, but we are much further along than we were at this point last year."

Breaking Down Lehigh's Fall 2022 Football Schedule: Is there Room for a "Bacon Classic"?

2022-04-06T17:46:00.000-04:00

It's the spring, and what that means is that the weather (hopefully) is getting better, the flowers are blooming, and - most importantly - we're in the middle of spring football season.

Soon I am planning on posting an update on what has gone on in FCS football since the end of last season (spoiler alert: it is a lot!), but first I wanted to take an initial look at Lehigh's fall 2022 football schedule, and what sort of fun we can expect.

But before I do that, I wanted to highlight something that my Twitter pal Omar Rashon-Borja wrote about his beloved Holy Cross Crusaders.

In this piece, he talks about a special game Holy Cross played last year at Polar Park, the minor league home of the Worcester Red Sox (or the "WooSox" as they are commonly known up there). The game was branded the EBW Classic, featured an important Holy Cross vs. Colgate league matchup, and attracted 9.508 fans to attend (which was about 2,000 more than their average at Fitton Field).

It does beg the question - might it be a good idea to do something similar in the Bethlehem area with the wildly successful minor league franchise the Lehigh Valley IronPigs?

The IronPigs are one of minor league baseball's wildest success stories. In 2016, the IronPigs were considered the fourth most valuable minor league franchise in the country, with a value of $43 million on annual revenue of $15 million and annual operating income of $4 million, according to Forbes.com.

The IronPigs are also marketing leaders in the Valley - not only do folks get to see future and rehabbing Phillies play AAA ball on their way to the Majors, they also are a part of a huge number of original promotions - most of which, as you might imagine, involve food or bacon.

One interesting promotion they are doing this May, for example, is something called "Food Truck Fest" this May 21st. The event feature food trucks, craft beer selections, mixed drinks, live music, and other fun activities around Coca-Cola Park. I mean, that sounds great! (And right up my alley.)

This season, Lehigh is scheduled to host two important conference games before traveling to Easton to play in The Rivalry: Bucknell (October 22nd) and Colgate (November 12th). Would it be possible to set up a "Bacon Classic" game at Coca-Cola Park on either of those days? In a lot of ways, it seems like a natural, involving the whole Bethlehem community.

It's easy to picture the IronPigs entering an agreement to host a game there every year after the AAA season is over --perhaps hosting a Lehigh game when Lafayette hosts The Rivalry, and host a Lafayette game when Lehigh does it. It seems like such a lay-up in terms of a great community event that gives both the Mountain Hawks and Leopards some great exposure - and the IronPigs would get an event that would be reliably on the schedule every year. It feels like an enormous win for everyone.

(An added benefit is it also would allow me to make a bacon-themed tailgate recipe and bacon-themed martini for the "Drink of the Week"!)

The 2022 Schedule:

Week 1: at Villanova (Friday, September 2nd)

Lehigh starts the season, tentatively on a Friday evening at one of the CAA's best teams, Villanova. As always, beating the Wildcats will be a huge challenge. In last year's meeting, Villanova stomped all over Lehigh 47-3 as the offense had trouble getting anything going.

Yearly for Lehigh, this has been the Mountain Hawks' "step-up" game as Lehigh has gone 1-10 against Villanova since 2004 (though there were some fairly close games in there). Overall Lehigh has five program wins against the Wildcats, four of which came prior to 1925.

I love the fact the game is on a Friday night - it allows me to enjoy more FCS football on Saturday I ordinarily wouldn't be able to follow!

Week 2: at Georgetown* (Saturday, September 10th)

I'm not a huge fan of early conference games, but out of necessity Lehigh will travel to Georgetown to take on the Hoyas early in what will certainly be a huge game in terms of the Mountain Hawks' season prospects. Last year's game, played in November, was in doubt until the fourth quarter when the Mountain Hawks finally pulled away for a 23-9 win.

Week 3: RICHMOND (Saturday, September 17th)

After last year's 31-3 defeat at Richmond, the Spiders return the favor and come to Bethlehem to be Lehigh's home opener. Like the Villanova game, Richmond will be a huge challenge and a "test game" for the Mountain Hawks against a team that will likely be one of the contenders for the CAA title.

Week 4: at Princeton (Saturday, September 24th)

Lehigh's road doesn't get any easier as they travel to Princeton to take on the Tigers, co-champions of the Ivy League and owners of a 17-3 record since 2019 (with no out-of-conference losses). It will be as much or more of a challenge to beat Princeton as Villanova or Richmond - I would call the challenge level equal in difficulty. Last year at Murray Goodman, Princeton shut out Lehigh 32-0 in a master class of precision.

Week 5: MONMOUTH (Saturday, October 1st)

If this were last year, this would have been a home matchup against a FCS Playoff team from the Big South. But this year, for reasons we'll explore later, the Hawks are going to be competing as a brand new member of the CAA... making this game against Monmouth Lehigh's third CAA game of the year.

Even though Lehigh doesn't face off against an FBS squad, one can make an excellent case that Lehigh's out-of-conference schedule might be one of the most challenging in the nation. They will face three teams that have made FCS Playoff appearances during the last two years (Monmouth, Holy Cross, Villanova), an defending Ivy League Champion that has gone 17-3 over the last two seasons, and a team that has spent time in the STATS FCS Top 25 and come maybe within a loss of making the playoffs as well (Richmond).

Week 6: FORDHAM* (Saturday, October 8th)

After this gauntlet of games will come a critical game against Fordham, who lately has been a huge thorn in the side of the Mountain Hawks, winning 6 of the last 8 meetings between the two schools. Since Tom Gilmore took over, Fordham and Lehigh have had two thrillers - one a 30-27 overtime win in the Bronx in 2019, and the other a 42-35 loss last year that frankly could have gone either way.

Week 7: at Cornell (Saturday, October 15th)

At the midway point of the season we find Cornell, a team that Lehigh last faced in 2014 in Ithaca for a 31-14 win. In program history, Lehigh has gone 9-15-2 against the Big Red, with six of those wins coming since 1988.

Personally, I remember attending the Lehigh/Cornell game in 2008 where Cornell QB Nathan Ford completed a pass to WR Jesse Baker on the final play of the game to give the Big Red a 25-24 win. No, not memorable at all, and certainly not memorable fourteen years later as I can break down the play and see in my mind Baker's feet landing in the back of the end zone!

Week 8: BUCKNELL* (Saturday, October 22nd)

If Lehigh's season is going to plan, the Mountain Hawks will be 2-0 in league play when they host Dave Cecchini's Bucknell Bison in the thick of league play. Tom Gilmore will look to make it two straight against the Bison and keep Lehigh in the thick of things.

Week 9: BYE (Halloween weekend)

Strange note: I can't remember the last time Lehigh had a bye week on Halloween weekend. However in this case, it's going to be ideal timing - based on who next week's opponent will be.

Week 10: at Holy Cross* (Saturday, November 5th)

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the game against two-time defending Patriot League Champions is going to be a huge one on the schedule - and with some luck, will have some Championship implications. Last year's affair was a testy one, and actually closer than the 31-12 final score might have indicated. This game is likely to be a big one no matter what.

Week 11: COLGATE (Saturday, November 11th)

You could make a strong case that the month of November isn't just "Rivalry Week" but "Rivalry Month" for Lehigh as they'll not only face off against the two-time defending champs and Lafayette, but also the other Patriot League team that generally gets circled on the Mountain Hawk calendar, Colgate. Something to contemplate on how evenly matched they are: since 2004, no team has won four straight games against the other, meaning every four-year class has both experienced wins and losses against the other.

Week 12: 158th Meeting of The Rivalry at Lafayette* (Saturday, November 19th)

What more really needs to be said? The penultimate Rivalry will take place on November 19th, College Football's most-played and most intense Rivalry on the planet. Easton will be rocking with Brown and White and Maroon, and it will be a huge party, and it's a game where we'll probably be able to ignore the records and the achievements of both teams. It needs to be experienced.

Fresh Off A Successful November, Lehigh Opens Spring Practice

2022-03-29T23:06:00.006-04:00

Early last Friday morning, Lehigh football began their spring practice as the sun came up. In so doing, the Mountain Hawks started their long journey and preparation for the fall 2022 football season.

When we last left Lehigh football, they were enjoying a three-game winning streak to end the 2021 season with an extremely satisfying 17-10 win over Lafayette, which was Tom Gilmore's first win over the Leopards as Lehigh's head coach.

Since then, winter workouts have allowed the players to build up to the spring session and will allow Gilmore and his staff to build on their November success.

Spring practice #️⃣1️⃣ : ✅

Got out there early and worked through the 🌫️.

Full gallery:https://t.co/eSHkKTCjOT #GoLehigh | #beGREAT pic.twitter.com/Oa2MmV46HY
— Lehigh Football (@LehighFootball) March 25, 2022

"So far, I really like the energy and enthusiasm the players are bringing to the field each day," head coach Tom Gilmore told me. "There is a genuine appreciation to be back on the field actually playing football and noticeable motivation to improve."

Last evening was the fourth spring practice in the spring session. As per NCAA rules, the first two practices were "helmets-only" practices, so the team has only started this week to have a larger amount of contact.

"I think everyone realizes that we still have a lot of work to do in order to be in a position to get those victories in the fall," he continued. "I like the attitude they have brought each day and I am very optimistic about the improvements we will make by the time the season rolls around."

Been putting in 𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆 this spring!#GoLehigh | #beGREAT pic.twitter.com/0z4CglwKE9
— Lehigh Football (@LehighFootball) March 30, 2022

Coaching Changes

The Lehigh coaching staff wave goodbye to Running Backs/Special Teams coach and recruiting coordinator Anthony DiMichele and assistant Defensive Line coach Terrence Fede. Right before spring session started, Lehigh announced the promotion from within of one assistant coach as well as the hiring of two new coaches.

Mike Moyseenko will coach Lehigh's running backs, and will serve as passing game coordinator. A former walk-on and scout team QB at the University of Maryland, Moyseenko comes to Lehigh following four seasons at the University of Connecticut, where he began as a quality control coach before briefly overseeing the running backs and spent the last three years as the Huskies' quarterbacks coach.

Before his stint at UConn, Moyseenko spent five years at Towson University under longtime Tiger head coach Rob Ambrose. He spent the last four of those years as the wide receivers coach after serving as the offensive quality control coach at Towson during the 2013 season.

"Moyseenko adds more experience to the offensive staff," Gilmore told me. "He has coached all of the skill positions on offense and has experience as a play caller. He has been able to blend nicely into our staff and bring some different perspectives to the table."

Wisly Desire comes to Lehigh to coach tight ends after spending the 2021 season as the offensive line coach and run game coordinator at Tusculum University.

Prior to Tusculum, Desire spent two seasons on head coach Butch Davis' staff at Florida International University, where he worked with the offensive line during the 2020 season . In 2019, Desire worked with the defensive line and was part of a staff that upset crosstown foe Miami and earned a bid to the Camellia Bowl.

Desire was an offensive lineman at Jacksonville University from 2009-2013, where he helped the Dolphins attain a top 25 national ranking in 2010 with one of the top offenses in the nation. He played under former Jacksonville head coach Kerwin Bell, the former Florida QB who is now the head football coach at Western Carolina.

"Desire has an extensive offensive line background which will help in the development of our tight ends and offensive line," Gilmore said. "I believe he will be able to work closely with [OL Coach Sean] Pearson and Coach Moyseenko to help elevate both our rushing and passing game."

In his first two seasons at Lehigh, Hunter English assisted with game planning and preparation on the defensive side of the ball and also contributed to special teams planning and preparation. He worked with the defensive line and linebackers, giving specific attention to standup outside linebackers last fall.

"Hunter English was in a Defense Quality Control Position last year, so with him stepping into a coaching role this year, it has been a seamless transition," Gilmore said.

Coming Soon: A Look at Lehigh's Fall 2022 Schedule

Eleven Guys Who Might Be Lafayette's Next Head Football Coach

2021-12-07T15:48:00.005-05:00

It was a surprise. Well, to me, anyway.

Most people assumed that Lafayette head coach John Garrett was safe as the Leopards' head coach. Though his five year record wasn't great, he had beaten bitter Rival Lehigh in two out of the last three Rivalry games, despite a tough 17-10 loss to Lehigh the final week of the year.

Listening to the post-game press conference, I also didn't pick up on some of the signs that his job security might be in jeopardy. Garrett was a bit prickly, but it was understandable - he had just lost a game to Lafayette's Rivals. "The future is bright for Lafayette football," he said, not letting on that he might not be a part of that future.

But by Monday, the announcement was made - after five years leading the Leopard football team, "Lafayette College will not renew the contract of head football coach John Garrett," a short press release stated. "A national search for his replacement will begin immediately. Defensive coordinator Doug McFadden, who just finished his 12th season with the program, will serve as its interim head coach."

This winter's Lafayette offseason took a decidedly interesting turn as a result.

One name that will not be on this list was Notre Dame coordinator Brian Polian, who somewhat inexplicably showed up in the rumor mill when some "insider tweets" linked him as "being close" to signing as Lafayette's new head coach. May Lafayette fans and I were deeply skeptical, and today that skepticism was justified, as he announced that he's joining his former boss Brian Kelly at LSU.

Polian, a former head coach at Nevada, never made an ounce of sense as Lafayette's head coach - he had no ties to the area, had already been a head coach at a Group of Five school, and it seemed clear to me that he was going to command an astoundingly high salary.

I don't have any super-insider viewpoint as to whom Lafayette will be hiring to lead the Leopards next year. But I do have a list of ten candidates that I think could be in the running, in alphabetical order.

If the Patriot League Thought Bigger, This Is What They Would Do In Reaction To James Madison's Departure For The Sun Belt

2021-10-27T13:44:00.002-04:00

I wish I thought this would actually happen.

I wish the Patriot League was proactive, and thinking several steps ahead.

But as an observer of the Patriot League for more than twenty years, I don't think the Patriot League Presidents, or any of their athletic representatives, are nimble enough and proactive enough to actually take a look at what's happening with the CAA right now in regards to James Madison possibly leaving for the Sun Belt.

If they were like me, they'd take a look at the CAA in football in a post-James Madison world. They'd see an extremely unwieldy 11 team conference without much of a theme.

Only four CAA members would be a part of "CAA Football" - Delaware, Towson, William and Mary, and Elon. There would be just as many America East Members as CAA members - UNH, Maine, Stony Brook, and Albany. The other three - Richmond, Villanova and Rhode Island - are in hoops-only conferences.

Could they soldier on as a divisional conference? Maybe. They'd need a football member to do it, possibly Monmouth, and then split into divisions.

But if I were the executive director of the Patriot League, I'd be contacting the Patriot League Presidents with the following proposal:

What if we entered an alliance with the CAA and America East?

What if we scrapped our artificial roster limits, allowed redshirting, allowed the maximum 63 scholarships, and offered a lifeline to the CAA schools?

Scrapping the artificial roster limits and allowing redshirting is the entrance fee to this discussion. It should have been done years ago, and it's the only way this proposal works. So I set up an emergency meeting, and make the case. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I then get on the phone with Joe D'Antonio, the CAA Commissioner, and Amy Huchthausen, commissioner of America East. I explain the situation - how CAA Football's 11 team conference has grown too spread out, and too disparate, and how the Patriot League, through the actions of scrapping roster limits and allowing redshirting, will help.

"Amy," I'd say. "You guys take over management of CAA Football. This happened before: the Atlantic 10 sponsored this very conference before the CAA managed it. This would be the exact same thing, except now your conference will be managing in."

I'd then share the following Wordpad document on the zoom meeting:

America East Football

Maine
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Holy Cross
Stony Brook
Albany
Fordham
Colgate

Patriot League Football

Bucknell
Lehigh
Lafayette
Delaware
Villlanova
Towson
William and Mary
Elon
Richmond
Georgetown

"Amy," I'd continue, "this isn't the same as managing the old CAA, which stretched from North Carolina to Orono, Maine. America East football is a compact league that covers the Northeast and is a bus league - even to Orono. That might be something you'd be interested in, especially with 4 America East members playing football in your original conference under new ownership."

"Joe," I'd say on the same Zoom call, "I know this would be tough, but this will allow the CAA to focus on its core strength, which is basketball. This frees you up to go after some big hoops schools - why not Iona and UNC-Greensboro? Your football schools will be operating completely as they were before - maybe with an academic index, but that should be no problem whatsoever - but most critically with redshirting, full FCS membership, and most importantly, an autobid to the FCS Playoffs and aspirations for National Championships.

"As for the Patriot League," I'd add, "this finally will commit to being full members of good standing in FCS, complete with redshirting and no roster caps in order to field full teams most safely. It maintains several great football Rivalries, and rekindles some others that have been dormant. It also cuts down on travel costs, and maintains the Patriot League in all other sports as-is. It also signals that the Patriot League is going to be what it has actually preached for so many decades - tough uncompromising academics, and national championships. There will be no dropoff in APR when we make this conference, and that matters to everyone here."

"I think this alliance serves everybody here perfectly," I'd conclude. "It takes two sprawled-out conferences with similar commitment to academics and creates two new much more regional-based ones, that develops better rivalries and also cuts down on travel costs. It also keeps both autobids in the Northeast - so there's no transition time. We could do this next season without losing any FCS Playoff access.

"We're all in agreement? Great! Now I need to get all the Patriot League Presidents together to discuss this. I believe I have a spot free for everyone sometime in early 2025. That's for the roster size thing. I think we might be able to get the other tuff done by 2032!"

Mud

2021-09-28T17:30:00.003-04:00

I was trying to figure out the worst Lehigh/Colgate game I have ever witnessed.

My history goes way back with Lehigh, of course, and I really had to rack my brain. What loss to Colgate that I had witnessed was worse than this one?

I wasn't at Andy Kerr Stadium when Lehigh lost 61-28 in 1997 to a Colgate team that would win the Patriot League title - as a matter of fact, I'm fairly certain I didn't even find out about the score of the game until that night on ESPN, since the game wasn't televised where I was living at the time. The win set a Colgate school record for points scored vs. Lehigh - one that still stands today. QB Phil Stambaugh and RB Rabih Abdullah, both Lehigh football legends today, fumbled the very first exchange, and the game snowballed from there after Colgate converted the gift into an early 7-0 lead.

I wasn't at Andy Kerr Stadium when Lehigh lost 21-7 in 2007, but I remember following the game on TV, when an injured QB Sedale Threatt was reduced to a wildcat rushing option and backup QB Chris Bokosky struggles against a mighty Colgate defense with 3 interceptions. "The numbers weren't all bad," I said, "but Lehigh could not overcome five turnovers, a botched FG attempt, 1-for-8 on third down conversions, and 1-for-5 on fourth down conversions. Turnovers. Mental errors. A listless performance. Superstar Colgate RB Jordan Scott didn't need to score any touchdowns the way this team played."

That would put the worst-ever loss to Colgate I had ever witnessed to this point 2018's 48-6 shellacking by the Raiders, a loss which featured the most-ever points by Colgate in Bethlehem. It was a banner performance by QB Grant Breneman, who predictably roasted Lehigh's defense. And it was a loss that was pretty much expected by everyone at the time, as Colgate was undefeated (8-0) and had an all-time Patriot League defense featuring DT Nick Wheeler and LB T.J. Holl,. In contrast, Lehigh had a team in serious competition for its all-time worst at 2-8.

Even in this game, though, there was one tiny moment of pride for Lehigh - when the Mountain Hawks broke Colgate's defensive streak of 20 consecutive quarters without yielding a touchdown. "The long streak of first halves of games where Colgate hadn’t given up any touchdowns – eight consecutive – was now broken," I added, looking for silver linings in some very dark clouds.

But this past weekend, a 30-3 drubbing of Lehigh by a winless Colgate team, to me felt worse than all of those losses.

I went through the history. In every game I witnessed in person, or even took place from my undergraduate years to last Saturday, Lehigh scored a touchdown against Colgate.

You have to go all the way back to 1979 to find a game where Lehigh didn't do it, a 10-3 game that, all things considered, didn't ultimately end up feeling too bad because the Engineers would recuperate and end up in the I-AA National Championship Game. Lehigh at the time ran a Wing-T offense under head coach John Whitehead with QB Rich Andres, who got better as the season went along while the defense, led by legendary LB Jim McCormick, hammered opponents.

In that 1979 game, Andres was blitzed early and often, and ended his day 11-of-26 for 156 yards.

This past Saturday, Lehigh quarterbacks ended 13-of-20 for a grand total of 46 yards. No, that's not a typo - there's not a "1", "2", nor dare I say a "3" in front of it. Lehigh's passing attack netted 46 yards.

The numbers don't get any prettier on offense for the Mountain Hawks.

101 yards total offense.

1 extremely costly interception - on the third play of the game, resulting in the opening score.

Four first downs - which is honestly a bit misleading, since one of them came on the second to last play of the game. Two of the first downs came on one drive in the first quarter.

It may be the case that there was a lower yardage total or lower offensive totals in other games in the long history between these two schools, but I couldn't find one.

The only way to describe these numbers are "beatdown". There is no sugarcoating them, no silver lining to be found. It is just as ugly as can be.

Now it is theoretically possible that Colgate's defense will, when the season is done, be considered one of the best in the Patriot League, an all-time defense. Maybe, by the end of the season, this will make perfect sense. But if they are one of Colgate's all-time defenses, last Saturday was the first indication that they are of a historic Raider caliber. Against Stony Brook and William and Mary, neither team offensive juggernauts, Colgate were outscored 51-10.

I've never seen Lehigh seem so completely mismatched, so listless, and so low on fight as I did this Saturday against a team I consider a rival.

I've seen Lehigh lose to Colgate before. I've seen Lehigh fall behind to Colgate, and seen Lehigh rally from two-touchdown deficits when all hope seemed lost. As I pointed out above, Lehigh didn't win every time I watched them, but they almost always fought hard, especially when league play was at stake.

Even in 2007, with a team that was struggling mightily, the offense drove the length of the field to go up 7-0. Even in 2018, the team broke through an all-time defense one time to score a touchdown.

Last Saturday, late in the first half, down 24-3, on 4th and inches, Lehigh didn't hesitate to punt. No lining up to go for it, despite being down to a rival. Not only did it signal that the staff had no faith in the offense to pick up 4th and inches - it didn't even think a hard count could have been executed in order to get a Colgate player to jump offsides. Maybe it would have resulted in a turnover on downs, or maybe it might have lit a spark to get the offense going, given the team some confidence, and maybe even have resulted in Lehigh's first touchdown of the fall 2021 season. What would it have harmed to try?

Lehigh's season is not over. They can still win football games. This week they'll have the opportunity to win another college football game against Yale. Win that game, and the second half of this season might end up different than September. In a sense, this team is lucky that this past weekend's performance does not have to be the last word about this team or these athletes.

But they will have to crawl up from the mud to do win a football game. Lehigh is mud right now. Everyone associated with this program have to think of themselves as one thing - mud - and decide for themselves that they don't want to be thought of historically as mud.

To get out of mud, it requires a lot of determination, purpose, and above all survival. You have to decide you don't want to sink in the mud, and that you're going to fight like hell out of it. Fighting out of mud is a lot like fighting to win a football game. That's what needs to happen in this team - every person involved. They need to fight to get a victory the same way they might fight to get out of the mud. It's the only way.

Competitive Disadvantage

2021-09-16T18:03:00.001-04:00

2015 was a great year for Patriot League football.

It was a season where two Patriot League schools would qualify for the FCS Playoffs, and Dan Hunt's Colgate team would have a one of the Patriot League's most epic runs through the bracket on the road - beating New Hampshire 27-20, then becoming James Madison's Kryptonite in an epic 44-38 win over the perennial FCS powerhouse.

A third straight road game ended their run at Sam Houston State with a 48-21 defeat, but the Raiders had nothing to hang their heads about.

At the time, there was no way of knowing that the 2015 season would be the high water mark for the league for the next six years - or that the drop would be so precipitous.

What happened?

2015 was not only notable for its playoff success - it also featured four teams who finished above .500. Fordham won the Patriot League with a 9-2 record, while Colgate barely made it as an at-large team at 7-4. Lehigh (6-5) and Holy Cross (6-5) had plenty to be optimistic about, too, for the future.

But since then, the Patriot League as a whole suffered a surge of uncompetitiveness against the rest of the FCS. This is reflected in the number of teams who finished over .500 for the year after the epic 2015 season.

2016: 2 (with Colgate finishing 5-5), Top Team Lehigh (9-3)
2017: 1, Colgate, (7-4, did not win league)
2018: 1, Colgate (10-2)
2019: 1, Holy Cross, 7-5)
Spring 2021: * (Patriot League only played each other; 3-1 Holy Cross lost to Monmouth in the only out-of-conference game)

The fall 2021 season seems destined to follow a similar trajectory as the last four fall seasons, one, or perhaps zero, teams finishing above .500.

As a conference, the Patriot League is winless against the CAA and is overall 2-11 overall after two weeks (2-12 if you could Georgetown cancelling their game against Marist a forfeit.) The conference's two wins to date are Holy Cross' FBS win over UConn, a team which may rival one of the all-time FBS worst. and Georgetown's 20-14 overtime win against Delaware State. That's it.

Why is this so?

From the Lehigh side, 2015 definitely seemed at the time and felt like the start of a wonderful new era in Patriot League football. It wasn't just due to Lehigh offering football scholarships - it was also the athletes they were recruiting as well. The scholarship incoming class of 2015 was loaded with absolute studs like RB Dominick Bragalone, QB Brad Mayes, S Sam McCloskey, and way, way too many other starters to mention here. I've been following Lehigh recruiting classes for a long time, and the incoming class of this year as a whole was incredible.

Look at Lehigh's opponents this year, though, and you start to see part of the problem.

Certainly Lehigh, by all accounts, is a young football team, starting an inordinate amount of underclassmen everywhere on the two deep. There are a handful of 5th year players, but not many.

Contrast that to Villanova, who had six fifth-year seniors on their roster and six redshirt players bolstering an already senior-laden team. Richmond redshirts even more extensively - their entire first-team offense was either a 5th year senior or redshirted, and only three players on the entire depth chart didn't use a redshirt season.

Looking at Princeton's roster, you do not see the same number of 5th year players and redshirt players as you do at some Ivy League schools. (While the Ivy League has adopted a "no-redshirt" policy, many high-profile players throughout the league have used Ivy League-specific workarounds to allow for 5th year players in many cases.) However, you do see something else - a roster with more than 120 student-athletes on it.

It is not so much that what Villanova, Richmond or Princeton are doing is unfair. They are abiding by NCAA rules and conference rules, which allow them to do these things. But it demonstrates how Patriot League schools, by sitting pat, have put their student-athletes way behind the eight ball.

Redshirting

Redshirting has been around for a very long time, but it had certain restrictions on when you could "burn" your redshirt, as enforced by the NCAA.

In 2018, the NCAA passed an important, but largely overlooked, part of the rule change that set up the now-infamous transfer portal.

Previously, players were given five years to complete four seasons of eligibility – meaning one of those seasons had to be spent without participating in any games, often during a student-athlete’s first year on campus.
The same four-in-five timeline exists, only with a catch: Players can now participate in up to four games in a season and still retain that year of eligibility, a change that promotes “fairness for college athletes,” said Miami (Fla.) athletics director Blake James, chair of the Division I Council.

As always, this redshirt rule was wrapped in the hoary chestnuts of "fairness for college athletes" or "student-athlete opportunities," as they often are. One can debate the merits of whether appearing in one game should blow an athletes' eligibility for an entire year, or if it is just a cynical ploy to expand football rosters further.

But one thing that was a definite consequence: what this rule did was allow other Division I schools, including FCS schools, to explode the number of redshirt athletes they could pack onto their rosters, including 5th year players.

In 2016, Richmond's roster had 12 redshirt seniors on it. In 2021, Richmond has 19 redshirt seniors or graduate students on their roster, as well as the majority of their roster with the word "redshirt" in front of it. To put it in perspective, every junior on their roster has used a redshirt year.

Current Richmond head coach Russ Huesman knew this rule was going to be a big deal for his program. “Come by the office and you’ll see me doing backflips if that thing passes,” he reportedly said.

He also mentioned something that is of importance to Patriot League schools, who, like Richmond, are private (not public) institutions.

Huesman sees the benefits of a modified redshirting policy being very important throughout the FCS, and it stands to reason that private schools, such as Richmond, would be more positively impacted by the proposal’s adoption. Depth is commonly a greater concern at private schools. That’s because of relatively few invited walk-ons at private schools because of higher costs of attendance, and those schools’ reduced ability to attract players on partial scholarships.

Huesman is right that depth is a critical issue at all private schools especially. For Richmond and Villanova, the way they manage injuries and depth is by redshirting players, so that freshman who would originally have had to burn a redshirt year can contribute in up to 3 games and still get a redshirt year.

This is largely the way, especially at private institutions or public institutions with large out-of-state students, manage their rosters. There are still occasionally walk-ons, of course, but the days of massive numbers of walk-ons coming to school to fill out rosters are over, and it's not a roster management strategy.

This is not limited to scholarship schools, either. True non-scholarship schools like San Diego, Valparaiso and Marist of the Pioneer League have no restrictions on redshirting. As a result, their champions have had first-round success in the FCS playoffs. San Diego won first-round games in both 2016 and 2017 against Big Sky schools on the road.

The Patriot League's restrictions on redshirting, practically speaking, has translated into 18-19 year old true sophomores lining up against 22-23 year old men. In the COVID era, where every athlete has the option of a redshirt year, this has made matters even worse and has led to mismatches. Lehigh was outscored 88-6 by both Villanova and Richmond.

Roster Sizes

For Princeton, they have not extensively managed their rosters though redshirting. The way they've chosen to manage this risk is to expand their roster.

120 team rosters are not typical of FCS schools, thanks to restrictions on athletic aid to football players. FCS schools are limited to the equivalent of 63 scholarships across their roster.

But the Ivy League allows bigger rosters, because the NCAA doesn't consider the aid their football players receive as athletic aid.

Bylaw 15.02.5.1 defines "athletically-related financial aid" as "financial aid that is awarded on any basis that is related to athletics ability, participation or achievement. If an application process specifically requests athletics participation or achievements as criteria for consideration in determining whether an applicant receives financial aid, aid received pursuant to such a process is athletically related financial aid."

The Ivy League, famously, does not offer "athletically-related financial aid." Their policy has been that prospective student-athletes need to get admitted to the school academically, and that the athletes then can apply for the general financial aid from the school.

This is all in accordance to NCAA rules. What complicates matters athletically is that Princeton's financial aid policy for its students is one of the most generous in the world.

When you go to Princeton's financial aid website, you're greeted with a graphic that says "$0-65,000: Families with incomes in this range qualify for a grant to cover full tuition, residential college fee, room and board." "Students admitted to the Class of 2023 who applied for aid with family incomes up to $160,000 typically pay no tuition," says another page on their site.

Not every Princeton student or student-athlete qualifies for this generous aid - aid that most schools, including Lehigh and some fellow Ivy League schools, cannot match. But the fact that the NCAA considers this aid available to all of Princeton's students irrespective of athletics means that every athlete on the team could receive aid if they qualify.

At Princeton, there are recruiting rules that limit the number of recruited athletes per team. But when you look at the 120 team roster, and multiply that by the number on their financial aid website (61% of applicants qualify for financial aid), this would mean - in the most conservative reading possible - there are 71 or more students on the team that are receiving financial aid from the school. The actual number is likely to be higher.

At FBS schools, all athletes that are recruited receive "full rides", meaning all their tuition (and in many cases, full cost of attendance) is paid for through their athletics departments. But those numbers are capped at 85 scholarships per team. At FCS schools, the scholarships can be split, but the overall limit is capped at 63.

Suppose you're a prospective student choosing between a scholarship at, say, Buffalo and a slot on Princeton's roster. In one case, the athletics department is paying for your tuition and you're a counter towards your school's scholarship limit. In the other, the school itself is paying for your tuition and you're not counting towards a scholarship limit. In both cases - you're not paying tuition. How are they different? The answer is they're not, for the students and their families. But to the NCAA they are.

What this means is that Ivy League teams can carry as many athletes on their team as they want - and all those athletes may be eligible to go to Princeton with no tuition cost.

The practical result is that Ivy League schools don't really need to worry about depth. For home games, almost all players can dress and get into the game if required. “Last year we played nine defensive linemen in a game, and we played 20 to 22 guys in a game on defense,” Yale head coach Tony Reno once said, detailing something all other FCS schools cannot realistically do. “So our ability to play our style of aggressive defense was great. We had guys who could play in different packages." As mentioned, some - or all nine - could have been receiving financial aid that effectively means they pay no tuition.

For away games, Ivy League is subject to travel roster size limits of 62 players. But the depth is present in the week of preparation before a game. While not all 120 athletes will make the trip to, say, Lehigh this weekend, it must be very comforting for head coach Bob Surace to know that if his top five RBs all got hurt in practice, he would still have five RB from his roster to play on offense.

At Lehigh, there is a hard limit to the number of 90 athletes. On the current roster, five are listed as running backs.

Again - and I want to emphasize this - Princeton is operating within the rules of the NCAA and the Ivy League. Princeton is doing nothing illegal. The Ivy League is allowed to essentially allow massive amounts of institutional money to go to all students (and there's no limitations if the beneficiaries are football players). The NCAA doesn't consider them counters as long as the aid comes from the school directly and not the athletic department. And it's the Ivy League that chooses to allow Ivy League schools to field as many football players on their teams if they want. The NCAA allows, it, and the Ivy League allows it.

But in my estimation it makes for an unequal playing field for Patriot League schools. Lehigh does not share these same benefits Princeton has. At one time, whatever differences there were didn't seem to matter much. But they seem to be affecting things now. The last time Lehigh went to Princeton in 2018, they lost 66-7.

The Straitjacket

In a nutshell, Lehigh's first three opponents have some tools to be able to handle the depth required to field competitive FCS football teams - Villanova and Richmond through redshirting, and Princeton through huge rosters. These trends were not totally in place back in 2015, but the CAA and Ivy League took steps to take advantages of these rules as they came out - the CAA allowed its membership to use the new NCAA redshirt rules, and the Ivy League allowed its members to have huge rosters.

Lehigh, and other Patriot League schools did not, and you can argue it's put the league in a straitjacket.

I made this case back in 2019 as well, but it's worth going through again. Since the Patriot League allows athletic aid through the athletic department, it means that the league is limited by the number of athletic scholarships it can offer per year. But since there is a no-redshirt rule, combined with the straitjacket of limited roster sizes, it means that younger players will be pressed into service earlier - and in many cases, against players that have had a significant amount more physical development. This leads to mismatches.

If the Patriot League ditched football scholarships tomorrow and adopted the Ivy League's institutional financial aid model, it would allow Lehigh to circumvent the NCAA's limits on athletic scholarships and allow them to field huge rosters. It would certainly help Lehigh's football problems in regards to depth. But expanding their financial aid to mimic Princeton's would come at a huge financial cost to the overall university. Lehigh does offer a very generous financial aid package to the entire student body who make it through admissions, but it isn't as extensive as Princeton's, who is one of the richest institutions of higher learning in the world.

In 2015, the entire FCS landscape was different. The Ivy League was largely adhering to self-imposed rules on recruiting and roster sizes - those changed. The CAA was adhering to redshirt rules that had the practical effect of limiting the number of extra-year players - that changed. And while those leagues were expanding their rosters and opportunities, the Patriot League was doing the opposite - they were migrating towards restricting rosters and limiting extra-year players. And I firmly believe that explains the sudden, precipitous drop in competitiveness in the league across the board in the last five years.

So what should the Patriot League do?

My thought is the Patriot League should immediately drop its roster restriction of 90 athletes, or at a bare minimum increase the upper limit to at least 100 athletes, while also increasing the number of scholarships to the maximum allowed by FCS, which is 63. This wouldn't solve every problem, but it would at least give Patriot League schools an opportunity to field rosters that are consistent with the CAA 'sand at least approach those of the Ivy League's.

The League should also figure out some way to allow for redshirting of football players, possibly limiting the total number of redshirts but allowing it for a certain number of players. This would at least allow for teams to not have the sort of physical mismatches we have seen too frequently in the last five years with all members of their out-of-conference schedules.

I fail to see how these two moves would compromise the academic integrity of the League in any way, as other FCS schools like Villanova and New Hampshire (both of whom have won APR awards for their football teams) do so with no ill effects. (Additionally, redshirting has been worked out at other FCS schools, like Wofford, so Holy Cross and Lafayette, who don't have graduate schools, have a template to follow.) Other schools have identified this as a problem - including the Pioneer League - and have taken action. Only the Patriot League appears to believe this isn't an issue.

If anything it would be better for the health and safety of the athletes at Patriot League schools, because it would not be 19 year olds going against 22 year olds anymore. This isn't 2015 anymore. The game has evolved and moved on, and it's high time the Patriot League did the same.

A 47-3 Loss to Villanova Simply Isn't Acceptable

2021-09-07T18:51:00.000-04:00

Over the years, the Lehigh football program has always had very high expectations in every sense.

The expectations at Lehigh, as I've observed it, are:

* That Lehigh football teams always have top football students academically as a member of their classes.

* That Lehigh football teams always compete for Patriot League Championships, every year. There is no such thing as a rebuilding year. Championship droughts, and losing records, are supposed to be aberrations.

* That Lehigh football, in the preseason has, as their goal, to win the FCS National Championship.

Are those goals unrealistic? At a point in time for this program, although the goals were lofty, they were not unrealistic.

Patriot League schools in the past have made it to the FCS National Championship game, and won multiple rounds in the FCS Playoffs. Twice Lehigh had the ball with under two minutes to play against teams who would end up being FCS National Champions, with Lehigh in a position to win. The history doesn't lie. Lehigh was right there. There was plenty of reason to believe that it could happen again.

Fast forward to this weekend. Overall, it's been a joyous weekend for FCS football. Holy Cross beat UConn, and murdered their program. Montana beat Washington, and knocked out a nationally-ranked FBS team. There were some shootouts, some blowouts, and overall, there were a lot of positive vibes this weekend.

Not in Bethlehem if you were a Lehigh fan, however. After this weekend's 47-3 loss to Villanova, I was really shaken.

It's not so much that Lehigh lost - after all, I, and pretty much every national pundit who bothered to weigh in, didn't think that the Mountain Hawks stood a chance this week against a Wildcat team that is built to make a run at a FCS National Championship.

It was that even when the game was out of reach, even when Villanova had let up, Lehigh couldn't even find it in them to score even a field goal - or even move the ball - against Villanova's backups.

It wasn't the biggest Lehigh blowout ever. It wasn't the biggest margin of defeat. But I don't think I've ever felt a game - certainly not a September game - where I felt like Lehigh was just comprehensively outclassed in every single aspect.

I don't always expect wins in every situation. But what I realized, after I sat and thought about it for a very long time, is that I expect more than this.

I can't recall a time that expectations have been so low for this program. Not all that long ago competing for Patriot League Championships was a given. They didn't always win them, but it was expected that every graduating class would have at least one ring, and they would always be competing for a championship deep into November.

It doesn't feel that way anymore. Especially with this gauntlet of an out-of-conference schedule, it feels like the hope is to not have too bad of a losing record by the end of October. That does not compute with what I, or other Lehigh fans, have expected for these teams over the years.

I understand I am no ordinary Lehigh fan - I am exceedingly patient. I've preached patience so often and for so many years I've been dubbed "Captain Sunshine" at times. My instinct is to wait and see how the team adjusts, wait and see when OL Justin Gurth is able to start on the OL, wait for the offensive chemistry to come together.

And the truth is, this fall 2021 season is exceedingly young. There is loads of time to turn things around.

But watching last weekend's second half made for an extremely painful experience and it made me question everything.

Lehigh had six offensive drives in the second half. They ended: Interception, Fumble, Fumble, Punt, Punt, Interception, End of Game. Total yards gained: 48 (seven of them rushing yards on the very last play of the game). Total first downs: 2.

Villanova racked up 506 yards of offense, and let up only 139 yards to Lehigh. Along the way Villanova forced six turnovers and no Lehigh offensive play went for more than more than 19 yards. DeNucci's interception return was Lehigh's longest positive yardage play from scrimmage - 23 yards.

The defense yielded 27 points in the second half when the outcome of the game was still in a little bit of doubt, including two 50+ yard TD strikes.

I tried to think of what I would call the highlights of the game. There were a handful, like LB Mike DeNucci's interception, PK Dylan Van Dusen's 34 yard FG, and a few nice passes from QB Cross Wilkinson to TE Alex Snyder and WR Johnny Foley. Basically, a handful of offensive plays, a handful of defensive plays, and a handful of special teams plays.

But those moments were few and far between. The beatdown was extensive.

I've been around a while and seen my share of Lehigh blowouts. And I have seen Lehigh teams get dominated by Villanova before.

In 2010 Lehigh was shut out 35-0 by a Wildcat squad with several future NFL players and a future MLB baseball player. But in the second half in that game, Lehigh could, at least, move the ball somewhat, and the defense forced three turnovers, giving the Mountain Hawks a glimmer of what could be right around the corner.

That 2010 team featured a lot of all-time Lehigh greats, like WR Ryan Spadola, QB Chris Lum, LB Mike Groome and WR Jake Drwal. So we know it is possible to experience a butt-whooping to Villanova and still have a great Lehigh football career.

But that's not where I see this Lehigh football program right now.

With a program that has prided itself on offense over the last three decades, it is gutting to see that the last time Lehigh scored more than 17 points in a competitive football game was on November 2nd, 2019, where the Mountain Hawks lost 24-17 to Holy Cross.

I've talked to fans of the program for a long time, and these offensive numbers shock them.

But it's not just the offense. Every unit needs improvement across the board. Lehigh's defense gave up all 47 of those points to Villanova this weekend. When bad things happened, the defense didn't get better. The Mountain Hawks will not win many games if they give up 47 points, no matter how the offense does.

To put this in the mildest way possible, this is unacceptable. It should meet nobody's expectations that cares about Lehigh football. It has not been like this since Lehigh helped found the Patriot League, and it should not be this way.

For those of you new to the program, Lehigh has been nationally ranked in the past. It can, and should, happen again. But it's not going to happen because in Lehigh's history there has been a lot of offense. Something needs to change, now, in order for that to happen.

There needs to be a desire to fight from everyone involved with the program - zero exceptions. There needs to be zero tolerance for what has been. Everyone should be spending their time in football trying to erase this from the upcoming season - to prove to everyone that this is not what you are about, that this is not the impression you want to make.

And that includes me. I need to see this fight in this team before I start to believe again.

Remembering Paul Reinhard

2021-03-17T01:37:00.005-04:00

The year was 2004.

For about a year I had been blogging about Lehigh football, thanks to the relatively new Blogger platform that allowed me to collect my thoughts (as soon as I could get to a computer) and post them instantly on the internet. It allowed me to post my thoughts mere hours after attending an event, well before the newspaper rolled off the presses early the next morning! It was what separated me from being just an ordinary Lehigh fan, and strangely got me started on this path to covering sports.

In 2004, I started to write longform stories for an outfit called The College Sporting News, starting with an epic Lehigh/Colgate battle won by the Mountain Hawks in the last minute of play. On the basis of that piece, I was able, through my editor at the time, to get a press pass to watch the game from the press box.

It would be my first time watching a game in the press box, and the first time I would meet Paul Reinhard.

If you read The Morning Call's sports section any time in the last fifty years, you probably read words by Paul Reinhard. He was a legend.

He was there in 1987, when Taylor Stadium saw its final Lehigh/Lafayette game in one of the coldest games in Rivalry history. He was covering Lehigh as they rose as a I-AA football power in 1999 and 2000, later shifting to Lafayette to chronicle the story from the Leopards' point of view. Chances are, if you read a sports section in a print edition of The Morning Call about Lehigh or Lafayette, you read his words. I know I did - many times. Not only when they were published in the paper, but later, through the Lehigh archives, when I wanted to uncover the history behind these games.

Here I was, a starry-eyed IT specialist in the press box as a part of the working media, navigating my way through the worst case of imposter syndrome ever recorded, in the presence of a guy, a Real Media Person, that would make people stop what they were doing when he spoke. He was a true Lehigh Valley celebrity. I felt it.

I was afraid any minute, I was about to be kicked out of the press box, that I was going to do something wrong. The old press box at Fisher Field was small, crowded, and would fog up if it got too full, which it would inevitably be during a cold November day packed with multiple media organizations. Maybe Paul Reinhard, the big celebrity that everyone in the press box knew, might be the one to kick me out.

Obviously I didn't know him then.

Instead, what I remember about him that day was how kind he was to me. He never looked down on me, even when I had to actually stifle a cheer from the press box for Lehigh. He asked me about my blog, and what I was doing - which was so very much like Paul, too. He never lost his curiosity about the future, where technology was going but also about Patriot League, Lehigh and Lafayette topics, too. He had a genuine interest about these topics that was infectious.

At the time, I didn't know that Paul had officially gone from "salaried sports columnist" to "retired freelance columinst"in 2004, but you'd never know it by his demeanor or his writing output. He consistently cranked out stories and reports for many years. But he and Keith Groller were instrumental in me evolving from an amateur in serious need of editing lessons to a person with a much better reporting skill set for truly telling the story of Lehigh football.

Unlike most people writing about sports professionally, I really didn't have much of a writing background aside from a lot of time reading, obsessing, and consuming sports media. I always did fairly well when it came to writing courses in high school and college - unusual for a guy who was preparing for a job in computers - but the thought of writing for the school paper never crossed my mind, perhaps because I never wanted to be vulnerable.

In a lot of ways sports saved me throughout my life, and even though I knew I loved to consume sports stories and reading about sports narratives, I didn't go to school to write about it and I didn't write about sports for The Brown and White during my time at Lehigh (one of my biggest, deepest regrets about my time as an undergraduate).

Fortunately, watching Paul during a press conference was an absolute master class and helped me catch up. He had this way about cutting through the crap to get to the personal, when it was appropriate. He kept a handwritten notepad filled with the play-by-play of the game, and he would laser in on a specific play or two that was an inflection point in the game, and he wasn't afraid to go right after a questionable decision, even if he had a personal relationship with the coach. If he didn't get and adequate answer, he'd loop back and ask it again, in another way. He seemed to intrinsically know what the story should be.

He also knew the Patriot League inside and out, and could talk at length about the League and what it did well and what didn't. He could talk to the executive director of the Patriot League, or me, to get the whole story. He had insights on things like squad sizes that not only were informative, they drove the debate and got people talking about issues that really weren't being thought of or talked about, which is what great reporters do.

In those early days, I was real quiet and did a lot of observing, and Paul helped me learn a ton about how to press conference. Even today when interviewing Lehigh players or coaches in the back of my head I think to myself "what would Paul do" because he was so damned good at it. Whether covering a crestfallen group of Lehigh athletes or an elated group of Lafayette athletes, he was able to pivot effortlessly and figure out the right stories to tell.

After leaving that press conference that evening in 2004 at Lafayette and heading home to my wife, I was on cloud nine. I still didn't totally know what I was doing writing-wise, but I had talked to the real professionals like Paul and Keith and Matt Dougherty (who was at that time the main FCS writer for what was to become STATS, Inc.). They made me feel like I at least could talk with them, that they didn't treat me as a loud-mouthed fan who could barely write harboring an axe to grind against the bitter Rivals. It was a very important moment for me personally, and Paul stood out to me because he was kind to me when he didn't have to be. As good as he was, he didn't seem to be the type to suffer fools, and he didn't seem to take me for a fool.

On the way to the press conference, a young family looked the direction of a bunch of us writers headed to the postgame conference room. They paused, and recognized Paul, and they were star-struck. I never forgot that reaction he got from them. He was beloved and respected all throughout the Lehigh Valley, and they recognized him by his face. That was Paul Reinhard.

*****

Over the ensuing years I would generally see Paul when I would go to Patriot League Media Day in August and whenever I would cover a Lafayette game. Mostly I would see him during Rivalry weekends, but not always, and then, too, he was always kind to me and never looked down on me and what I did, which was important to me.

I always knew Paul as Lafayette's beat writer for The Morning Call, but somewhere along the way I learned he was a huge racing fan and was a close friend of Mario Andretti. I'm not a big racing fan, but Mario Andretti is a household name that anyone growing up in the 1970s and 1980s knows. "I got to know journalists from all over the world and Paul ranks right at the top," he told Keith Groller this week. "He did his job, I did mine, but there was a personal touch there that went beyond our jobs."

In the early days of my blog I would act sometimes as a content aggregator, linking and clipping important parts of stores from The Morning Call and The Easton Express-Times that go deeper than the headlines of the original stories. I'd always look to Paul's pieces for that when it came to Lafayette (or Lehigh, if I were digging for historical pieces). He had this knack of finding these personal stories and what I loved about them is that it humanized everyone - the players were not simply tackles per loss or rushing yards, but people with stories and narratives. (In fact, I loved them so much that sometimes in my own work I'd go overboard on the narratives and not enough on the X and Os.)

As we crossed paths more often, our relationship grew, united by The Rivalry. We both had topics involving the Patriot League that we both passionately cared about, so when our paths crossed we'd talk about them and sometimes keep the conversation going by email. We'd correspond over Lafayette-related topics (and when I'd want to fact check certain rumors - for example, whether Army-West Point and Navy were going to leave the Patriot League).

What I loved too about his reporting was that even though he loved Lafayette Athletics, he wasn't above calling out people if he felt like it was warranted. He would ask tough questions of Presidents, athletic directors, the executive director of the Patriot League and sometimes question the way things were done.

He was an enthusiastic reader of the Lafayette Fan Message Board and used that source to try to identify things that were going on - while simultaneously not getting ahead of the story, either. I've seen countless times younger reporters jumping too fast on message board information, but Paul was old-school and he knew when to trust and when to verify. He was also quicker than his contemporaries, I think, to see the value in those forums in sports reporting, and how to treat them.

Eventually I would be able to gently joke around with him about certain things, born out of respect for each other and what we do, and they are memories I will always treasure.

My favorite story of his is when he travelled to Macomb, Illinois to watch Lehigh play Western Illinois in the I-AA Playoffs. Not only were the print stories he logged from that tiny town near the intersection of Iowa and Missouri some of his best, he always said it was one of the worst road trips he ever took. When sharing stories about past games, or a cold evening in Easton or Bethlehem, I always tried to joke with him and say, "Well, at least it wasn't Macomb, Illinois!"

When the time came to ask Paul for a quote for my book jacket about "The Rivalry", it was a no-brainer for me to ask someone who is also so closely identified with the Lehigh/Lafayette game (he would insist it was the Lafayette/Lehigh game), but I had no idea if he'd say yes. He happily did so, and professionally it was an honor. Somewhere in the back of my head I still worried that he wouldn't enjoy the book because it was written by a "Lehigh person" but he did. And you had better believe he read it.

"Good idea, I think, about going neutral on the color and not turning off all those who bleed maroon," he wrote me, and his words meant more to me than he ever knew. He really got it and I was really proud that he read my book and enjoyed it. If Paul was entertained, then maybe the book wasn't too bad.

Covering a team or a program for a very long time puts you in an interesting club of writers. Other writers come and go, but it's the people that cover teams for a really long time that can see, cover, and care about long-term trends that an up-and-coming reporter might not know or care to see. I started out as this untrained, modestly-skilled writer entering a press box with stars in my eyes, but eventually I was able to hang out with Paul and talk to him and experience the history of Lafayette football games with him in a way I will cherish my entire life.

My biggest regret, I think, is that I never told Paul how much of a fan I was of him personally - of his work, what he wrote in The Morning Call all those many years, and how he continued to cover Lafayette football even after The Express-Times abandoned their beat position. I still continue to believe Lafayette should have a beat reporter, and I'm grateful he continued to document them at the beginning of the John Garrett era. If he hadn't done so, there would have been no independent voice talking about the goings-on at Lafayette, nobody looking out for the overall trends of the Patriot League, nobody getting those stories from the Lafayette side of The Rivalry, especially the ones that others don't think to uncover.

I also regret that he may not have known that I learned an incredible amount from Paul Reinhard. I feel like I got to hang out with a sportswriting legend, and I tried to learn everything I could. It hardly felt like working.

I'm really glad I knew him. I hope he considered me a friend.

Rest in peace, Paul.

Hoping in 2021, the "Hope of the Next Game" Returns for Lehigh and Patriot League Football

2020-12-31T17:53:00.001-05:00

What does a guy who covers the Patriot League do when there's no Patriot League events to cover?

In ordinary years, this would be a rhetorical question. Ordinarily, I would be pushing out pieces about Lehigh football, Patriot League sports, or perhaps previews on College Sports Journal, which I operate. From early May through early January, during an ordinary year I am covering Lehigh football best I can while also coordinating writers that make excellent content on primarily G5 and FCS schools.

In this hellish COVID year of 2020, the "what do you do now?" question became something I actually had to ask myself.

2020 for everyone on the planet has been a harrowing experience. But I fully acknowledge and understand that me and my family have navigated this landscape probably the best we could, and we are damned lucky. We've had family members who have had COVID, but the older members of our family clan, including my wife's 91 year old grandmother, have been safe. You can talk precautions, but a lot of it is just luck. In that sense, we've been lucky, and I understand that.

So I've hesitated for months to try to write something about the loss of Lehigh sports for me, and what it's meant. It hasn't felt right to try to talk about that when someone reading this might have an permanently empty chair at the dinner table.

But the pause on Lehigh sports has had an effect on me. Looking forward to the next game, the next Rivalry meeting in a bunch of sports, is what hope is. When games can't be contested, hope is lost for a lot of people. I understand this in a visceral way.

In order to understand why this was a very big deal for me, you have to understand that I have been writing about Lehigh football and Patriot League sports for a very long time. Since the late 1990s, where I came up with my first little-trafficked website focused on Lehigh football, to 2002, when I started printing out articles from The Morning Call in a effort to research a book about that season, to 2003, where I registered this blog address and started writing about Lehigh football, I've been cranking out Lehigh football content every year since.

It made for a rough 2020. It's not good for mental health - mine, or anyone else's. You want to be able to lift people up, make them perhaps not think about the weighty problems of the year, and distract them with an analysis of a meaningful, upcoming matchup. But that wasn't meant to be this year.

At times, Lehigh Athletics rebroadcasted classic games, and they were a great distraction for me and other Lehigh fans. It helped for a bit, and I enthusiastically followed every broadcast and added my running Twitter commentary on each game. They were a load of fun, and made me forget for a couple of hours that I was still at home, that it still might not have been totally safe to go out.

But the agonizing uncertainty on "when normalcy will return" in the form of the pace and cadence of Lehigh athletic activities were deeply affecting. You don't think simple things like catching a practice and trying to figure out the two-deep are good for the mental health, but they are, especially if it's the sort of thing you've done every year, at about the same time. Their absence gets replaced by doomscrolling. It's bad karma.

At the end of the year, I was gloomy. It felt like I somehow didn't do enough. I felt like my writing had gone to crap. Where was that manuscript I was going to write? Was I making sourdough bread when I should have been doing more journalism? Did I do enough on recruiting?

But that was just COVID talking. When I looked through what I wrote, I became immensely proud of the quality of many of the things I did write about. It was just different.

One piece I did involved Patriot League Executive Director Jennifer Heppel discussing the decision to cancel the spring 2020 season and postpone fall 2020 sports. It was a good historical record on what happened in those chaotic days in mid-March, as the Patriot League men's final was going on.

Another involved the opinion that we shouldn't restart college sports in the fall. It wasn't a perfect take all around, I admit, but it still feels for the most part on the nose.

After binging on two film renditions of the Ronald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I wrote a piece talking about how pure imagination fueled both Willy Wonka and the schools of the NCAA as well. It's aged well, I think.

In June, as the Patriot League presidents set their parameters for the reopening of fall competition, I got on the phone again with the executive director of the Patriot League and talked to her about how the Patriot League Presidents came to their conclusions. I think it is critical to understanding what is motivated the schools of the Patriot League to do what they did. Unlike other conferences, where the athletic directors tell the presidents what to do, the Presidents words are extremely important, and are what generally moves the bus in the league.

When the Presidents of the Patriot League officially postponed the fall sports season, I wrote a piece about what the loss means to the Lehigh community. "More than Broadway or the NFL or Major League Baseball, it is the quiet, less publicized decisions like the IronPigs not playing baseball that are the single most underreported story in the country right now. It is not industry – professional gambling and big money professional sports – that is the real story. It is the Lehigh Valleys of this world that have lost the little things that make life a bit less terrible in the summer."

When Central Arkansas and Southeast Missouri State decided to proceed with the "FCS Kickoff Classic", despite the risks, I wrote a deep dive into the many actors and layers that it took for that game to be contested. I think it ended up being a very good indication for the calculus, and reasons, for why college football games happened at all this year - it was simply the first.

Lehigh's challenges this fall were great, but I did catch up with head coach Tom Gilmore and asked him about how he was approaching this fall like no other. “We have no other choice but to fight through this in order to improve and get tougher, rather than dwell on our disappointment,” he told me. “This has and will continue to test our discipline with the virus looming in our environment, but his is also an opportunity to find new ways to improve physically, mentally and emotionally. We have been pushing through the challenges to find the best ways to accomplish our work and to investigate ways to improve now and in the future.”

And around the anniversary when the 156th meeting of The Rivalry was to be played, I wrote a piece talking about the agonizing limbo Lehigh players, coaches, administrators and fans found themselves this November.

I look back at all of these pieces with a lot of pride. You may not like them, you may not agree with my opinion on some or all of it, the Pulitzers probably won't be contacting me about any awards about them, but I feel like they were some of the best pieces I've ever written. I think the final one, about the people around The Rivalry, really captured the complicated legacy of what it meant to Lehigh and Lafayette people.

"You can debate as to whether any games should be played or not – but a moment should be spared thinking about the athletes who were asked to put on hold what they love to do, just to have other schools continue to play in spite of the clear risks of doing so.

"In the entire process, nowhere has any thought, or any consideration, been made for these athletes -literally tens of thousands of them – on the sidelines in the fall of 2020, who have been robbed a normal season by COVID-19 and then kicked in the teeth by the NCAA, school presidents, and administrators at some schools who allowed and decided that getting money from TV contracts or something was more important that their health and safety of their own communities, the quality of play, and the health and safety of their own players."

Like most things in 2020, there was a tinge of bitterness in my writing, because I was unhappy with what the chaos that was college football in 2020 brought us. What I hope most of all is that 2021 will see my writing lose that bitter edge, and get back to what it should be - the hope of the next game.

Assuming the Ivy Is Cancelling Out Of Conference Games, Here's How Patriot League Can Have 9 Game Season

2020-06-30T14:47:00.003-04:00

The Patriot League could very well be in a huge bind assuming the Ivy League goes forward with their college football restart plans.

According to Mark Blaudschun of TMG Sports, the Ivy League is considering two plans for their 2020 college football season - neither of which allow for any out of conference games.

13 out-of-conference games involving Patriot League teams would be on the chopping block, and when you add to it the Patriot League presidents' guidance to not fly to games, every single member of the Patriot League is affected. If you add to that the fact that the opening of the college football season is going to at best start in late September (yes, you read that correctly), the Patriot League would count as one of the most deeply affected by Covid-19-influenced delays and decisions in the entire college football landscape.

It is a bind to be sure - but not one that should see the Patriot League cancel the 2020 football season.

If we start with the assumption that the season will start late at best, and we assume that the TMG Sports report is accurate (and nobody has come forward to deny the basic thrust of the report), it should be possible to craft a nine-week Patriot League football season with seven league games and two out-of-conference games. There are a lot of moving parts, and the Patriot League would need some partners. But it should be possible.

Tom Gilmore Talks About The Incoming Recruiting Class

2020-02-28T01:30:00.000-05:00

Late last week I caught up with Lehigh head football coach Tom Gilmore to ask him some questions about the incoming class and the recruiting season in general. Here's what he told me.

Read more »

Happy Mountain Hawk 2010s: The Top Lehigh Football Victories of the Decade

2019-12-31T16:11:00.000-05:00

Happy holidays and hope everyone has a merry 2020 and beyond. Here at LFN, we wanted to compile a post listing the best and most memorable victories in the 2010 decade as voted on by one superfan who's been doing this for a very long time.

As the fine folks at Lehigh Sports remind us, the 2010s were particularly great from an aggregate standpoint. A Lambert Cup-winning season (given to the best FCS team in the East), a 7-3 record against Lafayette, and a whole lot of individual achievements are just the tip of the iceberg.

The 2010s were very good to us...

4️⃣ @PatriotLeagueFB titles 💍💍💍💍
2011 Lambert Cup 🏆
2️⃣l Playoff wins
.595 winning percentage
42-18 PL Record
7️⃣-3️⃣ vs. Lafayette
1️⃣8️⃣ game PL winning streak
🔟 All-Americans
1️⃣ Walter Payton Award runner-up#GoLehigh pic.twitter.com/buLimC0nSX
— Lehigh Football (@LehighFootball) December 31, 2019

But in this wonderful decade there were individual games that were things to celebrate as well. I strove to pick the ten best here, including two FCS playoff victories.

You can read the detailed recaps I wrote about each game if you click the links below.

Honorable Mention (just outside the Top 10)

September 21st, 2013: Lehigh 29, Princeton 28: This was the "pull the rabbit out of the hat" game in 2013 that was one of the most remarkable I've ever seen. Down 22-3 at halftime, the Mountain Hawks, on the road at Princeton stadium, Lehigh would score touchdowns on four consecutive second half drives while blocking a FG attempt and limiting the Tigers to one touchdown and a missed 2 point conversion in the second half. LB Isaiah Campbell intercepted Princeton's last-gasp drive to seal a remarkable win.

October 1st, 2016: Lehigh 63, Yale 35: In the Yale Bowl, records dropped everywhere as QB Brad Mayes lit up the Yale Bowl in a shootout. Mayes went 33 of 46 passing, with 524 yards, 6 touchdowns and 0 interceptions, and WR Troy Pelletier hauled in 13 passes for 213 yards and 3 TDs.

September 24th, 2013: Lehigh 51, Central Connecticut State 44 (OT): This was the awesome breakout game for WR Lee Kurfis, as he, QB Brandon Bialkowski and RB Keith Sherman rallied from a 20 point deficit to force overtime and win an amazing game in Murray Goodman. Kurfis had 7 catches, 222 yards, and 2 TDs.

November 21st. 2015: Lehigh 49, Lafayette 35: This was the high-scoring affair where QB Nick Shafnisky "threw" aside Lafayette en route to a satisfying end to the 2015 season. In many ways this win set up the very successful Patriot League championship year of 2016.

November 16th, 2013: Lehigh 31, Colgate 14: In the remarkable 2013 season, this was the game where RB Keith Sherman carried the Mountain Hawks on his back with 27 carries, 184 yards and 2 huge TDs to break open a close game to set up a Patriot League title game against Lafayette the following week. It also was QB Nick Shafnisky's second collegiate start.

10. October 19th, 2019 - Bibbens Magic Helps Deliver Huge 30-27 Lehigh Win In Overtime Over Fordham

When looking back on the 2019 season, this game really stands out as the best in Tom Gilmore's first season as Lehigh's head football coach.

With a heaping helping about the uncertainty of Lehigh's place in the 2019 season, the Mountain Hawks headed to the Bronx with first place on the line and delivered with a thrilling come-from-behind 30-27 overtime win. The status on WR Dev Bibbens was uncertain all week, but he suited up in the Bronx and showed Lehigh Nation how critical he was for the team - not only did he catch 10 passes and 2 touchdown passes (one from QB Tyler Monaco and the other from QB Addison Shoup), his downfield block allowed freshman QB Zaythan Hill to rumble for a 94 yard touchdown run.

LB Keith Woetzel was also everywhere on defense, forcing an early interception and notching 13 tackles and 4 sacks.

9. November 20th, 2010 - Lehigh Defense Flies High In 20-13 Win over Lafayette In #Rivalry146

It was destined to be a day of defense, and a couple of hard-hitting inside linebackers could have been the MVP of the 146th meeting between Lehigh and Lafayette. They were on the field thirty-six minutes, and never let a tough Lafayette run game wear them down.

"Over the last couple weeks we've had some good stops on defense," Lehigh/Lafayette LB Al Pierce said. "We've been playing really physical and that's something we pride ourselves on defensively."

The Lehigh/Lafayette MVP could have gone to the entire defense as a unit, but what sets this game apart was an iconic moment on a goal line stand at the 1 yard line where LB Mike Groome hurdled linemen not once, but twice, to stop Lafayette short and force them to settle for a FG.

It was a viral moment before the age of Twitter.

"Emontionally [the stand] was huge for the whole team," Groome said, who ended the day with 16 tackles, and no three bigger than the ones made on the goal line stand. "It's always good for the defense to come up with a huge stop. Every one made their assignments, and I was able to do my part. I love being out there and playing."

8. October 7th 2017 - In 41-38 Win Over Colgate, Lehigh Buries Memory Of Winless 1966 Season, And Gives Themselves Potential For More This Season

Turning around an 0-5 start could be one of the hardest jobs in football, especially against a hated conference rival, and especially in a place that has always been a difficult place for Lehigh to play. Going into this game, the season truly felt like it was attempt to pull the season out of the headlong nosedive. A win, and Lehigh had a chance to turn things around. A loss, and a losing season would have been assured. And few impartial folks thought Lehigh had any sort of chance.

But the 2017 Mountain hawks did indeed pul out of the nosedive. They won a hard-fought 41-38 contest that turned things around in the nick of time to allow Lehigh to claim a Patriot League Championship and the most improbable Mountain Hawk trip to the FCS playoffs.

RB Dominic Bragalone had 186 yards rushing and 2 TDs, 1 on the ground and one critical one at the end of the first half, a 35 yard swing pass from QB Brad Mayes to keep the game close. RB Micco Brisker would get 3 rushing touchdowns and Mayes would have 2 TDs, the final one coming in the closing minute to WR Troy Pelletier in a place where only he could catch it. Tumbling in the end zone, Lehigh would get their first lead and only clinch the win when LB Mark Walker would recover a game-clinching fumble in the final minute.

“Before the drive, I told the defense I was going to get them a win,” Mayes told Keith Groller of The Morning Call. “That’s not being cocky, that’s just playing with confidence. Our defense did a great job today and I wanted it for them.”

7. September 24th, 2016 - With 0.3 Left In First Half, Lehigh Ties Game, Then Never Looks Back, Beats Penn 49-28

Never was a 4th and 1 play so critical for a football season. The box score might have read "Nick Shafnisky 1 yard gain, TOUCHDOWN", but the momentum of that one play before halftime seemed to propel Lehigh to a 49-28 win over Penn and a 9 game winning streak that would give the Mountain Hawks a Patriot League Championship in 2016.

Head coach Andy Coen and the rest of the team knew that the Mountain Hawks would get the ball first to start the second half, so that certainly played a part in the decision to go for the touchdown, to put the faith in the offense to get that yard.

"I think what it came down to was, we were more physical than they were," he said afterwards. "They jumped on us early in the game, both on offense and defense, but it was great to see not only the players step up and get it done, but the coaching staff as well."

6. November 17th 2018 - Christmas Comes Early for Lehigh As They Convert Gifts Into 34-3 Win over Archrival Lafayette

Rarely do Rivalry games hinge on one singular play, and one singular swing of emotion, but they did in the 153rd version of The Rivalry.

Lehigh came out in a four-man defensive front, with DE Julian Lynn lined up on the right and “Hawk” DE Davis Maxie on the left. It was a standard four-man rush, with linebackers falling back to cover the short pass, and Lynn beat his man on the inside, attacking QB Sean O’Malley from his blind side.

As Lynn’s outstretched arms made contact with the Leopard QB, the ball squirted out of O’Malley’s grip, falling almost perfectly into the arms of Maxie, who had the ball and forty yards of uninterrupted green in front of him.

“It was like a present,” a giddy Maxie said afterwards, looking like he did, indeed, receive a present in the press conference. “It just floated into my hands. I would have had to move my hands to drop it. I had a flashback to the good old days when I was a TE at St. Andrews [in Boca Raton, Florida].”

Defensive coordinator Donnie Roberts, who got exactly what he wanted on this Lehigh Christmas day, was so excited that he bumped into an official on the field during the play, resulting in a 15 yard penalty and a sideline warning.

It was a blowout win over their Rivals that had a heaping helping of meaning for the Lehigh football team - most importatly, the victory that would allow head coach Andy Coen to retire tied for the most head coaching wins in program history (with Bill Leckonby). It would also allow RB Dominick Bragalone to finish his Lehigh career with an MVP trophy, and the school record for most career points scored.

“I can’t count the number of guys on the offense talking in my ear saying to that we need to get you that last touchdown for the record, and that last touchdown for the MVP,” he said. “That shows how much a family we have, how selfless people are on our team. It probably means more to them than it does to me. And we knew there was a lot riding on this game. Even though our record wasn’t what we wanted, there was still a lot to play for and getting Coach Coen that record was one of them. He’s done a lot for us, so we wanted to do this for him.”

5. September 28th, 2013: Lehigh Survives New Hampshire Wildcat Attack 34-27, Remains Undefeated

"It's pretty remarkable how routine it's all getting," I wrote. "It's as if all of Lehigh Nation simply expects the Mountain Hawks to fall behind in the first half, and recover in time to win. You could feel it in the crowd of nearly 9,000 people at Murray Goodman Stadium. Amazingly, down by 16, the game never felt out of reach."

Down 19-3, the Lehigh offense embarked on a 13 play, 55 yard drive, ending with a beautiful connection by senior QB Brandon Bialkowski to an off-balance senior RB Keith Sherman in the end zone. The pass was lofted just over the outstretched hand of leaping UNH LB Shane McNeely, missing his fingers by perhaps six inches.

And right before the end of the half, Lehigh would embark on a 14 play, 71-yard drive that would chew up four and a half minutes and end in a 19 yard FG by freshman PK Ryan Pandy, allowing Lehigh to chip away at the lead by halftime, only down 19-13.

"The last few days we've been talking a lot about why we win these games," Lehigh head coach Andy Coen said. "It's all about becoming a team. Being committed to yourself and committed to your teammates. Coming together as a team and building on that each week and getting tighter and tighter. There wasn't one guy who left this locker room that didn't 100 percent think that we were going to win this football game. That never wavered during the course of the game."

FB Zach Hayden got some of the toughest yards and first downs in this game as Lehigh clawed back with a pass to WR Sergio Fernandez-Soto and a paid of vultured rushing touchdowns by RB Sean Farrell. Defensively LB Nigel Muhammed and LB Cody Kondas headed a defense that consistently got stops when they were needed.

"Hat goes off to Andy," New Hampshire head coach Sean McDonnell said. "They executed all their stuff late in the game and did a hell of a job. Another game they came (from) behind and won in the fourth quarter."

4. November 27th, 2010 - Lehigh defense Shuts Down the University of Northern Iowa 14-7 In the FCS Playoffs

The conventional wisdom was: UNI never loses in the first round of the playoffs. In sixteen years, they hadn't lost a first round game. And the Patriot League doesn't win in the first round of the playoffs. Since 2003, there had been plenty of moral victories but no real victories - you know, where the Patriot League team ended up with more points than the other team.

But this group of Lehigh players did not go slack-jawed once they made it to the UNI Dome.

All things considered, it was a pretty well executed day of football - if you enjoy punts, tackles for loss and turnovers.

Both teams combined for 8 of 30 on third-down conversions - which resulted in fifteen punts on the afternoon in the 72 degree climate-controlled environment in the UNI Dome. The whole game seemed like a battle of field position at times - with both defenses coming up with big third-down stops and forcing the punting unit to be on the field often. Not content with junior P Alex Smith to get all the credit, even junior QB Chris Lum got in on the act with a late quick-punt in the 3rd quarter as well - a nice 36 yard boot that was close to being downed at the 1, but instead was a touchback.

Interceptions by FS John Venerio, CB John Kennedy and SS Casey Eldemire loomed large in the win. CB Jarard Cribbs would block a critical FG attempt to keep the pressure on.

"We were confident coming in, but I was real impressed with how we played," Veniero, seen sporting a mohawk, told the Morning Call's Keith Groller after the game. "This is probably the best opponent we've beaten and we were just relentless. We shut down their run, didn't let them throw the ball. A game like this reassured me of how good our defense is."

Lum would find Kansas native WR Jake Drwal for a 62 yard game-tying touchdown, and later would find WR Ryan Spadola for the 28 yard game-winner.

“This is a very good football team that we played,” said head coach Andy Coen after the game. “We’ve had some very good wins this season and this is without a doubt the best, the best football team that we’ve beaten. They're champions of a conference that we have a tremendous amount of respect for. It’s great that we could come and represent the Patriot League and Lehigh University very well today. I’m very proud of our team and everybody associated with our program.”

3. September 22nd, 2012 - Colvin Leads Big-Play Offense in Lehigh's 28-26 Win Over Liberty

Lehigh played in front of some big crowds in the 2010s, but the game played in Lynchburg, Virginia against a team that would find itself in FBS later in the decade would be the most satisfying of those wins.

In pre-expanded Williams Stadium, Lehigh beat Liberty 28-26 in the battle for the "real LU" in front of a FBS-like gameday experience of 17,139 fans.

Lehigh finished 10-1 in 2012 with a win over a Liberty team that for all practical purposes was like an FBS team, but were not granted an at-large bid to the FCS playoffs, the only at-large team with 10 Division I wins that has ever been denied an at-large bid since the playoffs was expanded to 24 teams.

Down 20-14, and facing a critical 3rd-and-1 on the Liberty 38, Lehigh needed a big play. And in a big spot, senior QB Michael Colvin delivered.

Fading back to pass, Colvin instead accelerated past the hole that senior C Tom Ruley and senior OL Vinny Pelligrini opened up, and saw nothing but green turf and white-shirted blockers in front of him.

It didn't seem like a big thing at the time during the pregame when it was announced that Pellegrini and sophomore OL Matt Douglas would be switched on the depth chart as first-team right and left guards.

But in a game that seemed like it was going to turn on one or two big plays, it was one of the big plays for Lehigh, who took the game by the horns in that huge 68 yard TD run.

"It’s not always pretty, but we have the will to win, we know how to win and we have to keep finding ways," Colvin told the Express-Times' Michael LoRe after the game. "We knew Liberty was a very, very good football team, much better than their 0-3 record. They played us very tough."

As the third quarter came and went, Lehigh's offense still couldn't get past the Liberty 40 yard line, but the defense, who was still getting smacked in the mouth pretty good, stiffened and made the Flames settle for field goals instead of touchdowns.

Then came the huge momentum shift to the Mountain Hawks from Colvin's touchdown run - and, feeding off that energy, a tipped ball by junior LB John Mahoney and senior CB Gabe Johnson would find its way into the hands of senior LB Billy Boyko - who took it to the house for a 39 yard touchdown run.

Liberty, though, wasn't through yet, mounting a 10 play, 75 yard drive to cut the deficit to 28-26, ending with a 3 yard run by Woodrum with just under a minute to play.

But Lehigh's defense bent, but didn't break.

On Woordrum's rollout on the 2 point conversion, Andrews perfectly anticipated the play to Kelly - Mr. Reliable all night - and the critical pass tipped incomplete, ultimately ending the Flames' bid to win the game.

"When it ran my way, I had a feeling it was coming to me," CB Bryan Andrews said after the game. "It was actually a play we were aware of, so I already knew what to do."

Once done, it was up to senior RB Zach Barket to get the winning first down - giving Lehigh their first 4-0 start since 2001.

"It was a dogfight," Boyko said after the game, "but we fought through it as a team."

2. December 3rd, 2011 - Game-Winning Safety Is The Difference In Lehigh's 40-38 Win over Towson in the FCS Playoffs

Towson had already chartered their flight to Fargo before the game was even played, but they didn't need the flight. Tiger RB Terrance West emerged from the pregame procession into the stadium holding up a WWE-style Championship belt, but it didn't leave the state of Maryland.

In an exhilarating, bizarre FCS playoff game that has to be one of the top playoff games of the decade, Lehigh won an offensive shootout with, of all things, a game-winning safety.

Befitting a game that faced the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the ECAC Lambert Trophy poll, the poll for the best team in the East, it was an instant classic that featured six ties and seven lead changes.

The amount of momentum shifts and offensive responses to touchdown drives in the game resembled a classic Ali vs. Frazier title fight. This game literally had everything - a handoff, jump-pass touchdown pass to TE Jamel Haggins; a 99 1/2 yard touchdown drive; a fake punt by Towson stuffed by FB Zach Hayden; a onsides squib kick that hit a Towson player that was recovered by Lehigh; 13 catches, 152 yards and 1 TD from WR Ryan Spadola; QB Chris Lum going 36 of 48 for 351 yards and 2 TDs.

"It was awesome," Lum said afterwards. "We knew we could do it, a lot of us were here last year (a playoff loss against the CAA champion Delaware) and we knew we could do it. We stayed the course, and we kept making plays."

Nothing, however, topped the game-winning safety by DE Tom Bianchi.

It was second down and 7 from the 8 yard like, Towson head coach Rob Ambrose called a naked bootleg, which essentially leaves the quarterback unprotected from one side. It was a particularly gutsy call by Ambrose, but a risky one.

On the particular play, Lehigh senior LB Colin Newton and Bianchi had switched assignments so when QB Grant Enders turned to run right, where there was no protection, he turned into a full-speed Bianchi for the safety.

“It was a perfect play call,” Bianchi said after the game. “All of a sudden, I saw the quarterback spin outside, and I was right there. As soon as I tackled him, I wasn’t sure it was a safety. Once I got up and saw everyone celebrating, I knew it was a safety.”

Equally as crucial, the safety gave Lehigh the ball back - where Lum would take over, hitting Haggins, Drwal, and Hayden to move the sticks three times to seal the Mountain Hawk victory.

No three first downs were as exciting as those conversions by Lum and the offense in the closing minutes.

1. November 8th 2017 - Down by Double Digits, Halftime Speech Sparks Lehigh's #Rivalry153 Rally As Lehigh Wins 38-31

It seemed like everything that could go wrong, was actually going wrong. Three fumbles resulted in three Lafayette recoveries. A third down conversion incompletion by Lafayette QB Sean O'Malley became an unexpected first down, thanks to an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that kept their drive alive. A 14-7 first quarter lead became 17 unanswered points, leading to a 24-14 deficit against the best defensive team in the Patriot League.

Then halftime happened, and everything changed.

"The first half really didn't go as we planned," senior OL Brandon Short said. "We went back in the locker room, and said we just needed to control what we can control, and take it one play at a time. We weren't going to score 10 points on one play, so, we did that, and we did our job."

"Personally, I think the biggest spark for me and the rest of the team came from the speech OL Zach Duffy gave at halftime about the seniors - about how this could be their last game, and how we need to go out there, and do it for them," FS Riley O'Neil said. "With that in the back of our minds, that gave us a spark."

"I told Duff [at halftime], 'I'm hurt,'" Mayes said. "And [after that], I don't think there was a single Lafayette player near me the rest of the game. That's a credit to those guys, the coaches did a great job of keeping me in the pocket and a great credit to my offensive line, doing an outstanding job up front."

"We were kind of shooting ourselves in the foot," Zach said. "I told Brad at halftime, you're the best quarterback in this league, and you're going to have the half of your lifetime."

And that's exactly what happened, as Lehigh fought and clawed their way back to tie the game at 31 behind Mayes, Portorreal, Pelletier and Bragalone.

It would take a highlight-reel catch to finally put Lehigh over the top to WR Gatlin Casey a 41 yard grab that was, and is, pure perfection.

Mayes hits Casey down the middle for a 41-yard TD as Lehigh regains the lead! #Rivalry153 pic.twitter.com/RntHe6sZa3
— Lehigh Football (@LehighFootball) November 18, 2017

Lehigh's defense would be called upon for one more stop. Four plays, a holding penalty and -2 net offensive yards later, Lehigh would get the ball back - and then grind down the clock on Lehigh's third-straight win over Lafayette, and the only one that would clinch back-to-back Patriot League championships and allow, for the first time since 1999, a win over Lafayette to clinch a playoff berth for the Mountain Hawks.

#Rivalry155: Five Things to Watch, Keys To the Game, Fearless Prediction: Lafayette at Lehigh, 11/23/2019

2019-11-23T02:08:00.000-05:00

Below, we're going to do a quick once-over of Lehigh's game notes and possible injuries, then we'll dive right into 5 things to look for with Sacred Heart, my Keys to the game, and the cherry on top will be my Fearless Prediction.

You can read my College Sports Journal preview of #155, complete with TV and streaming information, here.

Keith Groller of The Morning Call headlined his piece "Lehigh’s defense has been its best in years, but it hasn’t translated into a winning season".

Additionally, Paul Reinhard of The Morning Call headline his preview "Lafayette football has more than just bragging rights on the line vs. Lehigh".

Lehigh's Davis Maxie (95) tackles St. Francis punter Ryan Oliver (33) after Oliver fumbled his punt attempt in the Mountain Hawks season opener at Goodman Stadium on Aug. 31. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call)

Game Notes

There is some good news and some bad news in the game notes.

Last week, RB Rashawn Allen exploded back into the running back mix with his first 100 yard rushing game of the season, and explosive freshman RB Zaythan Hill will join him to hopefully be a great 1-2 punch for the Lehigh running game. Last week, Lehigh was razor-thin at RB against Sacred Heart - Hill's return could be enormous for this offense.

The bad news is senior QB Tyler Monaco will not be available. According to the game notes, QB Alec Beesmer will be starting, and QB Addison Shoup will be backing him up. It's unclear whether we'll see both QBs on the field this weekend. We might.

QB Keegan Shoemaker

Five Things to Watch With Lafayette

1. Lafayette has found their QB. The search was long for head coach John Garrett, but somewhere in September he found his true freshman QB, Keegan Shoemaker. For a freshman, his numbers have been impressive (2,421 yards passing, 17 TDs), and he's been a dual threat QB that has done well both passing and running. He's a QB with great tools, but his one issue has been turnovers (13 INTs) and making freshman mistakes. Nonetheless, he's injected a lot of energy into an offense that had lacked it in recent years, and he's a dangerous player when he's "on".

2. Look for a 3-4 defense from the Leopards. Whether by design or by tinkering, Garrett has trotted out a lot of different looks on defense, sometimes going with a 3-3-5 defense and other times going with more of a base 3-4. In the game notes, it looks like he is going to go with a base 3-4 which promises to bring a lot of pressure on the QB.

DE Malik Hamm

3. Malik Hamm Is Still A Beast. Hamm, with 10 1/2 tackles for loss and 7 sacks, is a terrific athlete on the Leopards' front. After a stellar freshman season, he didn't slow down at all in his sophomore year. Job No. 1 for the Lehigh offensive line is going to be keeping Hamm out of Alec Beesmer's face. If Hamm goes hogwild, this game could be over early.

4. Winning Five In A Row Is Damned Hard. Lafayette is not going out to Murray Goodman Stadium this weekend for the FCS Playoffs or a Patriot League championship, I can guarantee you - they are going out there to break the four game losing streak. Ask any player who has played in this Rivalry - the emotions running through the sidelines of a team who was winless against their Rivals is immense. Never underestimate that emotion.

5. Yasir Thomas Is The Senior I Fear The Most. There's some good things about this Leopards offense - the young QB, a solid offensive line, some good receivers. But in Rivalry games, the guys I fear the most are seniors, and though there aren't a lot of seniors on both teams, SS Yasir Thomas is the guy I most fear. He's had a good year in the Lafayette secondary with 56 tackles and 6 pass break-ups, but I could see him playing out of his mind this weekend. Keep an eye on this team captain.

LFN's Keys to the Game

1. Offensive Line Needs To Make Holes. Head coach Tom Gilmore insisted to me this week that the offensive line did a much better job than advertised with RB Rashawn Allen's 100 yard game. They will need to do so again and show Lehigh Nation that they can gut out the tough yards with Allen and RB Zaythan Hill. It's incredibly critical that Lehigh establish a good running game to set up the passing game and get Beesmer some open looks at WR Dev Bibbens.

2. Flushing Shoemaker Out of the Pocket. Lehigh's pass rush is going to have to make a comeback this week in order to make Shoemaker uncomfortable in the pocket and keep him from getting into a rhythm. Blitzing needs to be part of this week's gameplan, as well as maybe keeping a guy around to spy Shoemaker in case he takes off. In a lot of ways, the battle between Lafayette's OL and Lehigh's defensive front seven might determine this game.

3. Woetzelvania. LB Keith Woetzel won't be thinking about Patriot League defensive player of the year honors when he's out on the field on Saturday, but if he can make Murray Goodman stadium Woetzelvania this weekend Lehigh has a chance to win it. His defensive play (107 tackles, 9 1/2 sacks) has been outstanding, with most of his tackles being of the solo variety. I have a sneaking feeling that he is going to put it all out there on Saturday, and if the rest of the defense rallies behind Woetzelvania, it could be a special Rivalry.

Woetzelvania

Fearless Prediction

It's been a very strange year for both teams. In a game usually dominated by seniors, there are a multitude of underclassman playmakers on both sides. In a year where winning records usually win championships and FCS playoff bids, Lafayette has a chance at both, and Lehigh has a chance at a championship. Lafayette's offense is fearsome. Lehigh's defense is one of the best in the nation. Up is down.

I feel like Lafayette has their best chance to win The Rivalry since Yankee Stadium. Many of the ingredients are there - relatively, more experience at QB; some playmakers on defense; a very good offensive line. But their biggest weapon might simply be hunger. Nobody on this team has been satisfied with a win over Lehigh. This is their best shot in years to do it, facing off against a starting QB in his second game as a starter. Beesmer did show some good things vs. Sacred Heart - he had a lot of poise in the pocket. Can he do it on the stage of The Rivalry?

The ingredients for a Lehigh win involves the seniors bringing it all, especially early. Getting an early lead and not playing from behind might be the most important aspect of this game. This Lehigh group can do it. Will they?

Lehigh 21, Lafayette 17

#Rivalry155: Pregame Q&A With Head Coach Tom Gilmore

2019-11-22T17:48:00.001-05:00

LFN: So it must be interesting being back here coaching in The Rivalry.

Tom Gilmore: It is. I mean, you know, when you step back and you think this is the most played game in college football, that's pretty neat. And it's such a big rivalry. It's been around so long. The proximity is schools, the proximity of our alumni bases, it just makes this a special thing. And regardless of how the rest of the season goes, good or bad, or you always have that big game left at the end of a regular season, that's really special. No one else in our league has it. A lot of the Ivy League doesn't. Only Harvard/Yale or Ohio State/Michigan, Cal/Stanford is anything like this. We have something really special here. Adding to that is title implications. Both teams have to hope that Holy Cross loses to Georgetown. But at the same time, if that does happen, if we win the game, we tie for the championship and if Lafayette wins the game, they win the championship. Having those implications just adds to the importance of the game.

LFN: Does your method of preparation change this week?

TG: The funny thing is, as much as I can talk about the rivalry and all the neat things when push comes to shove. If as a as a staff, as a team, as a program, if you're not focused on this like every other game, as a one week season, as as one game at a time, as one out of six Patriot League championship games, if you're not focused on that, you're going to get distracted to some degree. And the thing that I think helps us is we've approached the earlier games like that. So now we're not trying to preach to our players to get focused on this game differently than they have.

LFN: So you kind of haven't really changed your approach much from the rest of the week? Even with the extra distractions?

TG: You can't completely. That's what makes us special, you know. But with those distractions, when you are on the field, when you are in meetings, when you are watching film, you have to stay focused. And I think the approach that we've taking the rest of the season has allowed our players to do that so far. Hopefully we can continue to do that. And there's the senior dinners and there's the Beat Lafayette Luncheon and there's, you know, the crowd and you know, all those things. You know what? It comes down to getting focused, you know, during a game, it means getting focused on practice and things like that. If you let those distractions affect your preparation, that's when you get into trouble. Yeah. But, you know, you can't cut out those those events. Yes. Around in the game. That's what makes it special. The game itself is a big event. There's nothing wrong with those special things going on as long as you don't let them distract from your preparations. You want them to perceive that this is the same. It's a different opponent. Here's how we're preparing for their unique schemes, for their unique personnel. But other than those unique features, your overall preparation and your mindset shouldn't be any different.

LFN: When you were a player at Penn, who was your big rival at the time?

TG: It was supposed to be Princeton. Yeah. And that's what all the alums preached to us. But it never felt like that in a lot of ways. They were the homecoming game when they were home and I think we were their homecoming game when we were up there, but to be honest with you in the players minds, it was us and Harvard. And I think Harvard viewed us very similarly.

LFN: You're entering this week on a losing streak. How does that affect things?

TG: You know, Chuck, there were a lot of positives from the Sacred Heart game. I think week to week all season, before the Bucknell game, we were making noticeable improvements. But against nationally ranked opponents, they weren't showing up as much against Villanova or UC Davis. But since that time, since the third week of the season, we've seen legitimate improvement. I think the only game where we didn't down improvement was Bucknell. But there was a backstory to it - we lost a lot of linemen and two quarterbacks in the third quarter.

It can sound like excuses, but we went out last week and had our best by far our best rushing performance in a year, against a team that trounced two other teams in the Patriot League. We rushed for 201 yards. You're you're almost always going to win a game that you rush that much. RB Rashawn Allen had his best performance of the year. QB Alec Beesmer made some mistakes, but also did some good things. And the defense held the best rusher in all of FCS (Sacred Heart RB Julius Chestnut) almost the entire game.

There a couple of things that we still can improve on in. But overall, I think people see that the team is playing very hard. We're showing a lot of toughness.

LFN: Talk a little about Juwan and Sam on the defense. The whole defensive resurgence is kind of in the story of the year.

TG: They've helped the defense kind of build to where it is now. By and large, I think we have improved dramatically since last year in every way. But. But having leadership on in any phase in this case, defense is essential. So you have Sam McCloskey, who's been a three year captain, an all week player. You have Juwan, who is one of those guys that everyone respects. You have key figures like LB Riley O'Neil, LB Keith Woetzel, junior LB Pete Haffner. You have key figures like that. People respect them. They're in the weight room. They're out there playing hard. They're leading the way. They're leading by example. They're setting the standards. When when something has to be said, you know, one of those guys is stepping up and saying it. So having that leadership around the team has really helped this this transitional year go smoother than it otherwise would have. If we didn't have that, I don't think we could have improved as a team or defensively.

LFN: What does the Rivalry mean to you personally?

TG: Like you said, I think it's really neat as a coach. Every game for me is a big deal - I don't care who we're playing. But being a part of something like this that has a history, I appreciate it. I do appreciate history. I do appreciate tradition probably a lot more than most people do. It just adds that excitement for me. During the course of a week, I try to stay focused, like we ask our players to stay focused at the task at hand. But just being back at Lehigh has been really special for me. I never wanted to leave this place in the first place. So being at Lehigh is is a huge deal for me. And being a part of something like the Lehigh/Lafayette Rivalry is so much a part of this community.

#Rivalry155: Pregame Q&A With S Sam McCloskey

2019-11-22T15:46:00.001-05:00

LFN: Did you have a pretty busy class schedule this year?

S Sam McCloskey: I got here late today as well. Tuesday through Thursday is pretty busy. Monday and Friday, actually, I'll have class.

LFN: What are you studying now? And how has that been integrating with football?

SMC: An MBA type of technical entrepreneurship. There's definitely a lot to it, a lot of hours. So at times it's actually been tough, you know, kind of balancing football practice and whatnot. But it's completely different than undergrad programs, really hands on. I like it a lot. We get to work on our own venture. So I'm trying to work on that and we'll see where that goes.

LFN: Do you have anything lined up for the future?

SMC: Probably end up in construction or real estate, something like that. That's where my interest has been, you know, throughout college. So that's cool.

LFN: How do you manage the Rivalry distractions? What do you tell the younger players?

SMC: I think the tradition has been here for so long within the program. This week, we're really just focused on the game and having gone into all the hoopla and all that stuff. I tell them that it's a gig game. It's gonna mean a lot to the community and a lot of people back on campus. It's going to be hectic and crazy, you're going to be exposed to different stuff. But you guys need to stay grounded, you know, because like I said, we're going out and we're playing on Saturday. It's not our week to go party and whatnot.

LFN: This season, things have turned around on defense. Talk about how it's transformed over the time you came in here.

SMC: I think it's a lot of different things. It's all a process. And I think the process started years ago with the guys on this defense. We've got more confidence. We worked harder in the offseason, got a new defensive staff, a very aggressive staff. So you when you put all those things together, good things happen and you've seen it so far.

LFN: Talk about LB Keith Woetzel.

SMC: He's awesome. He had a really, really good year last year and he didn't get a lot of credit for it because there's a lot of good backers in the league. But I think this year, you know, just watching game film, seeing other defenses play other teams, Keith's solidified himself as the best linebacker in the league. He just has such a nose for the ball, his IQ, and he works really hard. You gotta cheer for a guy that works really hard and puts it on the field on Saturday.

LFN: Kind of like you. What is your leadership style as team captain?

SMC: Not micromanaging, but really making a connection with the guys here and there as you go throughout the year. And once a guy can trust you and know that you believe in them, it's a lot easier to lead. I'm not the biggest rah rah guy. But I say stuff when I need to. I think it's all about those relationships, the connections you make with each other.

LFN: What does the Rivalry mean to you?

SMC: I mean, it means a lot to me. It's really cool, being potentially my last game. That means a lot in itself. But for it to be the Leh/Laf rivalry makes it that much sweeter. A lot of people are invested in it. You know, alumni, people around Lehigh, that means a lot to them. So, I mean, you're going out there representing a lot more than just yourself and the current team you're representing, Lehigh players for years and years behind us. Yeah. So many people.

#Rivalry155: The Last Five Meetings

2019-11-22T00:59:00.000-05:00

One of the nice things about having done this for long is that at my fingertips I can summon up the definitive account of the last five meetings of The Rivalry through my game recaps of the time. Here's a quick summary of the last five times Lehigh faced off against Lafayette in the most important game of the season. And heck - it's Throwback Thursday somewhere, right?

Read more »

#Rivalry155: Pregame Q&A With DE Juwan Morrow

2019-11-21T17:19:00.002-05:00

LFN: So your in your fifth year, you're and environmental science major. How's that? How's it been going along here for you? How has that worked out with integrating with football?

DE Juwan Morrow: There are a lot of labs. It's a lot of field trips and class time, going out and doing certain experiments, using certain tools, you know. So it's definitely a challenge to be able to incorporate that with football. But the professors in that department are accommodating and football is very understanding. And it's a blessing to be able to have people work so hard together to make things work for me.

LFN: Do you have any plans after graduation or do you know what your plans might be?

JM: So hopefully that paired with my environmental policy masters degree, that makes me more marketable to be able to work somewhere in Philly.

LFN: This season has been one of a great defensive turnaround.

JM: We took on a backbone role for the defense. I think it started with the players, you know, wanting to establish an identity. And it got to the point where we said, you know what? We want people to see our identity, not just hear about it. So every time I go onto the field, I make sure to notice a run to the ball, hit people and impact, you know, make collisions, make plays happen and just be a high intensity, very emotional group of guys on defense.

LFN: As a front three unit, you've been been pretty steady - you, DE Mike Sibblis and DT Mike Laurencelle.

JM: They learned a lot. They grew up a lot over the past year. It was great to be able to see them both grow as like as men and as players, you know, learning a lot. Taking on new coaching staff with us all together. And they took it on headstrong and they adapted and they absorbed everything they could. And I think their play shows that.

LFN: What is your leadership style on defense?

JM: I like to set the tone in a way, leading by example, but also making sure that, hey, we're all here. We signed up for this. You know, this is our job as a defense, whether they put it on the goal line or they're backed up 20 yards, you know. Same job. We want to be out there.

LFN: Talk a little about the rivalry. You've gone through this process a lot. Is there anything special that you'd tell younger players the kind of stuff that happens?

JM: It's hard to to explain everything to someone who hasn't experienced it. So my words really don't do it justice. I just make sure that I'm telling them, hey, it's it's not a game. You keep doing what you're doing in your playbook to study your keys, make sure you hit the right guy and get off on the plays. So when the crowds jump in really loud and you can't hear the calls, you know, trust your technique and you'll be fine. Play for the guy next to you. We've been through all this adversity and now we want to come out on top together.

LFN: What does the rivalry mean to you? Just in general?

JM: It's an honor to play in this game. And luckily, I've been able to experience it for five years now. It's just crazy how many people come out to see this game and support the players, support the teams. And that's an experience you really can't get anywhere else.

LFN: When you go to classes, or do you feel like people do people talk about it?

JM: You can definitely feel it in the air. Everyone knows it's Le/Laf week. Everyone's ready to see the game, even professors. They're ready to go. They talk about it. There's no comparison to like any other game we play at home.