Archive For The “2016” Category
“With the exception of the first five minutes,” The Brown and White said, “Lehigh played indifferent football. At times the Brown and White showed flashes of form, but for the most part they lacked the dash and drive which characterizes the opening minutes of the game. The aerial attack which gained so much ground last week was poor, and it was not until the latter part of the third quarter that Lehigh completer her first successful forward pass.”
This quote, taken from the 1923 student newspaper detailing the first-ever official football meeting between Lehigh and Fordham, won’t be something that’s repeated in the student newspaer in their recap this weekend. In fact, the fifteen points scored in that 1923 game, a 9-6 Lehigh win, might very well be outdistanced in the first five minutes of the game this weekend., and it’s a guarantee that Fordham and Lehigh will be completing their first passes well before the 3rd quarter.
It would be stunning to see a 9-6 final in this game this weekend in large part because all signs point to a game which will be a full buffet for fans of offense.
If Lehigh and Fordham meet their season averages for total offensive yards, there’s a chance that both teams’ offenses combined might exceed 1,000 yards, while Fordham averages 32.3 points per game, and Lehigh 40.3. Even if this game didn’t loom enormously in the Patriot League title chase – which, of course it does – this would be a terrific game to watch in terms of offense.
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(Photo Credit: Jay Anderson/Worcester Telegram)
It was a day where even when things went wrong they went right for the Mountain Hawks.
It was early in the second quarter, deadlocked at 7. Sophomore QB Brad Mayes, picked the starter as senior QB Nick Shanfisky would be the backup to let his injured leg continue to heal, would get a drive going with an 18 yard pass to junior WR Troy Pelletier. Two plays later, sophomore RB Dominick Bragalone would run a counter play left, escape a few tackles, and surge for a 28 yard run into Holy Cross territory.
You could feel some momentum building as Mayes would connect on a 4th and 7 to Pelletier to get into the Holy Cross red zone, and again when he would rifle a ball to junior WR Gatlin Casey over the middle. There was even more when sophomore RB Micco Brisker would keep his legs moving – and his offensive line, pushing – until he reached the end zone.
Up 13-7, on the extra point Shafnisky, who holds during extra points, got a low snap, and scrolled right. Looking up, he saw junior DE Tyler Cavenas, wide open in the end zone, waving his hands. To salvage the free shot at points, he lofted the ball to Tyler – and he came down with the ball.
It ended up a very good day for the Mountain Hawks, where positive thing after positive thing kept happening for the Mountain Hawks, some planned, some unplanned. Despite a game where weather seemed like it might make for a tough go, Lehigh wasn’t slowed down at all in their 46-14 win.
We break down the Holy Cross game – and we give our fearless prediction below the flip.
It’s often said that preseason publications aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, and almost unusable when the actual regular-season matchup comes around.
And in the case of Holy Cross, that’s especially apt.
Much of the hype around the Crusaders centered around their star QB, unofficially anointed the best quarterback in the Patriot League, senior QB Peter Pujals. Much of my writings about Holy Cross centered around what he can do, what he brings to the table, and what his weapons are.
But a left ankle injury in the first half of the Dartmouth game didn’t just sideline him for that contest – it sidelined him for the season, forcing his ankle in a boot and will almost certainly have him apply for a medical redshirt for next season – unless head coach Tom Gilmore decides, against the odds, to have Pujals play this weekend if he’s healed up enough.
That and a slew of other injuries pretty much wrecked anything I wrote before this past August about breaking down this Holy Cross offense. However it also, in a way, makes Holy Cross more dangerous. They won’t be facing off against the regular cast of characters.
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(Photo Credit: Keith Groller/Morning Call)
It felt a lot closer than 14 to 3 at halftime.
Sure, Lehigh had outgained Georgetown 220-64 on offense up until that point. Definitely, the Lehigh defense, which has been playing with a chip on its shoulder for most of the entire season, was playing, as they say, lights-out, and they had just come up with a big defensive stop in the red zone to keep Georgetown from cutting it from 14-7 rather than 14-3.
But a batted ball at the line of scrimmage, alertly grabbed by DE Hoya DE Hunter Kiselick, made it feel like the Mountain Hawks might rue the opportunities they had in the first hald to put away Georgetown.
After coming in for injured senior QB Nick Shafnisky, sophomore QB Brad Mayes jumped right into the fray and finished the scoring drive with a perfect pass over the middle to junior WR Troy Pelletier to make the score 14-3 Lehigh.
But after a drive that went backwards and that interception, it was Georgetown that had momentum going into halftime, and they were getting the ball back as well.
That’s when the Mountain Hawks, who have defined this season so far as being a second half team, put the game away resoundingly.
“I’m pleased with how the kids responded at halftime,” head coach Andy Coen said after the game. “It wasn’t very pretty on the offensive side on the offensive side of the ball in the first half. The staff did a great job, got the kids rallied around, made a couple different turns of the wheel, so to speak, and really got the thing running again.
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Although you see big, bright smiles on the faces of senior CB Brandon Leaks and senior WR Trevor Soccaras when talking about the performance over the last four football games, their focus has understandably been on Georgetown and guarding against a possible letdown.
Such thought is undeniably warranted, especially if they caught the college football scores from yesterday.
There was only one college football game being contested Thursday night, which was Monmouth vs. Presbyterian.
The Hawks, who already beat Lehigh on opening weekend and also beat Fordham last weekend, had a short week to prepare for their Thursday game. But few people thought they would struggle against 1-4 Big South leaguemate Presbyterian, who had already lost to a Division II school (Florida Tech).
Instead, the classic letdown game happened – a 17-13 loss that almost certainly doomed any chance Monmouth has to not only win the Big South, but also to qualify for any sort of at-large postseason berth.
Senior QB Nick Shanfisky called them “motivation games”, and it’s clear during this four game winning streak motivation hasn’t been lacking for this Lehigh football team.
Start with Penn, where it was critical for the Mountain Hawks to avoid an 0-3 hole. Then proceed to Princeton, where the defense gave up 52 points last season in a loss; to the Yale Bowl, where two years ago no less than five players came down with injuries in another loss; and of course Colgate, where last season the Raiders’ stop at the goal line preserved their 49-42 victory and snatched a Patriot League title that was within the Mountain Hawks’ grasp.
At 4-2, and in the drivers’ seat, along comes a game for Lehigh at Georgetown, which by any measure doesn’t have the same types of motivation that fueled this four game winning streak.
Not that there’s no motivation, mind you. Conference games count for more than games against Yale, or Monmouth.
But you can’t blame folks for looking at this Georgetown and fearing a letdown, a quintessential “trap game”. In the last four games, they were all motivation games – games fueled by either a desperation to get the season on track, or a continuation of track with a side order of revenge. This one is different – and thus, oddly enough, more dangerous.
Admiral Ackbar might correctly identify this game as a classic trap.
(Photos and Graphic courtesy of Lehigh Athletics)
Suppose you put in a copy of NCAA Football ’14 into your dusty Playstation 3. You create a team, “Lehigh”, and put in the entire Lehigh roster, and make them 99s across the board.
You pick a team to play against – say, Yale – and you pick a place to play, of course, the Yale Bowl. You put it on the medium setting.
Would these stat lines seem out of place if you played that game on that system?
Sophomore QB Brad Mayes – 33 of 46 passing, 524 yards, 6 touchdowns, 0 interceptions.
Junior WR Troy Pelletier – 13 catches, 213 yards, 3 TDs.
Junior WR Gatlin Casey – 6 catches, 169 yards 2 TDs.
They look like something out of a video game – yet those are the real stats to come out of the Yale Bowl this weekend in an extraordinary, awesome, ridiculousness of an offensive performance. These numbers weren’t the only great numbers to come out of this record-setting game out of the Yale Bowl, but they stick out.
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It came as a big surprise to the press box, the fact that senior QB Nick Shafnisky would not be starting versus Yale.
Sophomore QB Brad Mayes, who had seen time on the field as a freshman, trotted onto the Yale Bowl’s grass field to start the game instead.
By the time he’d left the Yale Bowl’s playing field, he and the Mountain Hawks would have put their marks on a whole lot of Lehigh and Yale Bowl records.
Combined, Lehigh’s and Yale’s 70 points would be the most ever recorded in a half of football at the Yale Bowl. Lehigh QB Bob Aylsworth‘s record 454 passing yards in the Yale Bowl, broken. The all-time team and individual Lehigh records for passing yards in a game, broken. All-time touchdown pass record, tied. Most points scored by an Andy Coen-coached team, broken.
Number of extra points in a game? Tied. Number of passing touchdowns in a game? Tied. Most points allowed by Yale at the Yale Bowl? Tied.
It was a 63-35 win that, incredibly, was still in doubt at halftime when a second half 21-7 surge would allow Lehigh to pull away and the records started to pile up, one after the other.
We break down the Yale game – and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip.
Before we get to all the nuts and bolts of the breakdown, Yale’s game notes and mascots, though, it’s worth highlighting a great piece by Lehigh athletics on senior OL Brandon Short that was just released earlier today by Lehighsports.com.
“Regardless, Short’s approach to every practice, every game and every opportunity to improve is the same, whether this is his last season or he returns in 2017,” the article reads. “That extra sense of urgency, which seniors often say they feel, has been there for Short ever since returning from a season-ending injury he sustained early in the 2014 season [at Yale].
“‘That experience really brought things into perspective,’ he said. “We always hear coaches say play every play like it’s your last. I started three games as a sophomore, which got taken away in the matter of two plays. It really opened my eyes to enjoy and appreciate what I’m doing.
“Because of that injury and missing the rest of the season, Short hopes to return to Lehigh for a fifth year to earn his master’s degree while continuing to play football. Several logistics still need to be figured out, but that’s his goal.”
Lehigh 45, Colgate 31 Postgame Thoughts: Nearly 10,000 At Lehigh Win Evokes Memories Of 2004
By LFN |
It honestly felt like a day from another era out there on Saturday – in a good way.
In a world of bitter political debates, supposedly declining college football attendance, alleged tensions between the generations and the ongoing charges increasing collegian apathy, there it was: the official attendance total of the Colgate/Lehigh game of 9,255.
There were a multitude of reasons why people wanted to go see the game. Perhaps it was something good to do with the family on Family Weekend. Maybe it was a concerted effort to get students into the games, and keep them there, with new policies and new promotions. Maybe it was a thumb-your-nose effort at the fans who come for cocktails but don’t go enjoy the game. Maybe it was individuals, all as a unit, wanting to come out and see if this high-flying, record-setting Lehigh football team is for real.
Or maybe it was all of them; I have no idea, but I know it required a whole lot of planning and a huge amount of effort from a whole lot of people, and I’m glad they did.
Because it felt like something special was brewing in Bethlehem – and not just from the team making everyone pay attention to them on Saturday. It was the whole thing – the team, the fans, and the atmosphere. On Saturday, for the first time in a long time, it felt like “it” was back.
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