Archive For The “Glenn Cunningham” Category

Lehigh at Fordham Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction, 10/19/2019

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Lehigh at Fordham Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction, 10/19/2019

One thing has remained remarkably consistent for the last six years – Fordham has had Lehigh’s number.

It hasn’t mattered that Fordham has had Joe Moorhead, Andrew Breiner, or Joe Conlin, or whether Lehigh was gunning for a Patriot League title, or not – during that time, Fordham has done only one thing consistently, and that’s beat Lehigh.

Granted, during many of those years, Fordham has some all-time teams, with UConn transfer QB Michael Nebrich, current Arizona Cardinal RB Chase Edmonds, and a cast of terrific Patriot League players too numerous to mention.  But then again, during Lehigh’s last Patriot League title year of 2017, fourth-string RB D’Angelo Palladino ran for almost 300 yards on the Mountain Hawk defense for a 45-35 win, something the Lehigh seniors remember all too painfully well.

In a year of lowlights, last year’s 43-14 loss to Fordham for head coach Joe Conlin’s first win as Fordham head coach really stood out to me as a particularly bad loss where the Mountain Hawks seemed to completely bottom out.  I don’t often say games are over at the coin flip, but I knew Lehigh was done the second they came back from midfield.

There were some truly epic losses last season – 66-7 to Princeton stands out, of course – but you could argue that expectations against Princeton, Villanova and even Colgate were very low.  The Fordham game, however, was winnable.  It was a game between winless teams, and I predicted Lehigh would win.  “Lehigh has too much talent not to win this game,” I said in a moment of being stupendously wrong.

Of the five losses in the last six games in the series, the first few were a result of a battle between teams with equal talent, but in the last two losses, there was a serious enthusiasm deficit, and it showed.  Both Fordham and Lehigh struggled the last two years, but having attended both games, the Rams simply wanted it more.

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Lehigh at Fordham Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction, 10/19/2019

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Lehigh at Fordham Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction, 10/19/2019

One thing has remained remarkably consistent for the last six years – Fordham has had Lehigh’s number.

It hasn’t mattered that Fordham has had Joe Moorhead, Andrew Breiner, or Joe Conlin, or whether Lehigh was gunning for a Patriot League title, or not – during that time, Fordham has done only one thing consistently, and that’s beat Lehigh.

Granted, during many of those years, Fordham has some all-time teams, with UConn transfer QB Michael Nebrich, current Arizona Cardinal RB Chase Edmonds, and a cast of terrific Patriot League players too numerous to mention.  But then again, during Lehigh’s last Patriot League title year of 2017, fourth-string RB D’Angelo Palladino ran for almost 300 yards on the Mountain Hawk defense for a 45-35 win, something the Lehigh seniors remember all too painfully well.

In a year of lowlights, last year’s 43-14 loss to Fordham for head coach Joe Conlin’s first win as Fordham head coach really stood out to me as a particularly bad loss where the Mountain Hawks seemed to completely bottom out.  I don’t often say games are over at the coin flip, but I knew Lehigh was done the second they came back from midfield.

There were some truly epic losses last season – 66-7 to Princeton stands out, of course – but you could argue that expectations against Princeton, Villanova and even Colgate were very low.  The Fordham game, however, was winnable.  It was a game between winless teams, and I predicted Lehigh would win.  “Lehigh has too much talent not to win this game,” I said in a moment of being stupendously wrong.

Of the five losses in the last six games in the series, the first few were a result of a battle between teams with equal talent, but in the last two losses, there was a serious enthusiasm deficit, and it showed.  Both Fordham and Lehigh struggled the last two years, but having attended both games, the Rams simply wanted it more.

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2018 Week 6, Fordham: Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction

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2018 Week 6, Fordham: Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction

It’s time to go full nerd and do a full-blown breakdown of the Fordham Rams.

The first point of information about the 0-5 Rams you need to know is that they are young, and rebuilding. 

Joe Conlin is their first-year head coach, and you had better believe that he and his team would love nothing better than to get Conlin’s first head coaching victory against Lehigh, a team that Fordham has beaten in four of the last five meetings between these two programs.

But the 2018 Rams are vastly different than the team that suited up QB Kevin Anderson and current Arizona Cardinal RB Chase Edmonds on their roster.  Anderson, who was a transfer from an FBS school (Marshall), had loads of experience and additionally used a redshirt year at Marshall, and Edmonds, as any reader of this blog would know, stepped in immediately as a freshman on Rose Hill and it was abundantly clear he was a generational talent running the ball.

For Fordham, this team is adopting a new philosophy under a new coaching tree.  Gone is the Joe Moorhead/Andrew Breiner tree, having finally settled down at Mississippi State.  In is Conlin, a long-time Yale assistant coach who has made stops at a ton of different great, powerful FCS college football programs, including both New Hampshire and Havard as well as the Bulldogs.

So growing pains. certainly, were to be expected, especially with a schedule that included an FBS team (UNC-Charlotte), an FCS Playoff team (Stony Brook) and a historically good CAA team (Richmond).

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Fordham Shows Lehigh How To Win Football Games By Acting Like A Team

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Fordham Shows Lehigh How To Win Football Games By Acting Like A Team

I got to Jack Coffey Field late.

I knew it was going to be close, getting to the Bronx for the 1:00 PM start.  My son was marching in the band for the parade that morning, and nothing was going to keep me from going to that event, completed under a perfect sky and perfect weather shining upon Main Street. 

Earlier in the week I made a calculation on whether I could make it to kickoff by leaving as soon as his marching gig was complete. If I left, right as it ended, and didn’t make any stops, and the traffic was just right, it was doable.

So I decided it was a go.  I’d be headed to the Bronx on a gorgeous Saturday that felt a lot more like September than November.
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