Archive For The “Joe Moorhead” Category
The enormity of the challenge of Lehigh’s 2015 football schedule was evident to everyone looking at the schedule.
“October 10th, at Bucknell. October 24th, at Fordham”.
In August, every Lehigh fan wants to be an optimist. They want to believe that this is the year that they win a Patriot League champions. They look at the entirety of the schedule, and say, “Yeah. We could win that one.”
But even the biggest optimists looked at this two-game stretch, at Bucknell, and at Fordham, and had to pause, and perhaps exhale. “Number Two and Number One in the league last year,” they think. “On the road. And Fordham, a Top 15 team for the last two years, who has gone to the FCS playoffs for two straight years, with a returning Jerry Rice award-winner in RB Chase Edmonds.”
Lehigh defied their preseason expectations by beating Bucknell 21-10 two weeks ago, setting up an extremely meaningful game in the Bronx this coming weekend for this young Mountain Hawk team.
The optimists from the summer are still here. They already saw one tough road win against the Bison. Though it’s going to be a huge challenge, they also see the potential for another.
The past two years have been ones of Ram nightmares for Lehigh fans.
Even though it seemed like QB Michael Nebrich was never 100% healthy as a Fordham Ram, he always seemed like he was plenty nimble enough to step up in the pocket and drop forty or fifty points on Lehigh’s defense.
But now, it’s a new year. Nebrich has graduated, as well as an eye-popping thirty-two other Fordham football seniors, many of whom had key responsibilities on both offense and defense.
Head coach Joe Moorhead knows his 2015 Fordham Rams will look different. But exactly how different?
And will the Rams be able to simply reload and win a second straight title and qualify for a third straight FCS playoff appearance?
If the preseason polls are any indication, Fordham was picked to win it all for the second consecutive year.
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The businesswoman who looked suspiciously like Nicki Minaj was packing her suitcase.
Art sighed, again.
“We’re done here,” the businesswoman said. We can stop the work. Fordham’s won. Head coach Joe Moorhead won the Patriot League last year, the Patsy Points this year, and, for all we know, has won the annual Patriot League head coaching marble championship, too.”
“THIS IS A JOB WE NEED TO DO TO THE FINISH,” Art said ominously. One more squad, one more final revision, and we’re done for another year. Coach Moorhead certainly seems like he has a lot of marbles in his pocket, but we need to figure out exactly how many.”
“All I know is I’m fairly certain you’ll find something bad to say about THIS class too,” the businesswoman said.
“You know me well,” Art said.
As beautiful fall days go, it was hard to beat this Saturday’s homecoming game at Murray Goodman when it came to weather, atmosphere, or color.
Unfortunately for Lehigh, it was also hard to beat the Fordham offense that showed up on homecoming in terms of physicalness, efficiency, and big play ability.
The Mountain Hawks showed a lot of fight on Saturday, playing tough until the end against the No. 12-ranked Rams. But after Fordham surged to a two-score lead early in the game, Lehigh’s efforts to cut the deficit never really made it close, falling 48-27 in a career day for Fordham freshman RB Chase Edmonds.
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| WR Brian Wetzel (AP Photo) |
We break down the Fordham game – and we give our fearless prediction below the flip.
Fordham’s incredible squad gives a tantalizing glimpse as to what Patriot League football teams might look like once four seasons of scholarship athletes come into the program.
In their first year of eligibility for the Patriot League title since adopting conventional scholarships in football, Fordham has been drilling opponents, scoring more than 40 points per game in their six wins.
They’re doing so with scholarship athletes, of course – but with scholarship athletes that are seniors, too, including two very, very important transfers from UConn.
Fordham’s strategy has been a slow payoff, but a great one so far, giving the Rams a squad that is among the top offenses in all of FCS.
That’s what Lehigh is up against this weekend.
If the records and numbers determined the outcome, they probably wouldn’t bother playing the football game.
Lehigh, at 1-5, faces off against Fordham, the 12th-ranked team in the nation, who sits atop the Patriot League at 6-1.
Fordham boasts one of the top offenses in the nation – that part’s pretty much known by everyone – but what few people realize is their defense, for the most part, has also been stellar.
Three weeks ago, on Friday night TV against the defending Patriot League champions, Lafayette, you probably heard or saw the four-minute stretch where QB Michael Nebrich helped score three straight touchdowns to put the game, basically, out of reach. What you didn’t maybe stop to think about is that the Rams stopped the Leopards on three quick, straight drives, allowing that offense to bowl over the Lafayette defense.
So don’t play the game, the stats and highlights seem to say. Fordham’s too good. Don’t even bother.
But you can guarantee that this Lehigh team will still line up on Saturday, and they still believe that they can win this game. And this week, after Lehigh’s first win of the season, belief is not hard to come by on this team.
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(Photo Credit: WFUV)
We break down the Fordham game – and we give our fearless prediction below the flip.
Though this game doesn’t officially count towards the Patriot League standings, make no mistake about how big this game is for both programs.
Look no further than the ticket sales for this game.
Fordham’s Jack Coffey field is sold out, all 7,000 seats, and even on StubHub.com this game is a hot ticket, with no tickets available as of right now. (Check back if you still need tickets!)
A sold-out, 7,000 seat venue for a meaningful football game is what FCS football is all about, and whatever happens it’s going to be a fantastic ambassador for Patriot League football broadcast across the country on CBS Sports Network.
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(Photo Credit: Philly.com)
“RELEASE THE KRAKEN!”
I honestly don’t know exactly why this quote from the cheese-fest-y move Clash of the Titans was the first thing to leap to mind when thinking about this weekend’s Lehigh/Fordham matchup.
In the Patriot League, certainly, Lehigh and Fordham are the definition of Titans, both undefeated with the three best out-of-conference wins in the League this season. Two are owned by Fordham – they beat FBS Temple and nationally-ranked Villanova – and the other by Lehigh – their win last week over New Hampshire.
In the FCS, too, you could define them as Titans in the sense that the Mountain Hawks and Rams are two of only twelve undefeated teams in the entire subdivision. Not all of these undefeated teams will be Titans at the end of the season, of course, but at least much of the national FCS community agrees for now that both are top teams: both are ranked in both major polls as two of the top 13 teams in the nation.
So maybe a sub-headline for this game of “Lehigh vs. Fordham: Releasing the Kraken” might make a lot of sense.
Because both teams won’t be holding back much in the game, which, as luck may have it, will be broadcast nationally on the CBS Sports Network at 12:00 PM on Saturday.
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In 2010, Fordham limped to a 1-10 record, ending head coach Tom Masella‘s time as head coach on Rose Hill.
In the offseason, outgoing active athletic director Frank McLaughlin introduced Fordham’s next head coach, Joe Moorhead, and exclaimed to all present, “This is not a rebuilding program. We expect to be successful this coming year.”
After turning things around to the tune of a 6-5 record this past season, few would argue that first-time head coach Moorhead was indeed a large success last season, allowing the Rams to put their 1-10 season well in their rear-view mirror.
For the Rams, the challenge will now be to increase their win total again, and return to the FCS playoffs.
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(Photo Credit: Fordham Athletics) We break down the Fordham game – and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip.It's strange that this is a conference game – yet not a conference game – for Lehigh, which actually makes this a difficult game …
