Archive For The “Princeton” Category

Today’s “Know Your 2016 Opponents” series continues with the team that is predicted by College Sports Journal to finish 4th in the Ivy League: Princeton.
Lehigh’s visit to Powers Field at Princeton Stadium last fall wasn’t a whole lot of fun for the Mountain Hawks. In fact, it was one where head coach Andy Coen felt like Lehigh made too many mistakes to win.
But what really stood out to me was Andy’s response to a question I had – whether he felt like the Mountain Hawks needed to play the perfect game to win on that thick, hot, humid evening.
“Absolutely not. I’ll go back out and play them [again] right now,” Coen said.
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As we hit the 92 day mark before the 2016 Lehigh football season officially starts, it’s time to take a look at the overall schedule – and opponents – the Mountain Hawks will be facing.
Every Lehigh football fan knows that their Rival of Rivals, Lafayette, is only 18 miles away from Bethlehem.
What fans may not know is that, by drawing a circle around Lehigh on Google Maps, you can surround seven of the Mountain Hawks eleven 2016 opponents. (The site NCAA Savant has an interactive, zoomable map that shows the schools quite clearly.)
The only FCS programs within the circle that Lehigh doesn’t play are Delaware, Wagner, and Columbia.
Lehigh will be hosting Monmouth, Bucknell, Fordham, and Princeton, all of whose fan bases are within two and a half hour’s drive, and will have “road trips” to Penn, Villanova, and Lafayette, which couldn’t be easier for Lehigh football fans.
However, if you wanted to earn frequent flyer miles supporting Lehigh football, you had better hope the Mountain Hawks make the FCS playoffs.
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I always enjoy making the trip to catch a Princeton game when I can.
Aside from the sentimental attachment that I have to the place, there’s a lot to recommend it as a destination for anyone.
After Lehigh’s 52-26 loss to Princeton, however, the Mountain Hawk people I saw after the game couldn’t wait to get out of there and regroup.
Everything about this early, challenging schedule for the Mountain Hawks seems to have been designed to determine how close Lehigh is at becoming contenders once again. It’s a challenging, strong out-of-conference schedule that doesn’t need an FBS team on it to make it a stern test for this group of players.
If anything in particular was learned about this weekend’s game, it’s that this Mountain Hawk team still needs work in order to win their Patriot League games and possibly win a Patriot League championship. Spectacular individual plays, like junior CB Brandon Leaks upending Princeton RB Dre Nelson, are great, and like any other Lehigh fan I love to see them. But the stuff needed to win football games are greater than individual plays, unfortunately.
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Head coach Andy Coen stood outside the locker room, obviously agitated at the result of the game. Outside, beautiful fireworks were exploding over Princeton Stadium on a beautiful night.
In front of the locker room, the fire was coming from Lehigh head coach, verbalizing what all the players, and fans, saw on the evening.
“The turnovers, the penalties, the blocked extra point, losing momentum there, that was all stuff we had control over,” Coen said, seemingly wanting to get back onto the field right then and there, with the fireworks going off, and play the game all over again. “They had no control over that. It was our problem jumping offsides, it was our problem dropping balls, our problem not being focused enough. And if you are not focused enough, then someone else will play.”
It was so frustrating because the Mountain Hawks had some real pretty looking numbers on the stat sheet. They outgained Princeton 561 yards to 497. Junior QB Nick Shafnisky had 348 yards passing, many of them to sophomore WR Troy Pelletier, who broke a school record for completions in a game with 15. Freshman RB Dom Bragalone played an outstanding game, becoming the second freshman running back in as many weeks to rush for over 100 yards in a game.
Yet Lehigh didn’t win in the only statistic that really matters – points. Last week, Lehigh doubled up Penn. This week, Princeton would double up Lehigh, 52-26.
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We break down the Princeton game – and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip.
It’s rare that I talk about last week’s opponent in this space, especially when the focus should really be on how to beat Princeton. But Penn’s 24-13 win over No. 4 Villanova was so stunning to this reporter and such a great thing for head coach Ray Priore‘s Quakers that it’s worth mentioning here.
It was a result that seemed to even stun Penn’s head coach, who earned a whopper of a first win thanks to winning the time of possession battle (holding onto the ball for more than 39 minutes on offense), benefiting from Villanova miscues (a roughing-the-punter call kept one Penn drive alive that ended in a touchdown) and making huge plays (as the Wildcats were driving to score, Penn LB Tyler Drake strip-sacked Villanova’s quarterback, leading LB Donald Panicello to scoop and score a 92 yard touchdown return).
“Wow, just wow,” Priore said after the game. “You know, you keep trying and trying and praying and praying. It had to happen sooner or later, right?”

Rarely are scouting opportunities so accessible.
Shortly after Lehigh beat Penn last weekend, there was an opportunity for a Patriot/Ivy doubleheader for FCS football mavens, and a chance for Lehigh football fans to get a sneak peek at next week’s competition.
What they saw couldn’t have made any Mountain Hawk fan breathe easy.
What they saw was a dominating performance by the Tigers, a 40-7 walloping that had local sportswriters like Brad Wilson of the Express-Times dig down deep to describe the depth of the blowout. “If Frank Tavani had seen Saturday’s train wreck of a 40-7 loss to Princeton by his Lafayette football team coming,” he wrote, “he’d have done everything in his power to derail the Leopard Express from proceeding down the track to Disaster City.”
In Wilson’s defense, the depth of the completeness of the win over Lafayette was hard to adequately describe. Princeton only allowed six first downs in the first half, and only let up a meaningless touchdown with five minutes to play to allow Lafayette to avoid a shutout. On offense, Princeton would rack up 573 yards of offense, including more than 300 on the ground, against what was thought to be Lafayette’s strength this season, the defense. Special teams? Princeton 2/2 on field goals. Lafayette 0/1.
Based on this great statistical performance, and watching the replay, what to make of Lehigh’s chances against the same squad this weekend that seemed as dominant as the national championship Princeton football teams of 100 years ago?

Lehigh’s relationship with the schools of the Ivy League go all the way back to the 1880s.
Yes, really.
1887 was the year that Princeton, one of the first institutions of higher learning that sponsored o football program, first squared off against Lehigh, throttling them 80-0.
And it would be 1890 when Yale, another one of the early football powers, first hosted Lehigh, with the Eli ending up as 26-0 winners.
These traditional Ivy League football opponents appear on Lehigh’s football schedule for 2015 and will be a critical litmus test for this your Mountain Hawk football team after Lehigh hosts Penn.
These games, too, will not simply be speed bumps in the schedule, either. There’s a lot more emotion in these games for Lehigh than meets the eye.

My vote for the FCS Top 25 for the week ending 10/28/2013 follows below the flip.
But first, check out this great picture from Samford WR Chris Cephus after scoring a touchdown in the Bulldogs’ 34-27 win over the Wofford Terriers this weekend. (Photo Credit: Marvin Gentry/MGPhoto.com)
In the SoCon, this game was huge, but what was especially amazing was that the Bulldogs overcame four turnovers, including one interception that was returned by Wofford LB Alvin Scioneaux for a touchdown.
But with a smothering defensive effort from Bulldog LB Jaquirski Tartt (17 tackles) and a big day returning the football by RB Fabian Truss, the Bulldogs moved to 4-0 in SoCon play and put themselves in the drivers’ seat in regards to qualifying for the FCS playoffs.
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It’s that time of the week where I share with you your weekly Lehigh fan viewing guide for Week 9 of the college football season. Why go to website after website when all the information you need is right here?
If you are not able to attend the game this weekend at Bucknell you can follow the game from the following sources:
Online Streaming: Patriot League Network (free)
Radio: ESPN Radio 1230 and 1320
Internet: Lehighsports.com/ESPNLV.com
My vote for the FCS Top 25 for the week ending 10/21/2013 follows below the flip.
But first, check out this great picture from New Hampshire of OL Ricky Archer and OL Joe Coccia celebrating what may have been the most thrilling game of the weekend, a thrilling 29-28 win by New Hampshire over Villanova that featured a tie and two lead changes in the final two minutes. (Photo Credit: John Tully/Concord Monitor)
From the article:
The season’s playoff hopes were about dead after Villanova (4-3) scored two touchdowns in a span of 46 seconds to take a 28-21 lead with 1:09 left in the game. But UNH got a 35-yard kickoff return from RS Dalton Crossan, plus 15 yards on a late-hit personal foul, to take over at the 50 with 1:02 on the clock. New Hampshire survived a fumble on an attempted hook-and-ladder play, got a pair of catches from RB Chris Setian for 24 total yards, and then QB Sean Goldrich (21-for-28, 236 yards, touchdown) turned a broken play into a 4-yard touchdown scramble to pull his team within one, 28-27, with just under 14 seconds remaining.
That put the pressure on head coach Sean McDonnell to decide whether or not to go for two. He said that offensive coordinator Ryan Carty “was pretty adamant” about going for the win.
“And I just felt, too, that if we were going to win it, we were going to win it there,” McDonell said. “Just felt like the momentum was there and I thought maybe they’d be a little bit on their heels.”
It turned out that Villanova was ready for Setian, but the senior captain bulled to the game-winning conversion anyway, capping a stellar day – career-high 88 yards on 12 carries and three catches for 28 yards.