Archive For The “Sam McCloskey” Category

#Rivalry155: Pregame Q&A With S Sam McCloskey

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#Rivalry155: Pregame Q&A With S Sam McCloskey

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 …

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St. Francis (PA) at Lehigh Game Post Mortem 8/31/2019

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St. Francis (PA) at Lehigh Game Post Mortem 8/31/2019

(Photo Credit: Hannah Hally Photography)

I thought I’d do something a little bit different this year and post five thoughts I had on last week’s game.  This weekend, Lehigh lost to St. Francis 14-13 at Murray Goodman Stadium, and no matter how you slice it it was a winnable game that was lost.

Yet it wasn’t all bitter aftertaste – there was a lot to like despite the disappointing outcome.

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#Rivalry154 Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction: Lehigh vs. Lafayette

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#Rivalry154 Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction: Lehigh vs. Lafayette

All season I have done a statistical breakdown of Lehigh’s opponent, position by position.  As a change of pace, I’m going to do something different this week with the “Game Breakdown” and do a head-to-head comparison of both teams – doing a stat breakdown of both teams still, but doing more of a “Tale of the Tape” to compare both squads to see who might reign supreme in this huge football game.

Something that sometimes gets lost in The Rivalry is the importance of seniors on both sides.  For so many of these seniors, it’s not only their final college football game, it is also their final time wearing a football helmet and a jersey.  I’ve found that seniors find it in themselves to play the best games of their careers.  So seniors in the starting lineup are of great weight to me.
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#Rivalry154 Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction: Lehigh vs. Lafayette

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#Rivalry154 Game Breakdown and Fearless Prediction: Lehigh vs. Lafayette

All season I have done a statistical breakdown of Lehigh’s opponent, position by position.  As a change of pace, I’m going to do something different this week with the “Game Breakdown” and do a head-to-head comparison of both teams – doing a stat breakdown of both teams still, but doing more of a “Tale of the Tape” to compare both squads to see who might reign supreme in this huge football game.

Something that sometimes gets lost in The Rivalry is the importance of seniors on both sides.  For so many of these seniors, it’s not only their final college football game, it is also their final time wearing a football helmet and a jersey.  I’ve found that seniors find it in themselves to play the best games of their careers.  So seniors in the starting lineup are of great weight to me.
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2018 Week 3 Lehigh Players of the Week and Report Card: Navy

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2018 Week 3 Lehigh Players of the Week and Report Card: Navy

I’ve never done one of these before after Lehigh’s played an FBS opponent. 

That’s because the last FBS opponent Lehigh played was in 2003, when the Mountain Hawks lost to UConn 35-17.

The Lehigh Football Nation blog was in its first year of existence back in 2003, and undoubtedly I wrote about it – but it’s not currently in the archives here at Blogger, because I archived those first two years offline. 

What I can tell you about that UConn game was that Lehigh faced off against a future NFL player in QB Dan Orlovsky and that QB Chad Schwenk got hurt late in that game, which made it his final game in a Mountain Hawks uniform and effectively threw the rest of that season in some turmoil.

Fortunately turmoil doesn’t seem to be a part of the report card today.

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2018 Week 2 Lehigh Players of the Week And Report Card: Villnanova

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2018 Week 2 Lehigh Players of the Week And Report Card: Villnanova

It’s a lot less fun to go through the “Players of the Week” and report card after a loss, but it’s still got to be done. 

Last week’s somewhat humbling 31-9 defeat comes at a point of the season where it’s more of a learning experience than a death blow to the season, and also came against one of the very best teams in all of FCS.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see Villanova win the CAA this season.

In any event, here we go.
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2018 Week 2 Lehigh Players of the Week And Report Card: Villanova

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2018 Week 2 Lehigh Players of the Week And Report Card: Villanova

It’s a lot less fun to go through the “Players of the Week” and report card after a loss, but it’s still got to be done. 

Last week’s somewhat humbling 31-9 defeat comes at a point of the season where it’s more of a learning experience than a death blow to the season, and also came against one of the very best teams in all of FCS.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see Villanova win the CAA this season.

In any event, here we go.
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2018 Week 1 Lehigh Players of the Week and Report Card: St. Francis (PA)

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2018 Week 1 Lehigh Players of the Week and Report Card: St. Francis (PA)

This season, I thought it would be a good idea to do a LFN report card on how the team did last week as well as reviving the old “LFN Players of the Week” to go along with it.  Lehigh’s 21-19 win last week over St. Francis was, most importantly, a victory, but as hardcore Lehigh football fans we want a deeper view and analysis.

So here we go.
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2018 Lehigh Football Spring Preview: The Defense

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2018 Lehigh Football Spring Preview: The Defense

According to the FCS record books for 2017, there are 123 Division I schools listed in the team statistical Rankings. 

Out of 123 teams, Lehigh was ranked 119th in total team defense, allowing 477.7 yards per game.

And the defensive numbers don’t get much better the more you look.

Rushing defense, 117th.  Passing yards allowed, 89th.  Team sacks, 118th.  Red zone defense, 103rd. 

Total sacks in 12 games: 10, or 0.8 per game.  Total interceptions in 12 games: 4, or 0.25 per game.  Total takeaways: 13, or a little over 1 per game.

Though the final defensive numbers from 2017 are unable to be sugar-coated, nobody involved with Lehigh’s defense is running away from the facts this spring.  In fact, they feel they are better than this.

“When you hear so much about your defense not being good,” defensive coordinator Craig Sutyak said this week, “you start to believe it, and I think our kids started to believe it too the last couple of years.  But we’re not going to beat ourselves.  We’re going to have faith in ourselves, faith in the guys next to us, and we’re going to continue to grow as a unit.”

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2018 Lehigh Football Spring Preview: The Defense

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2018 Lehigh Football Spring Preview: The Defense

According to the FCS record books for 2017, there are 123 Division I schools listed in the team statistical Rankings. 

Out of 123 teams, Lehigh was ranked 119th in total team defense, allowing 477.7 yards per game.

And the defensive numbers don’t get much better the more you look.

Rushing defense, 117th.  Passing yards allowed, 89th.  Team sacks, 118th.  Red zone defense, 103rd. 

Total sacks in 12 games: 10, or 0.8 per game.  Total interceptions in 12 games: 4, or 0.25 per game.  Total takeaways: 13, or a little over 1 per game.

Though the final defensive numbers from 2017 are unable to be sugar-coated, nobody involved with Lehigh’s defense is running away from the facts this spring.  In fact, they feel they are better than this.

“When you hear so much about your defense not being good,” defensive coordinator Craig Sutyak said this week, “you start to believe it, and I think our kids started to believe it too the last couple of years.  But we’re not going to beat ourselves.  We’re going to have faith in ourselves, faith in the guys next to us, and we’re going to continue to grow as a unit.”

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