Archive For The “Tim O’Hara” Category
(Photo Credit: Alec Turner c/o Lehigh Athletics)
For those that care about these things, Lehigh entered the first round FCS playoff matchup 21 1/2 point underdogs.
And if we’re being fair, that was probably the right number.
The Seawolves were 9-2, nationally ranked with seven conference wins in the tough CAA and one of their losses coming to a very strong FBS team in South Florida. In contrast, unranked Lehigh came into the game 5-6 and only were here because they upset Colgate 41-38 on the road and won enough Patriot League conference games to win the autobid.
Yet a young Lehigh team was game to put their best foot forward and to have a heroic sendoff for potential NFL prospect senior WR Troy Pelletier, and in that, the game was a rousing success.
With junior QB Brad Mayes expertly picking apart one of the top defenses in FCS, time after time he’d find Troy for reception after reception, each one highlighting his impressive skill set as an audition for the next level.
It wouldn’t be enough to win the game, but it was enough to keep the Mountain Hawks within striking distance until the Seawolves would pull away in the 4th quarter.
It was also enough to establish Troy as the all-time greatest receiver in Patriot League history.
Read more »
(Photo Credit: Alec Turner c/o Lehigh Athletics)
For those that care about these things, Lehigh entered the first round FCS playoff matchup 21 1/2 point underdogs.
And if we’re being fair, that was probably the right number.
The Seawolves were 9-2, nationally ranked with seven conference wins in the tough CAA and one of their losses coming to a very strong FBS team in South Florida. In contrast, unranked Lehigh came into the game 5-6 and only were here because they upset Colgate 41-38 on the road and won enough Patriot League conference games to win the autobid.
Yet a young Lehigh team was game to put their best foot forward and to have a heroic sendoff for potential NFL prospect senior WR Troy Pelletier, and in that, the game was a rousing success.
With junior QB Brad Mayes expertly picking apart one of the top defenses in FCS, time after time he’d find Troy for reception after reception, each one highlighting his impressive skill set as an audition for the next level.
It wouldn’t be enough to win the game, but it was enough to keep the Mountain Hawks within striking distance until the Seawolves would pull away in the 4th quarter.
It was also enough to establish Troy as the all-time greatest receiver in Patriot League history.
Read more »
Like I did last year, I compiled a list of a "greatest hits" of some of the published articles on all of the Lehigh football seniors. They are below the flip.All of the players below are listed as seniors or 5th year players on the current Le…
Not headed to Lewisburg this morning to catch the Lehigh/Bucknell game?
OK. I do sort-of understand. It’s a noon start, and it’s pretty far away. You’re still somewhat in a Halloween-candy coma, and heck, is today fall back, turn-the-clock-back an hour, or is that on Sunday?
So you can’t head out. So how do you catch the game?
Never fear. LFN’s here.
One of the quirks of being a Lehigh fan is that generally, the Mountain Hawks play an Ivy League team in their season opener. This year, that team is Yale.
This sets the Mountain Hawks up in an odd situation – Lehigh is in their third game, and Yale is an unknown quantity. It’s something that all teams playing against Ivy League teams face, but at times it feels like something that the Patriot League has to deal with more.
Over the years, there’s been a back-and-forth debate: who benefits more, the team that’s had two weeks to work out the kinks, or the team that has the element of surprise?
“I’d like to believe we have the upper hand,” head coach Andy Coen said this week, “because we have played two games and you’d hope that Yale will make some first-game mistakes and we’ll be able to take advantage of them.”
Yale’s sophomore QB Kurt Rawlings had a different perspective.
“Being able to go in and have two weeks rather than [against] most teams [when] we only get to prepare for one week [has been a plus],” Rawlings said. “Having two weeks to be able to study up and almost know what they’re going to be showing and doing, is certainly going to help us. … They beat us last season, but I’m really excited. I think we’re going to do pretty good against them.”
(Photo Credit: Brown and White)
With this year’s Patriot League Media Day being a Patriot League Media Conference call instead, the opportunity is there for media folks to tweet out things like preseason all-Conference lists and the preseason polls.
When the league posted their preseason all-Patriot League team, unsurprisingly there were seven Lehigh football players on it, one of whom was senior OL Zach Duffy.
I sent out a tweet congratulating the seven – Duffy, junior RB Dom Bragalone, junior P/K Ed Mish, senior OL Tim O’Hara, senior WR Gatlin Casey, senior WR Troy Pelletier, and senior DE Tyler Cavenas – and almost immediately Zach responded.
No congratulations are needed since we haven’t accomplished a single thing yet. Sorry if that sounds sour. We appreciate the recognition.— Zachary John Duffy (@ZachDuffy72) July 27, 2017
In the span of a tweet, Zach established immediately that re-reading one’s press clippings from the 2016 season is not something this 2017 edition of the Lehigh football team will be doing. They’ll be judged on accomplishments, not preseason all-Conference teams.
Anyone at all worried that it’s just a wee bit too quiet from Lewisburg? I am.
The narratives coming out of Bethlehem this week – emphatically, me included – are ones of possible Patriot League championships and how the offense is “clicking” and has been very, very good.
That’s not usually a very good recipe for a big game for the home side, especially since word out of the Bucknell camp is very, very quiet, even though the Bison still are very much alive in the conversation of winning the Patriot League title and making Lehigh sit at home Thanksgiving weekend.
Last week, Bucknell traveled to the No. 9 team in the country, Charleston Southern, and proceeded to put up a very good fight in a game that didn’t affect Bucknell’s title chances one way or another. Though the final tally was 49-28, Bucs, the Bison didn’t go away quietly against Charleston Southern’s triple-option attack, staying within a touchdown most of the way until the home team pulled away late.
“Our guys played their tails off today and I am proud of them,” Bucknell head coach Joe Susan said afterwards. “We were able to take advantage of turnovers, but it was frustrating as the score got away from us. Charleston Southern is a very good football team.”
Want to get more worried? Look at the comments from acting Charleston Southern head coach Chad Staggs, who was in that position after head coach Jamey Chadwell served a one-game suspension.
“I don’t know that we played our best today but you have to give some credit to (Bucknell),” Staggs said. “They came out in the first drive and sort of punched us in the mouth a little. We certainly have to play better, but we won the game. I thought we matched them physically overall. We will look at the film and see how we played. We have to be more disciplined than we were today. We had way too many penalties today and that’s something we have to correct.”
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Going into last weekend, most people thought that Holy Cross might pose a problem for the Mountain Hawks defensively.
The Crusader defense had shut out two opponents, contributing to wins over Lafayette two weeks ago, 42-0, and a CAA team, Albany, 37-0.
How would Lehigh’s offensive line do against Holy Cross’ defensive front?
Once the dust had settled on Saturday, the answer was: “just fine, thanks for asking.”
The Mountain Hawks did an awful lot of things right on offense last week, jumping out to a 41-10 halftime lead, carving out 543 offensive yards and executing 83 offensive plays. But the foundation for that offensive explosion came from a vastly improved performance on the offensive line.
