Archive For The “Will Carter” Category
We break down the Bucknell game – and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip.
In case you have been living under a rock – or maybe just new at this – there’s a game going on this Saturday that’s, um, pretty important to Lehigh’s Patriot League title hopes.
To just go over the scenarios one more time, just so we’re all on the same page, Lehigh is in the driver’s seat this weekend.
If they beat Bucknell tomorrow, they are Patriot League champions – no worst than co-champions – and they will clinch the FCS autobid, being the first Division I football program in the nation to clinch a postseason berth.
If Bucknell wins, it opens the door for other possible not-so-good Mountain Hawk outcomes where Lehigh are co-champions without playoffs, or (if they lose to Bucknell and then to Lafayette), neither champions or playoff contenders.
Certainly a Lehigh win would allow all Mountain Hawk fans to know that, even after the 152nd meeting of The Rivalry, even after a sold-out crowd at Fisher Field in Easton, the Mountain Hawks football season would not end there.
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Today’s “Know Your 2016 Opponents” series continues with the team that is predicted by College Sports Journal to finish 5th in the Patriot League: Bucknell.
Bucknell was picked to finish 5th in the Patriot League, but does that mean Lehigh fans should look past the Bison? Hardly.
By a wide margin, the Bison had the best defense in the Patriot League last season, and just two years ago, walloped Lehigh 45-24 and didn’t even need two injured starters at QB and RB to do it.
Someone has to be picked 5th in the Patriot League, and according to the College Sports Journal, that team is Bucknell. But they could certainly win it all.
We break down the Bucknell game – and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip.
The rivalry between Lehigh and Bucknell could not be more strange.
The Mountain Hawks hold a 44-31-3 advantage in the series and have played each other on-and-off for the last 127 years. But Lehigh, relatively speaking, has dominated since the NCAA established Divisions in 1978.
Since both Bucknell and Lehigh were reclassified as Division I in 1978 and started competing in Division I-AA together, Lehigh holds a 27-9-1 advantage.
But any good Lehigh fan will point out, though, the last two years have see two of those nine losses.
And both weren’t just losses – they were butt-whoopings I don’t need to go over again, a humbling 48-10 loss to Bucknell in 2013 and a bad 45-24 loss last season. Then again, Bucknell is 16-5 in their last 21 games, so it’s not like they only has success against Lehigh.
One more interesting fact is that this weekend’s Lehigh/Bucknell game is occurring when both Lehigh and Bucknell are on “pacing break” this weekend.
The buzz went through the press box in the minutes before last year’s game versus Bucknell that QB R.J. Nitti, the starter for the 4-1 Bison, was not suiting up at quarterback.
Almost immediately, the mood of the Lehigh folks covering the game picked up.
Without Nitti, it would mean little-used QB Trey Lauletta would be the starter in his place. That, along with the injury to the regular starting RB C.J. Williams, what seemed originally like a close matchup between two close teams felt like a very good shot at a win for the winless Mountain Hawks and might actually get Lehigh’s season pointed in the right direction.
It didn’t work out that way.
After jumping out to a 7-0 lead, Bucknell would ride a record-setting performance by WR Will Carter, who would get 3 big-play touchdowns during a stretch of 31 straight Bison points to power through to a 45-24 win over Lehigh and effectively ending any dreams of competing for the Patriot League title.
For the last two seasons, the quest for Lehigh’s Patriot League title hopes have gone through a game versus Bucknell. This year is no different. The road to any sort of Patriot League title hopes for the Mountain Hawks start this weekend in Lewisburg.
Fifteen minutes before the game was about to start, ESPN Radio announcer Matt Kerr told the radio-listening public that 4-1 Bucknell would not only be missing their starter quarterback, QB R.J. Nitti, but would also be without the services of their star running back, RB C.J. Williams.
You might be forgiven if that made you think that Lehigh’s chances of getting their first win, and avenging last season’s loss to Bucknell in Lewisburg, would be much greater.
It didn’t turn out that way, however, as backup QB Trey Lauletta stepped right up into the void and had the game of a lifetime against Lehigh’s beleaguered defense.
After Lehigh scored the game’s first touchdown, Lauletta and the Bucknell offense helped create the the next 31 points for the Bison, and when Lehigh finally settled down and cut the deficit to one score, Lauletta would find WR Will Carter for a back-breaking touchdown to win the game for the Bison.
“Embarassing” is what Lehigh head coach Andy Coen told ESPN radio sideline reporter Matt Markus it was.
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We break down Bucknell after the flip.
One thing that is worthy of mention about last year’s game, and may have gotten lost in all the talk of “revenge”, was the element of surprise.
Head coach Joe Susan, facing off against a then-Top 25 team, had just re-introduced QB Brandon Wesley to the staring lineup the prior week, and also unveiled a brand-new offensive attack against Lehigh as well, meaning that the game film head coach Andy Coen saw from the prior week against Dartmouth was essentially worthless.
Surprise doesn’t excuse the outcome, from a Lehigh perspective – not at all – but it’s worthy of mention that Bucknell’s pistol formation and offense shouldn’t be taking anyone by surprise this week. It also means that nobody should be reading too much into Bucknell’s loss at Bryant last week, either.
It didn’t really need to be mentioned by head coach Andy Coen and the coaching staff, because everyone already knew.
They all remembered last year’s beatdown by Bucknell at Lewisburg, 48-10.
Many of them, even the sophomores, remember the pain of that day.
300 yards rushing by the Bison. QB Brandon Bialkowski‘s broken collarbone. Five turnovers. 130 yards receiving for Bison sophomore WR Will Carter.
They also remember the humiliating exclamation point: sophomore RB C.J. Williams‘ hurdle over Lehigh’s secondary, getting an emphatic touchdown to put the icing on the cake.
Sometimes the pain of losses of games gone by can seem distant, unconnectable, by the playing members of a football team. There is no way for these players to imagine how it felt in 1997 for the Mountain Hawks to lose to the Bison, for example, the last time a Lehigh team had lost to Bucknell in football before last season.
But last year’s loss was so raw, so emphatic, and so emotionally charged that nobody on this team could have possibly forgotten how it felt to go in there and lost that badly, that comprehensively.
There was no need for coach Coen to invoke revenge in a fiery post-practice speech. They know.
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You might have been forgiven for overlooking them last year.
After all, Lehigh always beat Bucknell. It was what they did.
The last time the Bison beat the Mountain Hawks anywhere, RB Rich Lemon was their star back, and Monica Lewinsky was still welcome in the Bill Clinton White House.
But for a fifteen year stretch, the Bison couldn’t beat Lehigh with a ten-point head start.
So you might have been forgiven for not making the trip to Lewisburg fully anticipating No. 16.
Except that, on October 26th, 2013, Bucknell changed the narrative.
Bucknell didn’t just beat heavily-favored, nationally-ranked Lehigh in their own house. They put on the type of beating that left Lehigh fans absolutely stunned, a 48-10 stampeding that will not soon be forgotten by either side.
Bucknell used to be another name on the Patriot League schedule for Lehigh to beat. Now? Their name is circled, a critical game in early October that will be a pivotal game for both sides in the Patriot League title race.
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(Photo Credit: Bucknell Athletics)
16 years is a long time to wait for Bucknell to get a league victory over Lehigh.
And on Saturday, the Bison took out 15 years of frustrations on a Lehigh team which was on the back foot from the opening kickoff and never really got back on the right foot.
There’s really no other way to describe it: it was a nightmare for the Brown and White.
Freshman RB C.J. Williams stampeded the Lehigh defense for 154 yards, and the Bison would rack up 309 total rushing yards, in a stunning 48-10 win over the Mountain Hawks.
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