Well a win

[RichHParticipant]

Not pretty but a win. Abend but dont break D OK against teams we are better than . Harvard and Colgate will eat us alive, if we play that way.

Lum looked pretty solid as did Colvin but O is still very inconsistent. Lots of mistakes we stopped ourselves at least as often as Rams did and they are not a good team. Lots of athletes not much coaching. I had hoped Ceech would be able to straighten out the O as of yet not much success. OL is still not good. No running game to speak of except wildcat. Campbell OK plugging for yds . Kids are game . Guess it is an improvement , last year we would have lost.

3-2 is where we should be. Harvard will be tough.

[JJHParticipant]

Agreed on the above assessment. I was very discouraged by the pass defense, which again was very suspect.
We tried hard to give the game to Fordham during their final drive, but the Rams refused to accept it.
It’s going to be a long day in Cambridge next week. Looks like no video coverage at all, either from Lehigh or Harvard.
The good news is that Laughayette lost today. JJH

[ngineerParticipant]

The number of blown coverages by the secondary is troubling..especially for an experienced group. Similarly, the OL, supposedly an experienced group as well as being bigger is stil struggling. I hate to be negative when you have a win, especially with the kids standing tall when they had to, but looking down the road there has to be a ton of improvement for us to have a chance against Harvard and Colgate.

[TheFanParticipant]

Lehigh won

and as predicted by The Fan earlier,

this is the first of all wins for Lehigh for the balance of the season through the second round of the playoffs.

regards,

The Fan

[vanParticipant]

Agree with comments on pass defense, we continue to give up the big play. Thought cornerbacks would be a strength.

Don’t agree with O line comments. Pass protection was excellent, Lum had time to throw and could have been more patient on some plays. Of the 2 sacks, one was a coverage sack and the other on an all out blitz. Fordham had a safety up nearly all game and we still were effective rushing the ball. Campbell at 4.2 yd per carry, Colvin at 5.0 yd per carry and Barket one carry for 9 yds. Campbell continues to run hard but I would like to see Barket get more carries. Overall team rushing avg was down due to Lum sacks.

Still to many mistakes being made, can’t continue the mistakes against Harvard.

[LU65Participant]

It looks like our defense enjoyed their "Pacing Break" along with the rest of the student body. The D-backs, once a strength, proved again to be our greatest weakness yesterday. Five games into the season and LU ranks 7th and last in the PL when it come to Opponent’s Passing Yards, yielding an average of 280.4 yds./game. Give the opposing qb 4+ seconds to find a receiver – as we did on nearly every snap yesterday – and you’ll get beat 80% of the time. Well, it wasn’t quite that bad yesterday but nearly so as the Rams threw for 343 yards hitting 24 of 41 attempts and registering a whopping 14.3 yds/completion. You had to wonder if our CBs and Safeties even knew each others name. Was anyone talking back there? How about, "Turn around, here comes another one!" The blame can’t be leveled entirely on the backs; the line must exert some pressure on the quarterback and for the most part that was missing yesterday.

On the other side of the ball, Lum had an OK day – nothing special (well, he wasn’t intercepted) but somewhat efficient. His short passes were crisp and on target much of the afternoon but couldn’t seem to hit his targets downfield. Maybe it was the wind or maybe it was just recovering from a brief layoff. What stood out to me and many of the other fans on hand in section WE was the relative ineffectiveness and predictability of our "wildcat" formation. Michael Colvin, is a quality runner but not to be confuses with Nate Eachus or some of the premier backs around the leagues. I ask, "How deceptive is it to run the ball or hand it off to a back 8 out of every 10 times you take the snap as Colvin did yesterday?" A pass here or there might be in order, don’t ya think? Colvin’s stat line for the year reads: 36 rushes for 99 yards (2.8 yds/rush) and 22 for 48 throwing (1 TD and 4 Interceptions). Better yet, perhaps, is to go to more of a two-back offense and let Campbell (3.8 yds/carry) and Barket (7.8 yds/carry) do their magic. We can run the ball and we can do it somewhat effectively. Picking up a few first downs and giving our overworked "D" some rest along the sidelines might be in order, as well. We might not get to the TOP (time of possession) level Colgate enjoys (39 minutes to 21 minutes) but cross over to a positive number.

Hey, but a win is a win and I for one see a team that competes. As an alum and fan there’s not much more you can ask for. No one in this league – with the possible exception of Colgate – is immune to failure. It should be fun watching the season unfold…….another practice game against Harvard (no disrespect intended but the results mean nothing to a team looking to win its league championship) and then it’s show time! Five in a row – all PL – with all eyes on the Raiders coming to town in 21 days

[MichaelRParticipant]

LU, I love ya but the comment that we have a "practice game" against Harvard is a microcosm of what is wrong with this team. This suggests to me a mentality that it’s okay to get steamrolled by good teams in the CAA and Ivy as long as we beat the weak and downright bad Patriot league. I for one will not be satisfied with a four loss Patriot League championship. Bucknell and Laf appear to be so bad that some of the top 4A HS teams could beat them.

Sure hope this mentality does not leak into the team. I worry, we just beat a bad Forham team and now we are going to get thrashed by an IVY? Don’t worry kids, this game doesn’t count..just do your best….its a Patriot League title we are after.

M

[LU65Participant]

Thanks for the "love," Michael. Maybe the word "practice" was a bit over the top. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. I simply view OOC games – whether in b’ball or football – in a different light than you. Don’t get me wrong, I want my team to "compete" each time that take field and, more so, to improve week to week throughout the season. But, I am not overly concerned about the outcome of any game outside the Patriot League. The team’s goal, no doubt, is to win its league championship and to advance through the playoffs. Going 7 and 4 and winning the league title would be just fine with me. In fact, I’ll take 6 and 5 if it means we play on the Saturday, November 27th.

[sundayamqbParticipant]

Agree with this comment: Colvin in Wildcat is too predictable. My trust in Cecc is they’re saving the unpredictable Wildcat plays for Colgate and other league games. I fear, though, that as we saw last year — and as the Miami Dolphins (not exactly a winning team) experience — the Wildcat takes the O and the starting QB out of their rhythm.

While Campbell might have gotten nearly 100 yards, my recollection is that much of that came on five or six carries. I like the runs where he’s got a guard pulling in front of him. Reminds me of the old Wing-T days. Using the fullback more to block would help, too.

I was not that impressed with Lum. Sure, he was OK on short passes (TD to Barket was not that short, but perfectly thrown), but he seemed to overthrow a number of balls — almost like he floated them (looked like he threw behind Zurn on his drop, which could have been a big play). He got lucky late in game when pass was tipped by what looked like Fordham LB in front of a DB (covering one of our guys), who would have surely picked it off. Performance was enough to win against Fordham, but …

D-line and most of the LBs looked solid; survived despite several key missed tackles (including two potential sacks) …

Gotta still be optimistic — PL title definitely is in reach, but O has to take advantage.

I think these guys can compete with scholarship schools, but, just like in the 1990s, just have to execute more consistently and make fewer mistakes.

And what’s with the officiating? I’m not sure any team benefited more than the other from it or that it changed the result of the game, but several calls that looked obvious were not made. Was there one holding call all game?

[lu90Participant]

Last year we would have lost that game, so it does appear to be an improvement. Can’t complain about 3-2. It could be worse we could be 0-5..

OLine and Secondary appears to need work. Those two were pretty far down on my "worry list" to start the season so I am hoping they will straighten out….hopefully sooner than later. Although we held a pretty good WR (Caldwell) to a mediocre day. Maybe TOO much attention was paid to Caldwell and Wayne’s running ability by coaches and just opened up other areas.

I got the same impression from Campbell, didn’t appear to go anywhere whenever I was watching. I was surprised when I realized he had close to 100 yds. Still not sure why Barkett doesn’t get involved more. I must be missing something.

Offense still just appears sluggish. Doesn’t appear to be a go-to-guy for Lum. What happened to the offense from the 1st half of the Drake game?

Our wildcat isn’t really a wildcat. Colvin runs it 95% of the time. Might as well be wearing flashing lights on his helmet.

[RichHParticipant]

I would love to think staff keeping everything vanilla til PL sched. but that does not resolve secondary issues or a weak OL. True Ol pass blocking has been better but they lack any consistent push for the running attack.Lum is improving, albeit slowly, he has a major case of happy feet which is hurting the O. wrs , as agroup are solid and block pretty well but none has established himself as a go to guy who can separate from a db. DL and LBs very solid shut down Ram runners well. Harvard qb a drop back passer we will need a pass rush to battle them. Less said about the secondary the better. Coach K may try 3 dl with 8 lbs.

[ngineerParticipant]

Regarding my comment on the OL, it was directed toward the running game. I agree the pass protection has been good. We need to be able to get 3-4 yards a carry, not 1-2. Most of Campbell’s yards came on a few long runs that he created, but I’d prefer to see some nice holes with our back bursting through. That is not happening. If we can’t run on Fordham, we’re going to have bigger problems with Harvard, so hopefully, Cecchini has a few tricks we haven’t seen.

[RichHParticipant]

For good or ill looks like OL will be shaken up this week with Schauder hurt. Anyone know how bad his injury? One lack on O which may help explain OL problem is the lack of any outside speed . Campbell an excellent creator with nice strength and great wiggle but not with daunting outside speed. Do we have any speed rbs?

[ngineerParticipant]

I am not aware of any ‘burners’ in the backfield. It’s been awhile since we had anyone who could ‘run away’ from the opponent’s secondary. Pugh did on occasion.

[BillParticipant]

Let’s not forget the much maligned Sutton… Where’s Horace Hamm when we need him

[Author]

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