On Wet, Windy Day at Franklin Field, Special Teams Are the Story in 20-7 Lehigh Win over Penn
PHILADELPHIA, PA – It was the type of game a special teams coordinator could love.
No crystal clear skies, no light breeze, no pristine, dry, fall conditions. Cool, wet, and overcast with periods of rain showers, were the forecast on the afternoon.
There was also distinct wind advantage, blowing 25 miles per hour from the north, affecting the preparations for both head football coaches. Not a monsoon or gale force winds, but messy enough with the threat of possible bad weather to focus both teams.
When Penn won the toss, head coach Rick Santos chose to receive the ball first.
“We felt like it was going to be a four-quarter game,” he said in the post game press conference, “and the strategy should be to take the wind in the fourth.”
For the first half, it was a defensive, physical, back-and-forth affair. But Lehigh would ride a wave of defensive stops, special teams plays, and a surge of scoring – with the wind at their backs – that led the Lehigh Mountain Hawks (5-0, 3-0 Patriot) to their hard-fought 20-7 win over Penn (1-1, 0-0 Ivy).
Special Teams Shine
The gameplan for both teams was similar – both teams wanted to run the ball, and control the clock, and wear down the opposing defense. In the first half, that’s exactly how the game played out.
But a key difference: the kicking game of P/K Connor Poole.
“We knew it was going to be a battle for the entire time,” Rich Nagy said in his opening comments at the press conference. “I tell you what, Penn’s a good football team.”
The stat sheet for Poole’s punting simply says 6 punts for 266 yards, and a 44.3 yard average.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Every one of those punts pinned Penn deep in their own end, and in at least one case ended a potential drive before it could start.
“Connor’s sitting right next to me here, so you know special teams are really important,” Nagy said. “Connor, PK John Zipf on kickoffs, our long snapper LS Ridgely Ritter, they do such a good job practicing their craft, really understanding the situations and understanding today the environment. We talked about wind and things being factors, things that we worked on during the course of the week, with the punt return team, too, on a windy day, on a weather day like this, special teams and the field position pieces become so huge.”
His first punt was a booming 54 yarder ithat was returned a single yard because two tacklers slowed down DB Jayden Drayton and DE Broc Bender finished it for a paltry 1 yard return to the Penn 6 yard line.
The result of that punt: a 7 play, 28 yard drive by Penn, ending in a massive pressure of Penn QB Miles Teodecki that would end up as a sack by DL Lucas Mandelbach, an empty possession.
“The wind was going in one direction, definitely a big factor,” Poole said after the game. “We had a game plan for when we were kicking into the wind, and I’ve got trust in the ten other guys around me, and they fly around so much that I know when I put the ball in the right position, they’re going to make the plays we need. The goal is to put it inside the 20 every time. At the end of the day, [the wind’s] a factor, but it’s the same for both teams.”
On the stat sheet you’d be hard pressed to see a huge effect on Poole’s punting based on wind direction.
Poole would later add a 48 yard field goal, wind at his back, to give the Mountain Hawks their first lead and the only points in the first half. The Mountain Hawks would never trail in the game, but the Williamsport, PA native would continue to force Penn into tough offensive situations the entire game.
Before the end of the first half, Lehigh’s offensive drive stalled at the 48 yard line with 32 seconds to go. Poole went back to punt, took a high snap, and booted a line drive kick that was downed at the half-yard line by WR Brady Fisher, essentially removing an entire possession at the end of the first half for Penn, who could do little but lean forward to avoid a safety in the dwindling seconds of the second quarter.
A 52 yard punt with the wind at his back – and a 47 yard punt into the wind downed at the 1/2 yard line. Not bad.
All the while both defenses were doing a great job limiting each other’s offenses. Lehigh’s high-powered rushing offense was held to 81 yards in the first half, and 109 overall, while the Quakers were limited to 94 total yards, averaging only 2.3 yards per rush. Like coach Santos thought, it was essentially a standoff after one half of play.
“There wasn’t a lot of messages I had to give them at halftime; it was a matter of finishing some things that we didn’t do in the first half,” Nagy said. “That was the biggest thing. We just had to stay calm and make the adjustments we needed to make and go out and play our style of football. Our defense did a great job against both pass and run and we got pressure on the quarterback. It’s a young group that’s really starting to grow. They have been doing it all, but this was the most impressive they played today. It’s just fun to watch that growth process. I give a lot of credit to the players for staying the course, keep battling, not panicking.”
Complementary Football
In the second half, it was continous Lehigh defensive pressure, followed by more special teams heroics, that finally caused the tide to turn.
“In that third quarter we really were able to win those special teams situations,” Nagy said. “I give all the credit to the players, Connor to the left of me, what he was able to do, especially in the field goal situations, not letting the wind bother him.”
After a 52 yard punt by Poole and a 10 yard penalty pushing Penn back further, DL Aidan Williams stuffed Penn RB Tommy Lafayette for a 3 yard loss, and on third down LB William Parton and DL Lucas Manderbach stuffed Lafayette well short of the sticks – a near-perfect 3-and-out.
“Throughout the first couple of games,” Manderback said afterwards, “we had a lot of pressures, but we also had quartbacks that would scramble away from us a lot. We preached a lot about ‘getting home,’ Jadin Nelson, Preston Davis, they preach to all of us, ‘stay in your lane, do your job, go make a play.'”
On the punt attempt, RB Aaron Crossley ran up the middle and got a hand on the ball to deflect it, causing Penn’s punt to only travel 24 yards, where DB Nick Peltekian ran towards the ball and scooped it for a 7 yard return, setting up the Lehigh offense perfectly.
On the very next drive, QB Derek Morgan would execute the RPO perfectly, running right and then barelling through a few blockers to get Lehigh’s first touchdown.
“Whenever I get out there on punt return,” Peltekian said, “I feel like I’m back in sixth grade, just playing in the backyard. Coach Nagy, I kind of stress him out at times, at the end of the day I’m trying to help the team out, get a little extra field position.”
The next drive for Lehigh played itself out in eerily similar fashion.
After Penn return man Jayden Drayton took PK John Zipf’s kickoff out of the end zone to try to get something started, Lehigh’s Brady Fisher again made a play to help pin the Quakers deep at their own 13.
From there, the defense swarmed the Penn offense in a 3-and-out, with William Parton making a quarterback draw by Teodecki go nowhere. Parton led the team with 8 tackles, but all of them seemed like they came in big spots.
A lucky break saw Penn’s punt shanked out of bounds for only 17 yards, and Derek Morgan and the offense was again able to use the short field and turn it into a touchdown on a pretty 20 yard touchdown pass to WR Jamaire Harden.
That would be all Lehigh needed. Poole would add a 29 yard field goal to his afternoon, and two more punts pinning Penn behind their 30 yard line – all three kicks into the wind.
While Teodecki would orchestrate a late 13 play, 74 yard touchdown drive, ending with Penn’s only score, a 1 yard run by Tommy Lafayette. Those 74 yards represented nearly all of Penn’s second half offense – Penn’s net offensive production aside from that scoring drive was 14 total yards, their final last-gasp effort resulting in an interception by by DB Mick McKee to finally put the game to bed.
“Connor is a perfectionist,” Peltekian said. “so watching him at practice every day, watching him operate from Sunday through Saturday, he’s a pro. That’s what he does, and that’s why he’s best in the country in my opinion. Seeing him work every day motivates me. He’s a junior and I’m a fifth year, but that’s what our team is about. Everyone’s just one, that’s what the standard of our program is.”
 Penn | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 7 |
 Lehigh | 3 | 0 | 14 | 3 | 20 |
Pen: PASS – Teodecki,Miles (133); RUSH – Lafayette,Tommy (41); REC – Page,Mason (44)
Leh: PASS – Morgan, Derek (49); RUSH – Yoder, Luke (74); REC – Harden, Jamaire (25)
Scoring Summary
| 1st | Leh | 01:47 | Leh – Poole,Connor 48 yd field goal 8 plays, 22 yards, TOP 04:30 | 0 | 3 |
| 3rd | Leh | 10:37 | Leh – Morgan,Derek 11 yd run (Poole,Connor kick), 4 plays, 28 yards, TOP 01:59 | 0 | 10 |
| 3rd | Leh | 06:16 | Leh – Harden,Jamaire 20 yd pass from Morgan,Derek (Poole,Connor kick) 4 plays, 33 yards, TOP 02:08 | 0 | 17 |
| 4th | Leh | 10:13 | Leh – Poole,Connor 29 yd field goal 7 plays, 30 yards, TOP 03:56 | 0 | 20 |
| 4th | Pen | 02:14 | Pen – Lafayette,Tommy 1 yd run (Walters,Mason kick), 13 plays, 74 yards, TOP 02:47 | 7 | 20 |
| 7 | 20 | |||||
Chuck has been writing about Lehigh football since the dawn of the internet, or perhaps it only seems like it. He’s executive editor of the College Sports Journal and has also written a book, The Rivalry: How Two Schools Started the Most Played College Football Series.
Reach him at: this email or click below:
