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For the players of both programs, it was more about demonstrating how much they had improved over that battle of 1-6 teams on a wet, rainy, homecoming game a year ago in Worcester. Both teams showed exactly how much more they were than those teams with losing records last year, and in the end, Holy Cross showed that they were one play better than the Mountain Hawks on this afternoon.
There are three more football weekends to go before FCS Playoff Selection Sunday, where FCS Nation hopes ESPN pronounces all the schools’ names correctly and don’t forget to specify who is home, and who is away in the first round.
In the final minute, Holy Cross made one more play than Lehigh.
Undefeated Princeton and Dartmouth look to not slip up going into a potentially enormous matchup of undefeated teams in the Bronx.
November in the Lehigh Valley is known for potentially frosty temperatures, blazing red and yellow fall colors, and apple picking season.
Don’t expect anything chill at Murray Goodman Stadium this Saturday, where the combined heat of the Holy Cross Crusaders (4-4, 2-0) and Lehigh Mountain Hawks (4-3, 3-0) should be radiating from both teams.
Remember when I had Villanova as a seed? Good times. Harken back to when I had Delaware in my field? Yes, way back when – last week. Do you recall the time that I had more than two Southland teams in my bracket? It’s so long ago, why, when it happened, North Dakota State and.
After their 27-24 win over Georgetown – their third conference game won on very memorable final plays – what is the Mountain Hawks’ secret for pulling out these conference wins?
Another week, another nail-biting game with the game in doubt in the closing seconds. Fans of of the Mountain Hawks might have been standing, perhaps cheering, perhaps looking away, unable to watch whether the 27 yard FG goes through the uprights.
The Patriot League sees Fordham with a week off and features six conference members in action. Lehigh looks to get their conference record to 3-0, Holy Cross looks to keep pace and remain undefeated in league play, and Lafayette and Bucknell will do battle to see who can remain in the title race.
Last season, Lehigh football suffered through a bunch of firsts that Mountain Hawk football fans had no desire to experience. One important one came on the campus of Georgetown on October 20th, 2018.
Up until that point, in the modern era, the Lehigh football team had not lost to Georgetown.
This week, two of the nation’s unbeaten teams play tricky challengers: one in prime time on Friday night, and the other takes on a rival in one of the marquee games of Saturday.
As of right now, the FCS Playoff field feels like the show “Who’s Line Is It Anyway”, where the picks are just random improvisations of things that end up not making any sense. Nonetheless, we’ll keep pressing on, trying to figure out some version of truth.
Before the biggest game of the year so far for the Lehigh football program, senior WR Dev Bibbens was left off the depth chart for the Fordham game. Two weeks ago, the New Hope, Pennsylvania native was leveled by a vicious hit to the midsection from a Colgate defensive back, and he didn’t return in.
This week, an unlikely battle for first place in the Patriot League is on the line in the Bronx, and Lafayette and Georgetown battle it out to see if they can get themselves into the league title race.
Last week’s battle of unbeatens ended up not much of a battle – 4-0 Dartmouth jumped all over Yale early and never looked back, crushing the Bulldogs 42-10 and established themselves every bit the frontrunners for the Ivy League title. As we sit and wait for the inevitable clash of titans between Dartmouth and Princeton later in the season, let’s take a look at this week’s games.
Both teams find themselves sitting tied atop the Patriot League standings, playing for first place, and unlike last year, there will be no shortage of passion on the field at Jack Coffey Field at 1:00 PM this Saturday.
Welcome, America, to the FCSP’TID Cover Photo Curse.
Eastern Washington, UC Davis, Jacksonville State, and, last week, Montana State graced this space as rising teams that were all but guaranteed spots in the FCS playoffs after a particularly impressive win, or a gut-check performance.
Call it “Conference Carnage Week”.
High-profile conference games ended upending conference championship races, and further cementing others on top of the standings.
This week’s games feature a couple of challenges vs. the Ivy League, LIU still trying to win their first game in the NEC, and a good old-fashioned western Pennsylvania rivalry game.
It’s a week with two Patriot League/Ivy League matchups and two Patriot conference matchups, as Fordham and Georgetown face off against one another in a battle to who can join Lehigh and Holy Cross atop the league standings.
After the Big Green took it to Penn last weekend on Friday night, Dartmouth returns home for Homecoming in a huge battle between undefeated teams as they take on Yale.
Don’t bother looking at my previous editions of “Playoffs ‘Til I Die” to get a solid playoff bracket. Like the rest of America, I had Eastern Washington and UC Davis in my brackets and now, let’s just say, they are not. As the Big Sky autobid turns, however, we inch ever closer to a better.
It was a week of thrilling conference rivalries, and it’s the “Military Classic of the South” that yielded the best story of them all.
Nobody at Andy Kerr Stadium was sitting down during the last play of the game.
Two enormous conference games loom this week, including one of the better Patriot League rivalry games in Lehigh at Colgate. Holy Cross at Bucknell also kicks off league play for both teams.
This week we see a primetime Ivy League matchup in actual prime time, as undefeated Dartmouth and undefeated Penn face off under Franklin Field’s lights.
To Colgate fans, Lehigh is returning to the scene of the crime this weekend.
That’s because the Raiders’ last Patriot League conference loss came to Lehigh on their home field, Andy Kerr Stadium, two years ago back on October 7th, 2017.
The Pac-12 is right. What this bill really is doing is opening up a spigot of money from well-financed actors, and putting it in the pockets of lawyers and sports agents, not athletes.
A week ago, UC Davis was being lauded for giving top-ranked North Dakota State a true run for their money at their place. Last week, thanks to a sneak Grizzly attack, Aggie fans have to wonder whether they can still make the playoffs.
On a hot, humid late September afternoon at Murray Goodman Stadium, Gilmore won his first football game as head coach, finally outlasting visiting Merrimack 10-3 in a game where defense and special teams were the order of the day.
It wasn’t the sort of game for the NFL’s Red Zone channel. It wasn’t for people who love power rushing, precision passing, or turnover-free ball. But it was a win that the Lehigh Mountain Hawks will happily take. The Lehigh Mountain Hawks had six sacks and kept Merrimack out of the end zone, and rode.
A brand-new rivalry is spawned in the NEC and a league tilt between St. Francis (PA) and Bryant feature this week.
League play starts next week, but the teams of the Patriot League need some help in out-of-conference this week if at all possible. As a conference, the Patriot League is a combined 4-20 out of conference, with one of those wins coming against a Division III school. With an FBS school, several daunting Ivies, and a CAA school, fans of Patriot League schools are hoping for upsets this week.
In the end, the matchup this weekend will be a show-me type of game, one that might set the trajectory for both programs.
The Ivy League had a hugely successful opening weekend, as many expected. As a whole the Ancient Eight went 6-2, the only losses coming from a missed two-point conversion attempt by Penn at Delaware, and a furious Harvard rally falling short to San Diego. This week the Ivy League seems poised to have another great week, and additionally league play is starting with two early-season conference tilts.
It would be nice if Eastern Washington would stop making my sample FCS Playoff brackets look so foolish. The first playoff bracket of the season, I had the Eagles in the field as a seed, mostly on the backs of their potential to win the Big Sky. Two losses and a 1-3 record later, I’m.
Without question the top FCS game of the week was the battle of FCS powerhouses in the Fargodome.Returning home after 47-22 victory the week before against Delaware, the heavily-favored Bison had a very tough battle against visiting UC Davis, ultimately winning 27-16 after scoring a late touchdown to finally put the game in the win column for North Dakota State.
Another interesting week awaits us in the NEC, featuring a battle between a NEC title contender and a Pioneer Football League contender.
Last week was a mixed one for the Patriot League. Georgetown overwhelmed a Division III team 69-0, while Fordham topped Bryant by double digits. The rest of the league was not so lucky, however, losing to two CAA schools (William and Mary, Villanova), a NEC school (Sacred Heart) and a Big Sky school (UC Davis). This week, the entire Patriot League faces daunting challenges against tough competition – three CAA teams and an Ivy League title favorite.
Conference play is still a couple of weeks away, but the teams of the Big South take on some interesting challenges out-of-conference this week, including an FBS game, a trip to an iconic FCS football stadium, and a game against a Missouri Valley opponent.
Finally the wait is over – the Ivy League awakens from their annual football slumber and rejoins the college football universe almost a full month after the rest of college football has started their season. Top 25-caliber powerhouses Princeton, Dartmouth and Yale finally will be able to prove where they stand in the national picture.
Last week, we shook the dust off our first laughable attempt at picking an FCS Playoff field, and this week, we make another laughable attempt at picking an FCS Playoff field, but with a few more data points so that it’s, well, a tiny bit less hilarious. This week, we saw North Dakota State extend.
It was a week of high-profile Top 25 clashes in FCS this week, as the marquee games of the week pitted Delaware vs. North Dakota State and Eastern Washington vs. Jacksonville State. One was a Bison display of dominance, the other a thriller that could be the game of the year. Adding to the fun of this week’s games was a shootout in Vermillion, South Dakota and another big FBS upset in Georgia.
UC Davis QB Jake Maier had a tremendous evening in the Aggies’ home opener in UC Davis Health Stadium, going 38-for-49 passing for 389 yards in a 41-13 win over Lehigh Saturday Evening in front of 9.908 fans. Maier threw for four touchdown passes, all coming off of long drives of more than 50 yards. .
Things pretty much played out as expected when the teams of the NEC stepped up in class, losing some games against tough competition. It was the losses to D-II squads that were an issue, with Wagner and Robert Morris losing some bad games against sub-D-I competition. This week, the NEC has another mixed back of play-up and play-down competition.
Last week, Holy Cross stunned many with their 13-10 upset of New Hampshire, the Patriot League’s first win over a CAA school this season. This week Colgate hopes to make it a second when they face William and Mary on the road. NEC, Big Sky, and even a D-III opponent graces the Patriot League schedule this week.
The Lehigh Mountain Hawks (0-2) make a trip to Davis, California to take on the UC Davis Aggies (1-1). It’s a game that promises to be an interesting clash of East Coast vs. West Coast in UC Davis Health Stadium – a Big Sky vs. Patriot League matchup, which is a rarity during the regular season.
There truly is a never-ending search for content, a fact I was reminded of when I was politely and earnestly asked this week about coming up with an FCS playoff projection for the 2019 season.
Most years, it’s FCS teams stunning FBS teams, but this week, it was non-scholarship FCS and sub-Division-I teams stunning FCS squads instead. In their home opener, non-scholarship Dayton (1-0) stunned Indiana State (0-2) 42-35. Flyer QB Jack Cook accounted for four touchdowns, two rushing and two passing, while RB Sean Prophit scored on a 13-yard.
The Villanova Wildcats (2-0) surged to a 17-3 halftime lead over Lehigh, and ultimately cruised to a 38-10 win on Saturday evening on the Main Line.
It was a game where the Mountain Hawks (0-2) would make way too many mistakes to pull off the upset on the road of a nationally-ranked FCS football team on the road.
