COLGATE AT LEHIGH AT 11/16/2024: A Tense Trap Game Awaits And Nervous Scoreboard Watching Back Home In Murray Goodman

BETHLEHEM, PA – Nobody on the current Lehigh football roster remembers when the Mountain Hawks and Raiders had a rivalry, lower case, every year.

“Meaningful games in November is what Lehigh football is all about,” head coach Kevin Cahill said this week on the LV Fox Sports Happy Hour podcast this week. “That’s what Kevin Higgins did, that’s what Pete Lembo did, that’s what Andy Coen did. And this is the first time we’ve been back in this situation for a long time. This is a tribute to all of those coaches that built it to be the tradition we want to get back to. We’re working to get it back to where it should be.”

For Lehigh football this time around, meaningful football games will mean both needing a win – and some help – to possibly get back to the FCS Playoffs. Two wins and a Bucknell loss in their last two games would see them through.

But a bigger part of those meaningful November weekends – and I’ve seen a lot of them – were set up through the Lehigh/Colgate rivalry, set to resume this weekend as the Mountain Hawks (6-3, 3-1 Patriot League) take on the Raiders (2-8, 1-3 Patriot League).

And this 2024 Lehigh Mountain Hawks football team has made it meaningful.

This season’s matchup is a turnabout from last year, where Lehigh was playing out the next-to-last game in a rebuilding effort and Colgate was trying to secure a winning season and a puncher’s chance at a share of the Patriot League title. This year it’s the 2-8 Raiders playing the role of spoiler, and the 6-3 Mountain Hawks looking to possibly win a title – and maybe even qualify for the FCS Playoffs.

Games between Lehigh and Colgate have been meaningful for a long time, though.

The Mountain Hawks and Raiders have always have had a little-r rivalry over the last fifty years. Even before they decided to shack up together in the Patriot League, both schools. high-academic schools who had a passion for football, played each other often.

A hall-of-fame college football coach, Fred Dunlap, coached at both schools to great success. (One of the reasons Colgate hired the former Colgate player away was that as Lehigh’s head football coach, he beat his alma mater twice in a row in 1973 and 1974. One of the reasons Lehigh hired him away from Colgate’s staff was that, as a longtime assistant at Cornell, he was passed over for the head football job at his alma mater.)

In the 1960s and 1970s, a time when the lines between college football programs were more blurred, “major college” Colgate was the equivalent of an FBS school at the time, while Lehigh was considered a much smaller more regional football program.

It was during the 1970s, when Lehigh was on the rise in what would become Division II and the football powers-that-be started to tip the scales against Colgate’s continued presence in the same echelon as Penn State, that Lehigh’s and Colgate’s similarities in academics would be brought together.

Eventually they would end up in the same subdivision I-AA (later FCS, Division I), and would become founding members of the Patriot League, an academically-minded athletic conference similar to the Ivy League.

But it was the 2000s, during the Patriot League era, when true ‘Hate the Gate’ sentiment started to form between the two schools.

The reason? The stakes got higher.

The tagline of many of those Lehigh/Colgate games was that the winner of that game very, very often went on to win the Patriot League and go to the FCS Playoffs. Usually one team or the other, and often both, were nationally ranked. And fans showed up for those games.

Colgate had morphed into an Eastern power in I-AA circles, and Lehigh’s ascendance in the 1990s and 2000s under Hank Small, Kevin Higgins and Pete Lembo made Lehigh/Colgate games important contests that were followed nationally.

One of the first games I covered for the old College Sporting News was a Lehigh/Colgate game in 2004, a battle of nationally-ranked teams that lived up to the billing, a 21-14 win that came down to a late goal line stand. Almost 14,000 fans packed Murray Goodman stadium to watch No. 18 Colgate take on No. 12 Lehigh, and I called it a little-r “rivalry”. It wasn’t Lehigh/Lafayette, but it was damned close.

I was there, and can tell you for sure it wasn’t an exaggeration. Many of those Lehigh/Colgate games in the aughts had a genuine playoff, championship game feel to them.

There was a lot to it, too, even beyond the national rankings and playoff stakes.

Both Lehigh and Colgate are similar in DNA, academically-oriented and Ivy-adjacent, and for many years the only real difference between them and the Ivy League being that they could compete for an FCS National Championship.

The Ivies, for all their advantages and prestige, simply didn’t seem to want to make the effort, or break their own esoteric philosophies and rules, to give their kids a chance at a national championship.

Foootball-wise, too, Colgate, coached by the late Dick Biddle, recruited huge offensive linemen and had developed a run-heavy RPO game, emphasizing old-school football on the ground, while generations of Lehigh fans knew about “Air Lehigh” with a series of head coaches and assistants that focused on lighter, high-probability precision passing.

It was always a contrast of styles, one that always made for an entertaining game, because they were high-executing teams. Even a Lehigh team hovering at .500 had some skills to make things scary for Colgate with a quick-strike offense. Even a Colgate team out of the running had the sort of ball-control offense that can ground a Lehigh offense.

My recollection is that the term ‘Hate the Gate’ spring up sometime in the late aughts, coming up in a pregame press conference in a year when Lehigh was struggling. My memory places it at 2007, in the midst of a tough 4-7 season where it seemed like head coach Andy Coen might get let go.

Even though it was a rebuilding year for Lehigh and they weren’t doing well, the sentiment burned within to knock Colgate out of the Patriot League title chase. That was a sign to me that this was a genuine rivalry and not just another game on the schedule. The cliche is true; when these two teams get together, anything can happen, and often does.

More recently, the rivalry has been put on ice. Last year. Colgate raced to a 30-0 lead before the Mountain Hawks rallied to make the final score a bit more palatable, 37-21, ruining the return of Lehigh’s offensive coordinator Dan Hunt back to Colgate, where he once served as head football coach.

This week, Colgate will be motivated to beat their little-r rivals in an effort to spoil Lehigh’s title hopes and postseason hopes. As ever, the links between the two schools and programs persist, which should make for a fierce game. Overlooking a school that considers you a rival is a recipe for a trap, and it’s up to Lehigh to not fall for it with two meaningful November games left on their remaining schedule.

COLGATE RAIDERS (2-8, 1-3 Patriot) AT LEHIGH MOUNTAIN HAWKS (6-3, 3-1 Patriot)
WHERE: Murray Goodman Stadium/Bethlehem, PA, Saturday, November 16th, Noon
STREAMING: ESPN+
TV CREW: PxP – Marco Socci; Analyst – Mike Yadush
RADIO: BROADCAST (Fox Sports Lehigh Valley 94.7 FM/1230 AM; LVFoxSports.com):
RADIO CREW: PxP – Matt Kerr; Analysts – Lance Haynes, Connor Brown

Lehigh Rundown

This week’s game notes will shock and amaze you – there are few changes on the depth chart from last week’s win at Holy Cross. Despite the lack of changes, unusually, there is one big question mark in regards to whether QB Dante Perri will play, one of last week’s heroes in Lehigh’s amazing 10-7 win over Holy Cross.

Shortly after throwing a bullet to WR Mason Humphrey to score Lehigh’s only touchdown last week, in a physical game he took a blow to the head last week and did not return afterwards. While he was seen and heard after the game and looked okay, there is some doubt as to whether he will start or play this Saturday. As of the time of this preview, that was still in doubt.

LFN’s Drink of the Week

I modified a Black Currant Gin and Tonic with some stuff I had lying around, which… ended up being a pretty good gin and tonic.

• 3 parts tonic water
• 1 part Black Currant Gin (I used Gin infused with Cassis, the same thing)
• 1 splash of simple syrup
• 3 splashes of lime juice

Put in a tumbler, starting with the gin, let it stand a minute, then add the tonic, syrup and lime. Stir, and pour.

Scouting Colgate

The 2024 season in no way was what head coach Stan Dakosty wanted for his Raider team – and yet, if you look hard enough, you can find plenty to be concerned about with Colgate, even though their record stands at 2-8.

Three things have plagued Colgate this season: an extremely tough schedule (two FBS games, two upper echelon CAA teams in Maine and Villanova, and Holy Cross), a slew of injuries on offense, and a negative turnover differential. It’s not all that outlandish to think of an alternate timeline where Colgate QB Michael Brescia throws a touchdown in the closing minutes instead of an interception in a 17-14 defeat, completely changing the course of their season.

Brescia got injured during the season, which means QB Jake Stearney (1,358 yards passing, 8 TDs, 10 INTs) has done the bulk of the quarterback with with QB Aleks Sitowski mixing in occasionally as well.

This week in the game notes, curiously, Brescia appears on the depth chart as the No. 2 QB, so it’s unclear whether he will play or get into the game. Either way, Lehigh will be playing a QB that has put up points on Lehigh defenses in recent memory – Brescia helped put up 33 in 2022, and Stearney as a true freshman helped put up 37 last year.

One of the problems Colgate ran into was when the dual-threat Brescia went down, so did their most effective rusher. The Raiders have a stable of backs that have done well as a group, but no one back has gained more than 300 net yards. When they do pass the ball, WR Treyvhon Saunders (71 catches, 629 yards, 1 TD) and WR Brady Hutchinson (32 catches, 424 yards, 5 TDs) have been effective weapons.

But it’s been the untimely turnovers and fourth quarter issues that have been the most head-scratching for the Raiders. Four times this year Colgate had a lead or a one-score deficit going into the fourth quarter and couldn’t find a W, including last week vs. Lafayette. Up 20-7 with 10 minutes to play, the Leopards would score a touchdown, secure a turnover, score again, and get the game-clinching interception to steal the victory from Colgate.

It’s been especially head-scratching because there is a lot of talent on this defense, especially up front. Junior LB Cole Kozlowski leads the Patriot League with 11.7 tackles per game this season, good
for the second-highest average in the FCS. He is also second in the FCS and third in the entire country
(FBS or FCS) with 117 total tackles this year.

LFN’s Keys to the Game

1. Protect the Ball. In a way, Colgate’s miscues are at once a hope and a worry. In so many of their games Colgate has contributed to their losses through mistakes. But the flipside of that is Colgate has been in most of their games – they just have made key mistakes at critical times. If they do put things all together and play a clean, turnover-free game – against a rival – they suddenly become a much more dangerous team. That means Lehigh needs to protect the ball themselves, and get sloppy with turnovers themselves. Lehigh needs to be on the right side of the turnover margin one way or another.
2. Bethlehem Sack Exchange. While Colgate’s defensive front is big and experienced, Lehigh’s high pressure front is a force to be reckoned with in their own right. Whomever is lining up at QB, keeping them under pressure and bottled up will be critical to keep Colgate’s offense in check.
3. Goodman Energy. One of the more underrated stories of this Lehigh football season is the energy at Murray Goodman and how slowly but surely the Lehigh Mountain Hawks have not only brought back winning but also more of a daunting home field presence. That will need to continue this week and next, but a stifling home performance and protecting Goodman will really help this week especially.

Fearless Prediction

Anyone thinking this week’s game against Colgate will be a cakewalk is fooling themselves. Despite their 2-8 record, underestimating the Raiders’ wounded pride and desire to win one over a small-r rival makes this a dangerous game for the Mountain Hawks. I fully expect Colgate to bring everything, and be very dangerous. Will Lehigh be up for the challenge?

Lehigh 23, Colgate 21