GAME FOUR, LEHIGH AT BUCKNELL: The Rivalry Nobody is Talking About.. But Should

BETHLEHEM, PA – To his credit, Craig Haley said something that I deeply agree with on his podcast “The FCS Edge” this week with Zach McKinnell.

“I think the FCS is about community,” he said. “It’s about being in these intimate stadiums where you’re on top of the action. The conference races do mean so much to everybody out there. They want to beat their neighbor, a backdoor brawl sort of game.”

The Rivalry game to which he was referring involves Lehigh’s opponent last week, Duquesne, whom they defeated 35-21.

The Dukes and Robert Morris are indeed nearby conference rivals, and I’m sure when the Dukes and Colonials meet at Rooney Field or Joe Walton Stadium, sparks fly. And Craig is 100% right. Games like Duquesne/Robert Morris are a great part of the fabric of FCS. I totally agree.

But it is curious that Craig picked as an example Duquesne/Robert Morris, a matchup that will happen this year in the third week in November, when there is an important rivalry game this weekend – one with national implications, Patriot League title implications, and is a revenge game.

Yes, Lehigh is heavily identified with their Rivalry against nearby Lafayette, and to many fans. it’s the only game that matters.

But I’m sure if you asked the Lehigh student-athletes this week, they’d have told you that the most important game this week is against a real conference rival, one which they’ll want to enact some revenge.

In fact, it’s more than a little curious that the conference rivalry between No. 10 Lehigh (3-0, 1-0) and Bucknell (2-1, 0-0) isn’t on the radar nationally.

Separated by about a two hour drive, the Mountain Hawks and Bison have met each other on the gridiron 88 other times.

Christy Matthewson Stadium, right on the campus of Bucknell University, is a beautiful place to watch a football game – as Craig might describe it, an intimate stadium where you’re on top of the action.

Nationally, Lehigh/Bucknell might be considered a forgotten rivalry. The national pundits might not make it their Game of the Week, or even think of it as a Rivalry, or even think of it as a competitive game.

But don’t tell that to the football players at Bucknell or Lehigh. To them, it most definitely not a lost Rivalry. And both sides know exactly how competitive this weekend’s game is going to be.

The Forgotten Rivalry

“Three o’clock found a fair sized crowd of spectators at [Williamsport, PA’s] athletic park,” The Brown and White reported in 1897, the first report the student newspaper reported on a Lehigh/Bucknell football game. “They were arranged on the bleachers, in the grand stand and in carriages on both sides of the field. From a Lehigh standpoint, the first half was the better and more interesting, but the game was a lively one and stubbornly contested throughout.”

That game, a 24-20 Bucknell victory, was the Bison’s first in what would become a long-standing football rivalry that has been defined by pendulum swings of dominance.

Indeed, Lehigh and Bucknell would face off in many other “stubbornly contested” games.

In the early days of football, Bucknell dominated Lehigh, going 8-3-2 against them from 1888 to 1928. “Heavy Bison squad Gives Lehigh Team Third Bad Beating,” a frustrated Brown and White reporter wrote in 1928 after a particularly bad 40-0 annihilation, during a rising time for the Bison and a low ebb for the Brown and White. “The Lehigh team might just as well, from a spectator’s standpoint, have been playing soccer,” the reporter added. (A few years later, Bucknell would be playing in the first-ever Orange Bowl in Miami, beating the University of Miami 27-0.)

It was in the 1950s that Bucknell started to show up more regularly on Lehigh’s schedule, which coincided with a resurgence of Engineer football, and a fallback by Bucknell from the major college ranks. From 1950 to 1959, Lehigh would go 7-3 against Bucknell.

“Scoring three times and passing for a fourth touchdown,” The Brown and White said in a recap in 1955, “QB Dan Nolan led the Lehigh Packers [sic] to a 27-20 triumph over the Bucknell Bisons in front of 6,500 Parents Day fans in Taylor Stadium Saturday.”

With these swings in dominance – Bucknell went 9-2 against Lehigh from 1960 to 1970, and the Mountain hawks won 14 straight against the Bison from 1998 to 2012 – it hides the fact that there were stretches where the teams played very meaningful games.

Competing for the Lambert Cup starting in the late 1950s – presented to the best “small college” team in the Eastern United States – Bucknell, Delaware and Lehigh were independent teams that all won the coveted trophy. with Lehigh wining the inaugural cup in 1957, and Bucknell winning it in 1960.

That made the Bucknell/Lehigh games of that era more meaningful.

While still technically football independents, it brought the schools together as if they were in a conference. Lehigh’s dominant 27-0 win over Bucknell, with Nolan and RB Dick Pennell rolling over the Bucknell defense, was a big step towards winning the cup in 1957; QB Paul Terhes and RB Ash Ditka played a tremendous game against Lehigh in 1960 for a key 18-6 victory during their winning year. The Lehigh/Bucknell games would make new regional stars like Terhes and Nolan.

Lehigh, of course, has a Rivalry with nearby Lafayette that appears to dwarf the others. But even in the early Lambert Cup years from 1950 through the 1970s the games against Bucknell were very significant. The Lambert Cup was emblematic of an Eastern “small college” championship, and those type of regional wins definitely meant more than some others, even if there were long stretches of dominance by one over the other.

When the Patriot League formed in 1986, it seemed only logical that Bucknell, a peer institution academically and longtime football opponent, would join Lehigh and Lafayette in the new conference, and their rivalry would continue to thrive.

The Lambert Cup would still be there, of course, but a Patriot League Championship – and eventually, a I-AA playoff autobid – would amp up the stakes. And importantly, as Lehigh went on a period of dominance, Bucknell’s biggest game circled on the calendar, increasingly, became the game vs. the Mountain Hawks.

Lehigh’s Last Regular Season Loss

If the history and the stakes weren’t enough to declare this a backdoor brawl, there’s plenty more angles that make the game this weekend especially significant.

Start with Bucknell’s head coach, Dave Cecchini.

A Lehigh graduate and all-American wide receiver for the Brown and White, Cecchini had several wildly successful stints at Lehigh after graduation as an assistant coach and offensive coordinator.

When Lehigh needed to replace Pete Lembo in 2006, the two finalists were Cecchini and Andy Coen, another longtime Lehigh football assistant coach. Athletic director Joe Sterrett chose Andy Coen, and Cecchini would work on other staffs before finally getting his shot at coaching an FCS team at Valparaiso – at one time joining forces with Andy as offensive coordinator during the early 2010s that saw Patriot League championships, FCS Playoff wins, and – you guessed it – a Lambert Cup.

When Andy Coen retired in 2018 due to health issues, Lehigh had one more chance to hire Cecchini, but instead chose another Lehigh assistant, Tom Gilmore. A month later, Bucknell filled their head coaching vacancy with Cecchini, and never looked back.

More specifically, the hiring of Cecchini coincided with another swing of the pendulum of the Lehigh/Bucknell Rivalry.

The record does not lie – since becoming Bucknell’s head coach, Cecchini is 4-2 against his alma mater. And from the Lehigh perspective, some of those losses have been excruciating, but maybe none more so than last season’s, coincidentally Lehigh’s last regular season loss.

“At halftime, the score was 14-14. At the end of the 3rd quarter, the score was 21-21. At the end of regulation, the score was 28-28. And at the end of the first overtime, the score was deadlocked at 35,” I wrote in my recap of the game. “Evenly matched throughout, an opportunistic Bison squad never laid down, forcing critical turnovers and scoring a huge momentum-stealing 100 yard kickoff return for touchdown by WR T.J. Cadden to keep the score knotted for most of the game.”

It was a foggy, October afternoon before Lehigh’s bye week, before people were really noticing what was happening on South Mountain, and it was a game that Lehigh definitely wanted back as soon as Bucknell celebrated on Lehigh’s home field.

“I’m just so proud of our players. There were so many moments for them to hang their heads,” Cecchini said after the game. “The back and forth was amazing, but for most of the game we were down. To win it in the manner that we did, as a team, all three phases of the game, stepping up multiple times.”

“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Lehigh head coach Kevin Cahill said in his opening statement after the game. “Bucknell is a very good team. We knew that they were going to do some things that we were worried about. And you give them credit. They found a way to win the game in the double overtime, and they’re 1-0 in the league, and we are not. We’ve got to do a good job of learning from this and moving forward. This loss can’t define who we really are. It’s an opportunity for us to get back to work, and…” There was a pause. “Everything we want is right in front of us. So we’ve got to continue to work. And we’ve got to continue to get better.”

The game was one with a lot of Lehigh mistakes on the one hand, and an opportunistic Bucknell on the other, capitalizing and stubbornly contested, as Lehigh/Bucknell Rivalry games often are.

“We just put ourselves at the bottom of the hill when we should have been on top the whole game,” LB Mike DeNucci said after the game. “We came back and made it a fight, but just looking at the numbers, and then you look at the score, it doesn’t really represent what this game should have been for us. But that’s the thing. The scoreboard is the way the scoreboard is. That’s all I can say about that. We didn’t get over the hump.”

Lehigh dominated on the stat sheet – total offensive yards, time of possession – but in the end it didn’t matter. Bucknell’s grit pushed them through, and won them the game.

It was an outcome too that deeply affected the Patriot League title race to the very end.

As Lehigh kept winning games, that loss to Bucknell made every week a playoff elimination game, meaning that they needed to beat Fordham, then Georgetown, then Holy Cross. Lose one, and they’re lamenting what could have been.

It wasn’t until right before Rivalry Week, right after a resounding Colgate win, when Lehigh learned if they beat Lafayette, they’d win the Patriot League and be returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2017. In the press box, everyone was huddled around a monitor, watching the aftermath of Holy Cross’ overtime win over Bucknell, checking their fate.

And on the other side of the coin, Cecchini and the Bison had to also be going over this offseason what might have been – had they been able to figure out how to close out Georgetown (21-20), or how they could have closed out Holy Cross in overtime (40-38).

They could have been celebrating their first Patriot League title since 1996, and their first-ever FCS Playoff appearance. Reverse two plays, and they are going to the playoffs and not Lehigh. One made field goal in either the Georgetown or Holy Cross games, and that would have pushed them through. It was that close.

If that’s not a recipe for a juicy conference matchup in the intimate stadium in Lewisburg where you’re on top of the action, I don’t know what is. Expect a stubbornly contested Rivalry game, one that should probably get a second look from the national voices of the FCS.

LEHIGH MOUNTAIN HAWKS (3-0. 1-0 Patriot) AT BUCKNELL BISON (2-1, 0-0 Patriot)
WHERE: Christy Matthewson Stadium/Lewisburg, PA, Saturday, September 20h, 6pm
STREAMING: ESPN+
TV CREW: PxP – Doug Birdsong; Analyst – Charlie Fisher
RADIO: BROADCAST (Fox Sports Lehigh Valley 94.7 FM/1230 AM; LVFoxSports.com):
RADIO CREW: PxP – Matt Kerr; Analysts – Jim Guzzo, Connor Brown