GAME NINE, GEORGETOWN AT LEHIGH – Heartstopping Hoyas Enter Bethlehem on Three Game Winning Streak

BETHLEHEM, PA – Something’s gotta give in Bethlehem.

The Lehigh Mountain Hawks (8-0, 3-0 Patriot) and Georgetown Hoyas (5-3. 2-1 Patriot) enter this Saturday’s matchup with dizzying winning streaks.

Lehigh’s record has been perfect in 2025, winning their first eight games of the season and riding a 13 consecutive regular season winning streak. For good measure, the Mountain Hawks also have a seven game home winning streak.

In contrast, Georgetown’s streak of wins has been more modest – three games in a row – but their maBnner has been extraordinary.

In each of Georgetown’s three wins, the Hoyas have won nervy games determined in the 4th quarter – in one instance, winning on a Hail Mary, and in another cementing a win with a pick six with 14 seconds left in the game.

Whatever the case in Murray Goodman Stadium this weekend, at least one impressive streak is going to come to an end.

Businesslike in the Bronx

Radio host Tom Fallon interviewed Lehigh head coach Kevin Cahill this week and entertained him with a stat – Lehigh had only allowed 13 points to the city of New York.

He was referring to the pre-bye week shellacking of Columbia, 31-7, and the dominating performance last week against Fordham, where the Mountain Hawks only gave up six points in a 27-6 win.

While some, like Tom and many fans, were focused on the impressive looking scores, to a man QB Hayden Johnson, DL T.J. Burke and DL Matt Spatny over the weeks have been focused more on their mistakes rather than the results.

“We started out slow in the first half,” Johnson accurately said this week about the Fordham game, “but then we scored on three of the first four drives of the second half.”

“Our biggest thing is we’re disciplined and we’ll play harder than everyone else,” Burke said after the Fordham game, “but sometimes we lose our edge, that’s when teams start driving the ball on us. We know we need to bring it back in, lock it back in.”

“We have to clean things up,” Cahill said repeatedly after each game and again this week.

It might strike some as perfectionism, but it’s hard to argue with the record and the results as a whole.

Johnson’s 267 yards passing last week were a career high for the sophomore, for good measure adding a rushing touchdown to his performance. That came on the heels of his prior top performance, a 260 yard effort against Columbia, which included 68 yards rushing. Hayden did everything but score a touchdown against the Lions.

For Lehigh, the defending Patriot League Champions, the goal is in sight. The seventh ranked team in the nation, there is a very refreshing mindset and attitude about this squad, a feeling that there is still some ways to go if the Mountain Hawks want to, say, make a deep run in the FCS Playoffs.

It’s hard, though, to criticize the Lehigh defense, who have only allowed two touchdowns in eight quarters, and only after the offense had racked up double-digit leads against the opposition. For good measure, Fordham’s two-point attempt was very nearly returned the other way for two Mountain Hawk points.

The Mountain Hawks lead the Patriot League and rank in the top 10 nationally in both rushing offense (226.6 ypg.) and rushing defense (70.6 ypg.). The Mountain Hawks now rank third in the FCS against the run after limiting Fordham to 74 yards rushing. Lehigh has only allowed two teams all season to rush for over 100 rushing yards as a team, run-heavy Yale (103) and Duquesne (102).

But November football is very, very hard. There are no gimmes or guarantees. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

So far, if the Lehigh football team is adversely affected by the pressure of streaks, or seem like they aren’t taking anyone seriously, it doesn’t seem like it from the outside.

It certainly won’t hurt the motivation of the team that the last time Georgetown came to Murray Goodman Stadium, they left there with a win.

Hoya Cadabra

In what seems like a decade ago, but in reality only a couple of years ago, Georgetown started a brand-new winning streak, the first in the modern era – a one-game road winning streak against Lehigh.

Since joining the Patriot League in 2001, Georgetown had played Lehigh at Murray Goodman ten times, and lost all ten times. But in 2023, Kevin Cahill’s first time facing Georgetown in the first year of his rebuild, the Mountain Hawks lost 17-7 in a dismal home performance in front of 2,828 fans.

QB Tyler Knoop had an amazing day against Lehigh’s secondary, at one point completing 16 straight passes on the way to a 332 yard day. A 37 yard pass to WR Jimmy Kibble would set the tone, and despite RB Luke Yoder‘s 81 yards rushing and WR Mason Humphrey‘s 3 catches for 70 yards, the Mountain Hawks couldn’t stop Georgetown celebrating on Lehigh’s home field.

Georgetown has beaten Lehigh only twice in the modern era, and in both games the recipe has been the same – force Lehigh into mistakes, or let them happen, play a well disciplined, defensive game, win the turnover battle, and simply want it more in the fourth quarter.

Those types of wins seem to mimic some of the magic Hoya wins over the past three weeks.

Three weeks ago, Georgetown seemed like they were about to lose to Morgan State.

The Hoyas were in a 4th and 23, down 24-21, needing to get into field goal range to tie. On the play, Hoya QB Dez Thomas was sacked for a 5 yard loss. Georgetown had two timeouts remaining and 1:25 to play in the game. They needed a miracle.

They got one.

Georgetown stopped them on two straight plays, ran the ball on 3rd down, then – inexplicably – tried to convert a 4th and 3 on the Georgetown 36. Instead, Georgetown got the ball back with 36 seconds left and no timeouts… and a prayer that was answered after a 49 yard heave to WR Jimmy Kibble for the 27-24 win.

Two more cardiac wins followed.

Down 17-14 with 9:51 to play, Thomas would find Kibble for a 36 yard gain and later score on a 12 yard touchdown run to give the Hoyas a late 21-17 lead. On Colgate’s final two possessions, DB Brian Lloyd would knock down a 4th-and-5 conversion, and intercept QB Jake Stearney to clinch the win in the final minute.

It was awesome to play in front of all of the Georgetown families on Family Weekend,” Georgetown head coach Rob Sgarlata said after the Colgate win. “All of these Patriot League games seem to come down to four or five plays in the last series, so I’m proud of this team, they’re very resilient.”

Their resilience was tested again in the following week against Bucknell, where – unsurprisingly – it was a tie game in the fourth quarter and wasn’t determined until 12 seconds left in the game.

Bucknell had advanced to the Georgetown 43 when senior LB Naiteitei Mose stepped in front of a QB Chris Dietrich pass and returned it 65 yards for the game-winning score.

All three wins replicated to some degree the same formula as that win against Lehigh two years ago – stout defense, making one less mistake than their opponents, play hard through to the end, find a way to close it out at the end for a win.

“Nai Mose is our lucky charm,” Sgarlata said afterwards. “He keeps coming up with big plays and it’s awesome to see him have success. I’m really excited for us to go back to Georgetown and start preparing to go out to Lehigh, another great Patriot League opponent.”

Something’s Gotta Give

Aside from the streaks, Lehigh and Georgetown have plenty to play for.

If the Hoyas win, Georgetown will be leading the Patriot League with the head-to-head tiebreaker. They would become the frontrunners for the Patriot League title, in control of their own destiny – win, and they’re in.

If Lehigh wins, their magical undefeated regular season would continue, and they would still be the ones in control of their Patriot League destiny, with every other Patriot League school not named Lafayette with at least two Patriot League losses.

Both teams have caught magic here in 2025. For one of these teams this Saturday, one team’s magic will run out.

GEORGETOWN HOYAS (5-3, 2-1 Patriot) AT LEHIGH MOUNTAIN HAWKS (8-0, 3-0 Patriot)
WHERE: Murray Goodman Stadium, Bethlehem, PA, Saturday, November 1st, Noon
STREAMING: ESPN+
TV CREW: PxP – Marco Socci; Analyst – Lance Haynes
RADIO: BROADCAST (Fox Sports Lehigh Valley 94.7 FM/1230 AM; LVFoxSports.com):
RADIO CREW: PxP – Matt Kerr; Analysts – Mike Yadush, Connor Brown