GAME ONE, RICHMOND AT LEHIGH: The Mountain Hawks Gained National Respect, And A FCS Playoff Win. Now, the Spiders Start Their ‘Revenge Tour’.

BETHLEHEM, PA – From the very start of Richmond’s training camp, starting QB Kyle Wickersham‘s focus was on revenge.

While the Louisiana native didn’t play in Lehigh’s 20-16 upset victory in the FCS Playoffs, he told John O’Connor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch that overcoming slow starts – and revenge – was on his mind.

“We’ve got a team that came into our house last year and beat us,” Wickersham said. “That’s all the motivation you need. It’s a revenge tour already. We already have our loss (to Lehigh). It’s just an extension of last season.”

It’s the end of a long, somewhat painful offseason for Richmond, and it starts right away for the Spiders in trying to reverse the end of last season as well.

Richmond’s first three games come against Lehigh, Wofford and North Carolina, all on the road. While the Spiders will be facing off against head coach Bill Belichick for the first time (and facing off against the Tar Heels for the first time since 1978), their last games against both Wofford and Lehigh were both losses.

The loss to Wofford – and other early season losses to Morgan State and Hampton – “haunt him to this day,” Wickersham said.

That should be a real wake-up call to Lehigh fans and players who might be laboring over the misconception that Richmond’s trip to Murray Goodman Stadium – their first ever as members of the Patriot League – will be anything but intense.

While Richmond will be looking for revenge, Lehigh will be looking for respectability – respectability in the sense of proving that last season was not a fluke.

A Contrast Of Styles In a Huge Top 25 Matchup

All preseason for Lehigh, and in the run-up to this huge game at noon on ESPN+, head coach Kevin Cahill and the rest of the team have been at great pains to keep the focus on themselves, not external factors.

When asked by Tom Fallon on ESPN Sports Radio whether anything has changed about the team vibe after last season, he was upfront. “No, and there shouldn’t be. It should be the exact same way we attacked last year. Focusing on Lehigh, and getting better each day. Being fundamentally sound, that’s what wins football games.”

This was echoed during the week from LB Tyler Ochowski and QB Hayden Johnson as well on local TV.

“If we continue to focus on us and play our brand of football, we’ll be just fine come Saturday,” Ochojski said.

“I think we gotta focus on that this year just being able to fit the run blocks just getting all the angles we need to in the run game and also just be well in the pass game, be consistent,” Johnson added. “Just getting the ball out quick. They do a good job of keeping everything in front of them as a defense when their corners looks. We’ve gotta focus on ourselves and just keep going.”

The Mountain Hawks, no matter how you slice it, are in a new position as a team. Their offense, after years of struggles, finally clicked in their incredible turnaround last season. Their defense, once one of the leakiest in the Patriot League, became the league’s best.

They have only recently found their recipe for success – they found it “in the middle of the season”, Cahill said – and they have relatively recently developed and nurtured the winning culture that allowed for their big turnaround last season.

Yet even at Patriot League Media Day, you can sense a difference of tone from last season – a bit less loose, a bit more professional. There was a big emphasis on the need to establish a new identity, and leaving the 2024 season in the past.

That meant establishing a hard-fought camp, one that seems to be embraced by the team.

And Cahill has seen the strides made in camp as a result, especially by his sophomore quarterback.

“Hayden’s in a much better place right now than he was,” Cahill said. “He picked up the playbook really quick last year. He’s just got to execute at a high level. We all know what he can do and the player he can be, he’s just got to be who he is and not somebody else.”

To me, Lehigh’s vibe this preseason has been one of professionalism, surely, but also brotherhood and family – looking more to the family rather than outside for approval. As an extension of that, it also means keeping with what got them here, with what worked last season.

That may or may not be enough against a Richmond team that is deep, big, and filled with CAA-caliber scholarship players from their championship-winning team last season.

Richmond Kicking Woes

Richmond too will look like a different team than the one that took the field last November – at least eleven players, including key all-CAA players on offense, entered the portal soon after their loss to the Mountain Hawks.

If you read the fan forums, they all agree with head coach Russ Huesman – that the situation with the transfer portal is “absolutely ridiculous”.

Huesman is an old-school coach, one that isn’t afraid to “tell it like it is” – to me, he’s kind of a colorful mix of Tubby Raymond, Jim McKay, with a dash of Gene Stallings, all rolled up into one.

And Huesman wasn’t shy about blasting the process – in regards to his kicker.

Last season, against Lehigh, Richmond suited up a kicker from Ireland (really!), PK Sean O’Haire. Late in May, well after the incoming freshman class was finalized, he transferred to Maryland to enter their kicking competition.

“Maryland tampered with our kicker and gave him $50,000,” Huesman said to John O’Connor. “They came in, they tampered. The kid had zero interest in transferring, they offered him money. It happens all over the country and there’s nothing the NCAA’s going to do about it.”

Aside from the shocking allegation, football-wise it caused an immediate problem at Richmond, who seem unsettled at the position, according to none other than Russ Huesman himself. Unless the Spiders were going to recruit a kicker transfer extremely late in the process and get through admissions, they were going to have to go into preseason with the kickers on their roster, without a realistic way to get another (their only real recourse, walk-on tryouts, by NCAA rule cannot start until all freshmen have reported to campus).

Colorful Huesman minced no words, even at the end of training camp.

“We don’t have any placekicking game. Zero,” Huesman said. “I have no idea how we’re going to make an extra point or a field goal. So, I may have to kick it. I don’t know if they’ll let me. I’ll try to kick it. But it’s absolutely ridiculous right now.”

Huesman added that this wasn’t some hyperbolic assessment meant to amuse, nor was it a prod to inspire Alsheskie and Bonser [the two kickers on Richmond’s roster].

“I’m just being honest,” said the coach.

While it’s highly unclear as to whether Richmond’s kicking woes will be a major factor in the game on Saturday – both coaches would certainly downplay the issue – it does, oddly enough, show a bit of the contrast of both coaches and both styles at the moment – Cahill close to the vest, Huesman outspoken and opinionated.

Gunfight At High Noon?

At the end of the day, it’s a Top 25 shootout at high noon at Murray Goodman Stadium. I can’t really explain it, but the vibe is one of gunslingers, both with different styles and methods, in a game which probably has bigger stakes than it should to open the Patriot League season.

A Lehigh victory formalizes what was established last season – that the Mountain Hawks are the team to beat in the Patriot League, Richmond’s entry nonwithstanding. It would show that Lehigh is no fluke. They would belong as one of the top teams of FCS, period dot, no caveats. If Lehigh wins, it will give them a tremendous leg up on eventually winning the title.

A Richmond victory would not only be revenge, and make the Spiders the team to beat in their first season of Patriot League play, but it would also be a demonstration that the athletes recruited for CAA football – with an eye to William & Mary and Villanova, who will soon be joining the Spiders in the Patriot League – are the way the Patriot League goes forward. If Richmond wins, it will give them a tremendous leg up on eventually winning the title.

It’s been a while since there’s been a high noon battle like this at Murray Goodman stadium, and it should be a good one.

RICHMOND SPIDERS (0-0) AT LEHIGH MOUNTAIN HAWKS (0-0)
WHERE: Murray Goodman Stadium/Bethlehem, PA, Saturday, August 30th, 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 – Jim Guzzo, Connor Brown