LEHIGH FOOTBALL SEASON PREVIEW: Mountain Hawks Have A New Challenge For 2025: The Target On Their Backs
BETHLEHEM, PA – Recent Lehigh University football teams haven’t had the experience of being the hunted before.
It’s one of the things the 2024 Lehigh football team earned for this squad – to change the challenge from “win more than two games, and maybe beat Lafayette” to “be the team everyone is circling on the calendar, and beating them anyway”.
The 2024 team was one that will go down in Lehigh history as an amazing one, but Lehigh history and FCS football history is also littered with one-season wonders.
“‘The biggest fear of a head football coach is complacency,” head coach Kevin Cahill said in Lehigh’s season preview this week on Mountain Hawks All-Access. “While we had success last year, this is a whole new team, a whole new endeavor. This team is trying to find an identity of its own right now, we need to put in the work to find the identity of this team right now.”
If you simply look at the 2025 roster and the statistics, you’ll see that Lehigh returns a lot of starting players, many young players who have already played a lot of Division I football. That’s certainly what the pollsters see, fans see, and what Lehigh’s 2025 opponents see.
But what you might not notice is that the senior leaders that meant a lot more than statistics – OL George Padezanin, QB Dante Perri and LB Mike DeNucci – have graduated.
Those three guys embodied the identity of the team last year in a big way, and it’s establishing that next generation of football leaders and their new styles that will define the success of the 2025 Lehigh football team.
“We have some good leadership, and other guys that are growing as leaders, so I think they’re finding their identity right now,” Cahill said.
2025 offers a very different challenge than 2024, when Lehigh could work hard, in relative obscurity, sneaking up on the rest of the Patriot League, and eventually Richmond in the FCS Playoffs. 2024’s team had an extremely large chip on their shoulders, looking to prove to the league what they can do.
Lehigh is no longer in obscurity. They proved what they can do. But that also means they have new expectations, and the very large challenge Cahill and the Mountain Hawks have is to make sure complacency doesn’t sink in and derail those lofty – dare we say national – expectations.
Building The Offense
It’s sometimes hard to remember that for most of the 2024 season, four different Mountain Hawks suited up at quarterback at one time or another.
While QB Hayden Johnson became the starter by the end of the season, there was quite a lot of time where QB Matt Machalik came in, mostly for rushing plays, and of course Perri and QB Matt Rauscher also spent time under center.
Johnson’s growth has meant he is the unquestioned starter (1,229 yards passing, 14 TDs/7 INTs), but he has an awful lot of growing to continue to do before he’s seen as a true national force on offense, and it remains to be seen whether Johnson will get the majority of snaps, or whether Machalik will get more time running the offense on sustained drives as well.
If last season was a guide, Johnson and Machalik will both get time under center.
Whomever is running the offense, they will be doing their work behind an offensive line that was transformative in 2024. Padezanin graduates, but the Mountain Hawks’ 6’3., 325 OL Langston Jones returns an experienced unit that – for a change – stayed healthy all of 2024.
“Langston has done a good job bringing the younger guys along with him,” Cahill said. “He’s really trying to leave this place better than he found it, and he’s done a lot of good things for us. It’s been fun to see.”
Jones, OL Christian Curatolo, OL Austin Huff, and OL Aidan Palmer are penciled in as the starters in my notebook, with newcomer C Spencer Dow slotting in at center (via Old Dominion), but one of the heartening things is that the offensive line seems to have very good depth at the 2s as well. Also encouragingly, Jones is the only senior on the starting offensive line.
“We should have improvements across the board, we have more experience across the board,” Jones said. “We should be bigger, faster, stronger.”
At running back is a nest full of ballcarriers, led by RB Jaden Green (777 yards rushing, 10 TDs) and RB Luke Yoder (1,014 yards rushing, 10 TDs). RB Aaron Crossley (208 yards, 1 TD) has also been pushing in the spring and fall to be involved as a part of the stable, and RB Connor Hilling as well, and it will be interesting to see how the balance of running plays itself out. We could see a lot of different backs with carries.
At receiver is senior WR Geoffrey Jamiel. whose leadership is evident on the offense and receiver room, though he’s quick to spread credit around the entire team, most notably WR Mason Humphrey, whom Cahill called co-leaders. “Geoff walks the walk,” he said. “He’s the first guy out to practice, the last guy to leave, and his workman mentality has kind of trickled down through the receiver room.”
“We have leaders all over the place,” Jamiel said, looking like a modern-day Wayne Chrebet. “Everryone leads in a different way. Every position group has them. Everyone’s trying to grow into their mold the best they can. Just building that chemistry, that’s what we’ve been trying to drive this whole offseason.”
TE Joseph Maranca was singled out by Cahill for his “physical presence”, and for good measure his TD grab against Richmond was shown in the video, meaning he will likely be the starter there from my notebook.
My take on the Offense:
QB Hayden Johnson/QB Matt Machalik
RB Jaden Green/RB Luke Yoder
OT Aidan Palmer/OT Sammy Ayache
OG Austin Huff/OL Colby Reph
C Stephen Dow/C Austin Huff
OG Langston Jones/OG Jacob Messina
OT Chris Curatolo/OT Charles Soska
WR1 Mason Humphrey/Logan Galetta
WR2 Geoffrey Jamiel/Jamaire Harden
WR3 Matt D’Avino/Anthony Feaster
TE Joseph Maranca/Jake Stalsitz
Physical Defense
Defense sees a lot of returning starters too, but the graduation of LB Mike DeNucci leaves big shoes to fill literally and figuratively.
Fortunately for Lehigh, DeNucci was hardly a one-man show.
DL Matt Spatny was just put on the preseason Buck Buchanan watchlist and was preseason Patriot League defensive player of the year. With 11 1/2 sacks to go with 36 tackles, the quiet Medina, Ohio native will certainly be someone opposing offensive will be trying to neutralize this season.
“These guys have played a lot of football for us,” coach Cahill said.
The entire defensive front – Spatny, NT T.J. Burke, LB Tyler Ochojski, DL Jadin Nelson, DL Quentin Joyner, LB Brycen Edwards and LB Will Parton – were a huge reason for Lehigh’s tunaround last year, and Spatny seems to promise even more strides forward this year.
“It’s been on a different level this year,” Spatny said. “The cohesiveness has definitely improved, and overall we’re pretty happy with where we’re at. We want to focus a lot on physicality, The more we punch them in the face, the more they don’t want to run the ball.
“The older guys know what it feels like to lose, what it feels like to fail. We’re trying to teach the younger guys what’s important about winning, why it’s important to be accountable, why the little things truly do matter.”
DB D.J. Brown put it more simply, with a smile: “These guys are legit.”
In the secondary, DB Nick Peltekian, DB Mason Moore, and CB Aidan Singleton all return as well, who were responsible for 8 interceptions as a group as well as 1 forced fumble and fumble recovery. DB Jackson Dowd (64 tackles, 5 break-ups, 1 fumble recovery) also returns on an experienced unit that has the potential to be among the Lehigh greats.
“We’re going to have our own challenges, our own adversity,” Brown added, “[but] we’re going to have to find out our own way to get things done, to get through challenges. Once we figure out our unique way to attack and to get through adversity, we’re going to be able to do things that no Lehigh team has done before.”
My take on the Defense:
DE Matt Spatny/DE Dillon Sheehan
NT T.J. Burke/NT Jadin Nelson
DT Quentin Joyner/DT Andrew Sharga
ST Tyler Ochojski/DL Broc Bender
LB William Parton/LB Talan Dudley
LB Brycen Edwards/LB Bryce Izundu
ROV Jackson Dowd/LB Davis Rice
SS Mason Moore/SS Walker Blair
FS Nick Peltekian/DB Mekahi Smith
CB Aidan Singleton/CB Ignatious Williams
CB D.J. Brown/CB Joshua Jones
Special Teams
Also exciting is that both P/K Connor Poole and PK Nick Garrido return after very strong years.
“Specials are all back, and this year we’re really pushing hard to have a relentless attitude,” Cahill said. “We have to focus on being Lehigh and being relentless like that.”
Poole was a frequent weapon for Lehigh, averaging 40.58 yards per boot, but more importantly with 7 50+ yard punts and 19 of them downed inside the 20. He had multiple standout games, but he was definitely one of the stars of the game vs. Holy Cross where he averaged 46.5 yards per kick, had 2 punts downed inside the 20 and had a 56 yard punt.
Garrido was not perfect, but was damned close, converting 43/44 extra points and going 9/10 on FG attempts, missing only a 44 yarder versus Princeton.
On kick returns, WR Geoffrey Jamiel and DB Nick Peltekian return once again, two steady hands, as well as RB Jayden Green, who seems likely to reprise his role.
Lehigh opens the season vs. Richmond at Murray Goodman Stadium this Saturday with a noon kickoff.
Chuck has been writing about Lehigh football since the dawn of the internet, or perhaps it only seems like it. He’s executive editor of the College Sports Journal and has also written a book, The Rivalry: How Two Schools Started the Most Played College Football Series.
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