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Holy Cross’ dominance over the last four seasons really means there is only one main question worth asking in terms of a Patriot League preview: Is it an impossible task for the other six teams to have any sort of shot to dethrone Holy Cross?
If you’re a numbers person, it might be best to skip down to the end, because this Saturday, the Bucknell Bison (0-6, 0-2) will be traveling to Bethlehem to take on the Lehigh Mountain Hawks (1-6, 1-1) in a battle between teams that, to put it mildly, are desperate to get into the win column.
In the 85th meeting between Bucknell and Lehigh on the football field, the Mountain Hawks rode a friendly home-like atmosphere on the road at Christy Matthewson Stadium to end a long consecutive game losing streak by a score of 38-6.
When you look at it in terms of the development of this team – and how this leads into next fall – there’s a lot more positives to draw than a normal fall season when the team is 0-2.
Two Ethan Torres FGs, one 26 yards, and one 24 yards, were enough to put the Bucknell Bison atop the Patriot League South Division, shutting out Lehigh at Murray Goodman Stadium 6-0.
An already-crazy Patriot League season still had some craziness left to reveal this week, as the 156th meeting between Lafayette and Lehigh was postponed due to a Tier 1 exposure in the Lafayette program.
In a way it’s fitting during this strange season that two of the teams playing this weekend are in their season openers, while their opponents are coming off of two weeks off after winning their openers. It is a byproduct of this crazy Patriot League spring, and results in two fascinating games that are basically playoff games. And with no game film on Bucknell or Fordham, it feels like anything can happen.
It’s been a very, very long wait, but this weekend, finally, we have a weekend of Patriot League football to look forward to.
Today, the Patriot League was the final FCS football conference to unveil their spring competition schedule to the public, as a part of their release announcing the schedules of twenty-two different sports being contested in the spring.
For months, fans, players, and Lehigh football head coach Tom Gilmore knew that this game wasn’t going to happen on this day. But Gilmore is trying to make the best of a difficult situation.
I have five burning questions on the issue that might help to give clarity on what a spring season for the Patriot League might look like.
If these are the only two plans that are actively being considered by the Ivy League, it means that, effectively, all out-of-conference games involving Ivy League opponents are cancelled for the fall.
The Patriot League Office announced on Monday guidance regarding the 2020 fall competition, a list of principles to “guide the development of a Patriot League 2020 Athletics Plan.”
I’m proud to unveil this year’s edition of the Patsy Ratings.
FRISCO, Tex.—North Dakota State redshirt freshman quarterback Trey Lance was recognized with the Walter Payton Award tonight presented by STATS Perform FCS Awards banquet tonight as the best offensive player of the year. “This is just a phenomenal, surreal moment, unexpected totally,” said Carlton Lance, who is Trey’s father, and accepted the award for his.
We are two weeks away from the end of the Patriot League regular season, and there is a very distinct possibility that the winner of the League is going to have a losing record.
It was, depending on your perspective, either the roughest Lehigh offensive performance of the season, or the greatest Bucknell defensive performance of the year.
Holy Cross will be trying to cement their hold on the top of the Patriot League standings when they host Lafayette this weekend. They could clinch at least a share of the title and FCS Playoff autobid if they win and Lehigh loses at Bucknell.
Most games between head coaches in their first years at a school are ones where the opponents need to feel themselves out, thanks to unfamiliarity. That will not be the case this weekend, as Cecchini and Gilmore have more than two decades of awareness of one another and their tendencies. It should have the feel of a brotherly fight.
The Patriot League sees Fordham with a week off and features six conference members in action. Lehigh looks to get their conference record to 3-0, Holy Cross looks to keep pace and remain undefeated in league play, and Lafayette and Bucknell will do battle to see who can remain in the title race.
This week, an unlikely battle for first place in the Patriot League is on the line in the Bronx, and Lafayette and Georgetown battle it out to see if they can get themselves into the league title race.
It’s a week with two Patriot League/Ivy League matchups and two Patriot conference matchups, as Fordham and Georgetown face off against one another in a battle to who can join Lehigh and Holy Cross atop the league standings.
Two enormous conference games loom this week, including one of the better Patriot League rivalry games in Lehigh at Colgate. Holy Cross at Bucknell also kicks off league play for both teams.
League play starts next week, but the teams of the Patriot League need some help in out-of-conference this week if at all possible. As a conference, the Patriot League is a combined 4-20 out of conference, with one of those wins coming against a Division III school. With an FBS school, several daunting Ivies, and a CAA school, fans of Patriot League schools are hoping for upsets this week.
Last week, Holy Cross stunned many with their 13-10 upset of New Hampshire, the Patriot League’s first win over a CAA school this season. This week Colgate hopes to make it a second when they face William and Mary on the road. NEC, Big Sky, and even a D-III opponent graces the Patriot League schedule this week.
0-2 Colgate, who lost two extremely challenging games to Villanova and FBS Air Force to start the season, earn a well-deserved bye week, while the rest of the Patriot League enters action looking to achieve their first victories of the season. As a conference, the Patriot League is a combined 0-8 to start the year.
Colgate, who hosted Villanova in Week 0, continues their Theater of Pain tour this week as they travel out to Air Force to take on the Falcons. The rest of the Patriot League kicks off their season this Saturday with a full slate of games
The 2018 Patriot League football produced two tiers of teams. The first tier was Colgate, who had the best defense in FCS, gave a bowl team all they could handle (Army-West Point), and upset perennial FCS powerhouse James Madison before falling to the eventual FCS National Champions North Dakota State. The second tier was… the other six teams of the Patriot League, who all ended with records under .500. In 2019, can anybody get to the Colgate tier?
A brutal 1-10 season saw the end of the Joe Susan era at Bucknell, with the Bison hiring former Valparaiso head coach and Patriot League assistant coach and player Dave Cecchini to take over the reins of the program.
