FCS Playoffs ‘Til I Die: Two Weeks Til Selection Sunday, Zero Autobids Offered
Two weeks to go, and how many autobids have been clinched? How about… none?
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Two weeks to go, and how many autobids have been clinched? How about… none?
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.
For the players of both programs, it was more about demonstrating how much they had improved over that battle of 1-6 teams on a wet, rainy, homecoming game a year ago in Worcester. Both teams showed exactly how much more they were than those teams with losing records last year, and in the end, Holy Cross showed that they were one play better than the Mountain Hawks on this afternoon.
There are three more football weekends to go before FCS Playoff Selection Sunday, where FCS Nation hopes ESPN pronounces all the schools’ names correctly and don’t forget to specify who is home, and who is away in the first round.
November in the Lehigh Valley is known for potentially frosty temperatures, blazing red and yellow fall colors, and apple picking season.
Don’t expect anything chill at Murray Goodman Stadium this Saturday, where the combined heat of the Holy Cross Crusaders (4-4, 2-0) and Lehigh Mountain Hawks (4-3, 3-0) should be radiating from both teams.
Remember when I had Villanova as a seed? Good times. Harken back to when I had Delaware in my field? Yes, way back when – last week. Do you recall the time that I had more than two Southland teams in my bracket? It’s so long ago, why, when it happened, North Dakota State and.
After their 27-24 win over Georgetown – their third conference game won on very memorable final plays – what is the Mountain Hawks’ secret for pulling out these conference wins?
Another week, another nail-biting game with the game in doubt in the closing seconds. Fans of of the Mountain Hawks might have been standing, perhaps cheering, perhaps looking away, unable to watch whether the 27 yard FG goes through the uprights.
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.
Last season, Lehigh football suffered through a bunch of firsts that Mountain Hawk football fans had no desire to experience. One important one came on the campus of Georgetown on October 20th, 2018.
Up until that point, in the modern era, the Lehigh football team had not lost to Georgetown.
As of right now, the FCS Playoff field feels like the show “Who’s Line Is It Anyway”, where the picks are just random improvisations of things that end up not making any sense. Nonetheless, we’ll keep pressing on, trying to figure out some version of truth.
Before the biggest game of the year so far for the Lehigh football program, senior WR Dev Bibbens was left off the depth chart for the Fordham game. Two weeks ago, the New Hope, Pennsylvania native was leveled by a vicious hit to the midsection from a Colgate defensive back, and he didn’t return in.
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.
Both teams find themselves sitting tied atop the Patriot League standings, playing for first place, and unlike last year, there will be no shortage of passion on the field at Jack Coffey Field at 1:00 PM this Saturday.
Welcome, America, to the FCSP’TID Cover Photo Curse.
Eastern Washington, UC Davis, Jacksonville State, and, last week, Montana State graced this space as rising teams that were all but guaranteed spots in the FCS playoffs after a particularly impressive win, or a gut-check performance.
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.
Don’t bother looking at my previous editions of “Playoffs ‘Til I Die” to get a solid playoff bracket. Like the rest of America, I had Eastern Washington and UC Davis in my brackets and now, let’s just say, they are not. As the Big Sky autobid turns, however, we inch ever closer to a better.
It was a week of thrilling conference rivalries, and it’s the “Military Classic of the South” that yielded the best story of them all.
Nobody at Andy Kerr Stadium was sitting down during the last play of the game.
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.
To Colgate fans, Lehigh is returning to the scene of the crime this weekend.
That’s because the Raiders’ last Patriot League conference loss came to Lehigh on their home field, Andy Kerr Stadium, two years ago back on October 7th, 2017.
On a hot, humid late September afternoon at Murray Goodman Stadium, Gilmore won his first football game as head coach, finally outlasting visiting Merrimack 10-3 in a game where defense and special teams were the order of the day.
It wasn’t the sort of game for the NFL’s Red Zone channel. It wasn’t for people who love power rushing, precision passing, or turnover-free ball. But it was a win that the Lehigh Mountain Hawks will happily take. The Lehigh Mountain Hawks had six sacks and kept Merrimack out of the end zone, and rode.
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.
In the end, the matchup this weekend will be a show-me type of game, one that might set the trajectory for both programs.
It would be nice if Eastern Washington would stop making my sample FCS Playoff brackets look so foolish. The first playoff bracket of the season, I had the Eagles in the field as a seed, mostly on the backs of their potential to win the Big Sky. Two losses and a 1-3 record later, I’m.
Last week was a mixed one for the Patriot League. Georgetown overwhelmed a Division III team 69-0, while Fordham topped Bryant by double digits. The rest of the league was not so lucky, however, losing to two CAA schools (William and Mary, Villanova), a NEC school (Sacred Heart) and a Big Sky school (UC Davis). This week, the entire Patriot League faces daunting challenges against tough competition – three CAA teams and an Ivy League title favorite.
Last week, we shook the dust off our first laughable attempt at picking an FCS Playoff field, and this week, we make another laughable attempt at picking an FCS Playoff field, but with a few more data points so that it’s, well, a tiny bit less hilarious. This week, we saw North Dakota State extend.
UC Davis QB Jake Maier had a tremendous evening in the Aggies’ home opener in UC Davis Health Stadium, going 38-for-49 passing for 389 yards in a 41-13 win over Lehigh Saturday Evening in front of 9.908 fans. Maier threw for four touchdown passes, all coming off of long drives of more than 50 yards. .
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.
The Lehigh Mountain Hawks (0-2) make a trip to Davis, California to take on the UC Davis Aggies (1-1). It’s a game that promises to be an interesting clash of East Coast vs. West Coast in UC Davis Health Stadium – a Big Sky vs. Patriot League matchup, which is a rarity during the regular season.
There truly is a never-ending search for content, a fact I was reminded of when I was politely and earnestly asked this week about coming up with an FCS playoff projection for the 2019 season.
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.
30. 33. 38. 35. 26. 35. 31. No, that’s not a high school locker combination, or a quarterback audible. Those are the point totals Villanova were able to exact on Lehigh during their last seven meetings on the gridiron, all Wildcat victories. The Mountain Hawks have played the Wildcats seven times in the last eleven.
We live in a strange world where people consume things in bites. People consume bites like video clips quickly, and sometimes they love them enough to keep watching them, enjoy them, and share them with their friends and followers.
That’s what happened today with one play out of the 138 plays that were run in the St. Francis (PA)/Lehigh game this Saturday, the first game of the season for both teams.
It was a game a defensive coordinator could love, and it resulted in a thrilling victory for St. Francis (PA) and an agonizing loss for Lehigh when a late 40 yard FG attempt went wide right for the Mountain Hawks, resulting in a 14-13 win for the Red Flash.
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
Last season, St. Francis (PA) and Lehigh faced off at the exact same time of year (Saturday, Labor Day weekend) at the exact same weekend. But the teams heading onto the field this weekend are not only filled with new personnel – they are also teams eager to put disappointing, losing season behind them in 2019.
Lehigh has just released their game notes for their 2019 Week 1 tilt against St. Francis (PA), and it’s our first look at Lehigh’s starting two deep. Here are my five takeaways from the list.
Much of preseason practice for a football involves building the skills, plays and toughness that’s required for the full grind of a full season. For the 2019 Lehigh Mountain Hawks, it seems to be about more than just that. With new head coach Tom Gilmore, a big theme that has emerged in preseason training camp.
Colgate’s 2018 defense was one of the most suffocating defenses in recent memory. The Raiders allowed a total of three touchdowns in conference play, two of which were scored by Holy Cross in the first week of the season.
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?
When your only losses are to a bowl-bound Army team and the eventual FCS National Champions in Fargo, that’s the very definition of a great year. Add to that a defense that only allowed touchdowns in 6 of the 12 games they played – that’s the definition of an amazing year.
Youth. Questions. Fifth.
Those are three words that haven’t normally been associated with Lehigh at the start of preseason training camp in August.
“Over 40% of our team are first-year players,” Gilmore said. “And we’re excited to see what some of these freshman can do to enhance our roster and push the upperclassmen to be the best version of themselves on the field.”
It may be hard to believe, but there are only 32 days left before the Lehigh Mountain Hawks take the field in their home opener versus St. Francis (PA).
After a 1-6 start with an absolutely brutal out-of-conference schedule and an unfortunate loss to Colgate to start the season, Holy Cross under new head coach Bob Chesney ended the season on a 4 game winning streak to close promisingly at 5-6.