Skip to main content

Spring Season: The Secondary

In my first edition about Lehigh's spring  football season, I take a look at one of the parts of the team that I'll be watching closely when the Brown vs. White game gets played on April 19th: the secondary.

While one might naturally start one's focus on Lehigh's spring season on the offense, and the reps that rising sophomore QB Nick Shafnisky will be taking, I'd argue that it's equally as important to focus on the battles happening in the Mountain Hawk secondary.

For the first time in a long time, it's not a foregone conclusion as to whom will be starting come September.


Gone is longtime secondary coach Gerard Wilcher, with head coach Andy Coen hiring a former defensive coordinator at Franklin and Marshall, Craig Sutyak, to coach the defensive backs.

"I was very impressed by all the candidates I spoke with during the search but I really enjoyed Coach Sutyak's approach to coaching the secondary and his philosophy of coaching in general," Andy told me.  "He is a technician, and I already see our guys taking to his style."

A former defensive back coach for Ed Foley at Fordham, he's very familiar with the Patriot League.

In 2004, his defense had 29 takeaways, including 16 interceptions.  Eight of them came from DB Tad Kornegay, a two-time All-Patriot League selection, first team FCS all-American, and professional CFL player.

More recently, he pushed Franklin and Marshall to have the second best pass defense in the Centennial League, where he worked under John Troxell, a former Lafayette player.  This year they beat Del Val in the ECAC Southeast Bowl to close the season, capping a 7-4 record.

"Craig has been a coordinator and will bring good ideas forward each week as the staff prepares the defense for each week," Coen said.  "Craig stresses accountability, and he is constantly communicating to his players about what they are doing right and what and how they can correct the things they are doing incorrectly."

Sutyak takes over a secondary that has talent, but is fairly inexperienced.

All four secondary starters in the final game of last year, FS Tyler Ward, SS Rickie Hill, CB Courtney Jarvis, and CB Damien Brown, are not returning this year, making it a wide-open battle for starting positions.

"Through a few practices junior CB Olivier Rigaud and sophomore CB Brandon Leaks look good at corner, and senior S Steve Wilmington, senior S Jamil Robinson and junior S Laquan Lambert are competing very well and making each other better," Coen said.  "Sophomore S Brian Githens and sophomore S Joe Barrett are also receiving a lot of reps this spring, so they will have the chance to compete in August.  Unforunately we have had some injuries that have kept some guys from practicing nothing serious but unfortunate to miss time in the spring."

Senior CB Jason Suggs looks like he'll be in the mix as well at corner,  as well as junior CB Randall Lawson, but it still looks wide-open as to who might end up starting against James Madison.

"I am looking for an athletic group of kids to understand very clearly what their assignments are," Coen said, "and they need to master their techniques. I expect this group to challenge throws and I want to see this group create turnovers.  I think we are on the way to accomplishing this."

LFN's Take on the Opening Spring Two-Deep: 
1st: Rigaud, Robinson, Wilmington, Leaks
2nd: Suggs, Lambert, Githens, Lawson


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How The Ivy League Is Able To Break the NCAA's Scholarship Limits and Still Consider Themselves FCS

By now you've seen the results.  In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago .  Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth.  Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled.  Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season.  The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League. W

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

 We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season.  The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League.  In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play.  Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ .  I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care.  Every face was glum.  They didn't even seem sad.  More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked chan

Fifteen Guys Who Might be Lehigh's Next Football Coach (and Five More)

If you've been following my Twitter account, you might have caught some "possibilities" as Lehigh's next head football coach like Lou Holtz, Brett Favre and Bo Pelini .  The chance that any of those three guys actually are offered and accept the Lehigh head coaching position are somewhere between zero and zero.  (The full list of my Twitter "possibilities" are all on this thread on the Lehigh Sports Forum .) However the actual Lehigh head football coaching search is well underway, with real names and real possibilities. I've come up with a list of fifteen possible names, some which I've heard whispered as candidates, others which might be good fits at Lehigh for a variety of reasons. UPDATE: I have found five more names of possible head coaches that I am adding to this list below. Who are the twenty people?  Here they are, in alphabetical order.