Skip to main content

Basking in the afterglow; Game Balls; Weekend Prediction Recap

Basking in the Afterglow
Lehigh Football Nation is stil basking in the afterglow of the Colgate win. What an incredible game. Lehigh fans everywhere are happy that Lehigh has survived their toughtest test of the year against a very good Colgate team, and put them squarely in charge of their own destiny for the Patriot League title. All that remains is taking care of business in the last 3 regular-season games.

I'm going to do the press roundup tomorrow, along with a special "playoff scenario" piece concerning the Patriot League teams still in the running for the title and the playoffs.

Game Balls
I don't think some of these are big surprises, but here they are:
Offense:
Sophomore RB Marques Thompson (112 all-purpose yards, 2 TDs)
Sophomore RB Eric Rath (124 all-purpose yards, 1 TD)
Junior QB Mark Borda (134 yards passing, 2 TDs)
Special mention: The entire "O" Line gets game balls for big 3rd down plays and a huge 4th-and-1 conversion:
Sophomore LT Jim Petruccelli
Senior LG Jason "Rocky" Morrell
Senior C Justin Terry
Junior LG Adam Selemasska
Senior LT Rob Sandie
Defense:
Senior OLB Anthony "Graz" Graziani (18 tackles, 1 INT, 1/2 sack)
Senior SS Karrie Ford (12 tackles, 1 INT which was the key play of the game)
Sophomore LB Julian Austin (8 tackles, 1 INT that won the game)
Special Teams:
Senior P Kyle Keating (39.2 average - key punt inside 20)

Congratulations to all! (Hey, dig all those sophomores on the list!)

Weekend Pick Recap

Another great week, going 11-3! Too bad you can't make money doing this. I picked Western Kentucky, Villanova, Southern Illinois, William & Mary, Bucknell, Fordham and (of course) Lehigh.

Really Right:
North Dakota St./Northwestern St. Prediction: ND St. 29, N'western St. 17. Real score: ND St. 30, N'western St. 17. Too bad ND St. didn't miss an extra point - then it would have been perfect!

Navy/Delaware. Prediction: Navy 31, Delaware 17. Real score: Navy 34, Delaware 20. Right margin of victory, just missed both scores by a FG! I'll take it!

Kinda Right:
UC Davis/Cal Poly. I had more of a defensive battle predicted (20-10), but I'll take the 36-33 upset win.

Montana St./Northern Arizona. I didn't imagine the punishment the Bobcats would inflict on the Lumberjacks - 60-14! Makes my 27-13 prediction seem downright puny.

Should have been right:
Maine/UMass. A freakin' blocked extra point in overtime prevented the Black Bears from keeping their playoff hopes alive. I've got to believe with another OT they would have pulled it out.

Northeastern/New Hampshire. Northeastern drove and, like Colgate, got intercepted in the end zone to kill their chances for the win. If they had converted - I would have gotten the win.

Was I ever wrong!:
Georgia Southern/South Dakota St. Yeah, I got the game right, but come on, I predicted a 27-17 "nailbiter". Try, 63-7 in a game that was over after the coin toss.

Sam Houston St./Stephen F. Austin. In reality this was a close game. But my reason for picking SFA was stupid - going against my gut. Next time, the gut wins. (No, that's not a reference to my diet.)

Tomorrow: Press; Playoffs; Fear the Leopards

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

UMass 21, Lafayette 14, halftime

Are you watching this game? UMass had this game under control until about 3 minutes in the second quarter, and then got an interception, converted for a TD. Then the Leopards forced a fumble off the return, and then converted THAT for a TD, making this a game. It's on CN8. You really should be watching this.

Examining A Figure Skating Rivalry: Tonya and Nancy

It must be very hard for a millennial to understand the fuss around the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding figure skating scandal in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics. If you're of a certain age, though - whether you're a figure skating fan or not, and I am decidedly no fan of figure skating - the Shakespearean story of Harding and Kerrigan still engages, and still grabs peoples' attention, twenty years later. Why, though?  Why, twenty years later, in a sport I care little, does the story still grab me?  Why did I spend time out of my life watching dueling NBC and ESPN documentaries on the subject, and Google multiple stories about Jeff Gilooly , idiot "bodyguards", and the whole sordid affair? I think it's because the story, even twenty years later, is like opium. The addictive story, even now, has everything.  Everything.  The woman that fought for everything, perhaps crossing over to the dark side to get her chance at Olypic Gold, vs. the woman who