Skip to main content

Press Roundup; Game Balls

There's plenty of time to get hyped up for Lehigh/Delaware on Saturday. (If you haven't got your tickets yet, better head to your friendly neighborhood scalper, as it's already sold out.) In the meantime, let's wrap up last week's business first, starting with last week's game balls. It's no secret that one game ball will be going to the gentleman on your left, senior WR Gerran "G" Walker. With 311 all-purpose yards, including 144 returning yards, and 2 receiving TDs, he was a lock. On special teams and offense, he was a monster out there.

(Photo courtesy of the Brown & White, Doug Moquet.)

Also on offense, I'd be remiss in not giving a ball to QB Mark Borda for his 22 for 31 day with 344 yards passing, 21 yards rushing and 6 TD passes. His 6 TDs tied a record held by Scott Semptimphelter ('95) and Kyle Keating ('04). He torched the Monmouth secondary and was the reason why Monmouth's upset bid wasn't meant to be.

Finally, for our defensive game ball we offer it to senior LB Matt Purdy for his 10-tackle performance, including 1 tackle for loss. Congratulations to all the winners!

Oh, you wanted your press roundup? Well, here's the links and here's your digest.

Allentown Morning Call:
Borda's 6 TD Passes Lift Mountain Hawks
Lehigh's Walker Starts To Deliver

Easton Express-Times:
Walker Gives Lehigh Extra Juice

Asbury Park Press:
Swift Start by Hawks Slows in Second Half

"We came out in the second half and I thought we lost our composure," said Monmouth coach Kevin Callahan following a 54-26 loss to Lehigh (1-0) before 8,063 at sun-bathed Murray H. Goodman Stadium on Saturday.

"As long as I've been here we've never made that many mental mistakes," Boland said, referring to the third quarter meltdown. "It seemed like every play there was a penalty or or formation problem. We just can't have that... I don't think the score tells the story. We could have done a lot better if we didn't make those mistakes."

"I thought we had enough explosiveness on offense that we would be able to put some points on the board," Callahan said. "I thought we would be able to play pretty good run defense and get Lehigh into a situation where they needed to throw the ball. I don't know if that was such a smart idea, looking at it right now. Our pass defense wasn't as good as we hoped it would be or as good as we thought it was."

"While the game didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked early, nobody panicked," Lembo said. "We just kept plugging away. The defense settled down and played a lot better, especially in the third quarter."

Likewise, Lembo will have a lot of things to clean up for next week. How good are the Mountain Hawks?

"Time will tell," he said.

..........

["G" Walker] set the tone immediately with a 50-yard kickoff return and wound up with 312 all-purpose yards in the biggest day of his career. He caught seven passes for a career-high 157 yards and two touchdowns. His four kickoff returns produced 144 yards and he fit in an 11-yard carry on a reverse.

And the best news of all for Lehigh was that when it was over, Walker said he felt completely healthy.

''I try not to think about it, because in football, sometimes injuries happen,'' Walker said. ''I try to stay positive and do the things I can control and try to care of myself the best that I can. I worked real hard in rehab to get back [from a partial tear of his MCL last season] and a day like today makes it all worthwhile.''

"When you have a guy like Gerran or [former Lehigh tight end] Adam Bergen, you want to make an effort to get him a certain amount of touches," Lehigh coach Pete Lembo said. "At the same time, you never want a game plan to be one-dimensional. We try to stay balanced, but certainly we try to feature our best players."

"A couple of the injuries Gerran has had, they're difficult to come back from if you're a skill player," Lehigh coach Pete Lembo said. "If a lineman had those same injuries, maybe it wouldn't affect him as much. He's really worked hard to take care of his body."

"I'm happy for him. He has always been a low-maintenance kid. I've never had any qualms about his toughness or his attention to detail when it came to rehabbing his injuries. He's just one of those thoroughbred-type athletes that can't function with the type of injuries he has had."

"G (Walker) is a real special player out there," said Borda, who matched a Lehigh record by throwing six touchdown passes. "We can do a couple different things with him. My confidence in him is just growing by the minute."

...

Lembo was obviously pleased with the play of Borda, who shook off an early interception to complete 22 of 31 passes for 344 yards, and tied a school mark with six touchdown passes.

"He played like an experienced quarterback with a lot of poise, and stayed very positive on the sideline even after we had some protection breakdowns," Lembo said. "On his interception, he was hit as he threw the ball. We had a receiver coming open on the post, but he got hit.

"Mark didn't panic. He stayed optimistic and went right back out there and had himself a big day."

As you probably guessed by my consistent references in this posting, I'm liking the nickname for "G" for WR Gerran Walker, even if it does uncomfortably remind me of "G Money", or even worse, seminal rapper Warren G. Still, I give it my thumbs-up of approval.

Tomorrow: A really quick Weekend Roundup; and maybe something to get you pumped for Lehigh/Delaware

Comments

Anonymous said…
Keating had the 6 TD's against G-Town in '03. Bergen had a huge game to help Keating.
Anonymous said…
In scanning the NFL rosters, it appears Adam Bergen has made the roster with the Arizona Cardinals. However, I notice that Rabih Abdullah is missing. Any information on what's become of him?

-Ngineer

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.