Skip to main content

Sunday's Word: Trust

Well, kids, this weekend we didn't only learn coach Coen's message to the team this week, we also learned about the strange world of I-AA football.

Coach Coen's pregame speech this Saturday involved trust. Trust in each other, trust in the program, trust in the coaching staff and everything will turn out alright. Awfully hard to argue against it last week. As a result, Lehigh got the sort of big-ticket win they have been looking for with a 31-28 win over Villanova, where a lot of kids did a lot of things right. It was far from perfect, but coming back from three deficits and coming on top showed a lot. A lot. The CN8 announcers were thinking Villanova would blow them out midway through the second quarter - Lehigh proved them wrong.

Elsewhere around I-AA, we also learned to trust that it's early in the year, and strange things happen in college football.

Fordham, who looked so bad against Monmouth in Week 1, turned around and beat Albany, who beat us last week. (No team needed that win more last weekend than Fordham.)

Most folks thought I-A Northwestern would pound the A-10 favorite, New Hampshire, this weekend. UNH didn't just beat the Big 10 school, they CRUSHED them, 34-17.

Montana State, who shocked I-A Colorado of the Big 12 last week, then inexplicably failed to show up against D-II Chadron State, losing 35-24. Of the (I think unprecedented) eight I-AA schools that lost against D-II competition, the other shocker was Northern Iowa getting upended by D-II North Dakota 35-31 as well.

If you add to this mix Monmouth's decisive win over full-scholarship Morgan State of the MEAC 26-9, and Central Connecticut State's shock win at Georgia Southern 17-13, and you begin to see that nobody is safe from an upset. You tend to forget about an upset to Albany when you see two Top 10 teams losing to D-II schools, and another Top 25 school beaten by a NEC team offering just about the same number of scholarships.

The story in I-AA is that scholarships don't matter. You have to come to play every week, or you'll be next. Don't look at D-II or NEC teams and say they're inferior. They're not. They can and will beat you. Trust that every week, you have to come to play.

For Lehigh, the key is to continue to improve and not let the Albany game impact anything. Next week is Princeton, and undoubtedly you will discover, like I have, that this is an excellent team that beat Lafayette last year and has the talent to not only win the Ivy but to beat Lehigh off the line physically as well. They will be a new challenge next week. The trick will be to not get such a big head after Villanova that they make Princeton next week into, if you will, Chadron State.

If we're to win championships, we've got to look even better next week against Princeton. Celebration time for the Villanova game is over. Preparation for Princeton begins now.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Amen Brother, Amen!
Anonymous said…
I'll drink to that!!!!

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.