Where to begin?
I'm tossed. Part of me wants to lay into Lehigh's inability to tackle today, and their inability to stop 3rd down conversions. Letting the Leopards drop 49 points on us is something that is incredibly disappointing, with an eye-popping 6-for-6 in the red zone. Not to mention the 466 yards of offense. It was a bad day for us in "The Rivalry" defensively, to put it mildly. I can't remember a day when our defense got such a butt-whoopin'. 1994 leaps to mind - of course, that was the last time Lafayette pounded us in Fisher by scoring more than 40 points. (That game was 54-20.)
Yet, it wasn't 1994. The team didn't simply turn over and play dead down 28-7. They came all the way back and rode the momentum back to 28-27. The team battled back, and that shouldn't be forgotten. Midway through the 3rd quarter, we all had serious hope. There is no doubt about that.
But that was the end of the line. In crunch time, the offense didn't make plays to keep up in the track meet, and the defense, well, was a matador. You don't win many games forcing only 4 incompletions all game while yielding almost 5 yards a carry and trying to arm-tackle 220 pound backs.
Losing to Lafayette is becoming depressingly familiar, and it was clear who the better team was out there. Hint: it wasn't the Brown and White.
There were heroic performances on Lehigh's side that should not go unnoticed. WR Frank "Al Del Greco" Trovato had a great game. QB Sedale Threatt, overall, had a very good day in spots. NT Eric Rakus came out spirited and played like a champion out there. RB Josh Pastore did yeoman's work out there returning kicks. If you look at the drives where we did well, the "O" line made some fantastic holes.
But something keeps rattling inside my head: "YALE". The same inconsistency that was present in the Yale game ultimately reared its ugly head in the most important game of the year. The similarities with both games are eerie. Stomping on the logo and saying, "Our House". Being annihlated off both lines of scrimmage. The only difference was that Lafayette's Brad Maurer is a better QB than Yale's QB Matt Polhemus and they were able to take control in the 3rd quarter and stomp on our throats.
I will hand it to Lafayette - they are a good team. Coach Tavani had their guys ready to play. They executed and made fewer mistakes. They studied the film, knew how to exploit our defense and did so. They were clearly better than us on this day, and our goal in this long offseason really needs to be how to catch them.
Yep, I can't believe I typed it, but there it is. We've lost three straight to Lafayette. I've got some news: We're no longer the hunted. The sooner we realize that we now have to be the hunter, the better off we'll be.
The I-AA Bracket
It' sort of anticlimactic, but I also wanted to put my predictions for tomorrow's I-AA playoff bracket. Lafayette wins the autobid from the Patriot, and my projection is that they will be playing in Amherst next weekend. I don't know if they'll be able to handle mighty UMass, but I think they will get the opportunity to find out.
Coastal Carolina at #1 Appalachian State
Eastern Illinois at Illinois State
Lafayette at #2 UMass
Portland State at Furman
Southern Illinois at #3 Montana
Tennessee-Martin at McNeese State
New Hampshire at #4 Youngstown State
Hampton at James Madison
I'm tossed. Part of me wants to lay into Lehigh's inability to tackle today, and their inability to stop 3rd down conversions. Letting the Leopards drop 49 points on us is something that is incredibly disappointing, with an eye-popping 6-for-6 in the red zone. Not to mention the 466 yards of offense. It was a bad day for us in "The Rivalry" defensively, to put it mildly. I can't remember a day when our defense got such a butt-whoopin'. 1994 leaps to mind - of course, that was the last time Lafayette pounded us in Fisher by scoring more than 40 points. (That game was 54-20.)
Yet, it wasn't 1994. The team didn't simply turn over and play dead down 28-7. They came all the way back and rode the momentum back to 28-27. The team battled back, and that shouldn't be forgotten. Midway through the 3rd quarter, we all had serious hope. There is no doubt about that.
But that was the end of the line. In crunch time, the offense didn't make plays to keep up in the track meet, and the defense, well, was a matador. You don't win many games forcing only 4 incompletions all game while yielding almost 5 yards a carry and trying to arm-tackle 220 pound backs.
Losing to Lafayette is becoming depressingly familiar, and it was clear who the better team was out there. Hint: it wasn't the Brown and White.
There were heroic performances on Lehigh's side that should not go unnoticed. WR Frank "Al Del Greco" Trovato had a great game. QB Sedale Threatt, overall, had a very good day in spots. NT Eric Rakus came out spirited and played like a champion out there. RB Josh Pastore did yeoman's work out there returning kicks. If you look at the drives where we did well, the "O" line made some fantastic holes.
But something keeps rattling inside my head: "YALE". The same inconsistency that was present in the Yale game ultimately reared its ugly head in the most important game of the year. The similarities with both games are eerie. Stomping on the logo and saying, "Our House". Being annihlated off both lines of scrimmage. The only difference was that Lafayette's Brad Maurer is a better QB than Yale's QB Matt Polhemus and they were able to take control in the 3rd quarter and stomp on our throats.
I will hand it to Lafayette - they are a good team. Coach Tavani had their guys ready to play. They executed and made fewer mistakes. They studied the film, knew how to exploit our defense and did so. They were clearly better than us on this day, and our goal in this long offseason really needs to be how to catch them.
Yep, I can't believe I typed it, but there it is. We've lost three straight to Lafayette. I've got some news: We're no longer the hunted. The sooner we realize that we now have to be the hunter, the better off we'll be.
The I-AA Bracket
It' sort of anticlimactic, but I also wanted to put my predictions for tomorrow's I-AA playoff bracket. Lafayette wins the autobid from the Patriot, and my projection is that they will be playing in Amherst next weekend. I don't know if they'll be able to handle mighty UMass, but I think they will get the opportunity to find out.
Coastal Carolina at #1 Appalachian State
Eastern Illinois at Illinois State
Lafayette at #2 UMass
Portland State at Furman
Southern Illinois at #3 Montana
Tennessee-Martin at McNeese State
New Hampshire at #4 Youngstown State
Hampton at James Madison
Comments
Negatives: Mistakes in bad places, poor tackling, giving up too much room on pass coverage, Threatt trying to do too much.
Lafayette: Proved it had better coaching staff and key players again. Not often a guy can go 20 of 24 in the air.
How it lost five in a row is beyond me.
Our defense was completely dominated and the decision making by the coaching staff was questionable. No pressure on the QB and all those 3rd and long conversions, where were the adjustments? Was Lafayette that much better?
Some things are obvious, we need to big bigger on the OL and DL. We can't compete with teams that are bigger and stronger and have a bruiser in the backfield. We have many great athletes buy you can't teach size.
After this year recruiting will be a problem, especially in the Lehigh Valley and surrounding areas. Not sure where we go from here but next year doesn't look too promising.
How is Lafayette only 6-5? They were bigger and better than any opponent I saw (Lafayette,all the home games plus Villanova on TV).
All this carping about Sedale is unwarranted. He is a good quarterback and leader. I, for one, is glad he is the QB.
The Lehigh D only stopped Lafayette on two occasions, once on a forced fumble (Mauer's was unforced) and the other on a punt.
That all being said, Lafayette let Lehigh hang around until it was 28-27. It should have been 35-14 going into half but it was 28-21.
All of the mo' was going Lehigh's way until the DOINK heard round the world.
For some reason, the missed extra point took all of the juice out of a potential stunning comeback.
I'll give Lehigh some credit for the comeback but we all know who was the dominant team out there.
Tavani just knows how to win this game.
Now we wait to see who Lafayette is the sacraficial lamb for.
When you have a running back that can burn the defense like Hurt did today, you have to give up something to stop him, and that was the safety brought into the box, thus leaving the middle of the field wide open all day long.
And please, will some other richer school hire Tavani away? Lehigh will never beat Lafayette while this guy is over there. Just looking at the guy irritates me, but he's so much more clever than both Lembo and Coen. He actually pays attention to game film.
How the hell are the Lehigh players so stupid to stomp on the Lafayette logo and declare this to be "their house?" No matter what their intentions are, they have to know that is going to insense the other team. Even if you went into the game thinking that the teams were evenly matched or even a little tilted towards Lehigh, why the hell would you want to give Lafayette anything else to get infuriated about?
Just another moronic device from the Lehigh, we don't give respect to any team, playbook.
Whomever thought they should do that should be disciplined, whether it is player (cut) or coach (fired).
This is B.S. I was watching this specifically because some of the recent incidents at other games. They did not stomp on the L in the middle of the field after warmups. The huddled around the 40 yardline well away from the L. Anyone saying they did so is flat out lying.
OL and DL got dominated by bigger stronger Lafayette guys. Not much you can say. Need bigger guys.
Not enough fire coming from the DBs and LBs. Lehigh is just not that talented in those areas, but emotion can overcome a lot. None apparent yesterday. Overall, the team needs to stop the logo nonsense and start stomping some opponents in the 4th quarter. Classless exhibition yesterday, and not what LU is about. Leave that to the Towson's of the world.
Here's hoping that Coen learns his lessons well in the offseason.
As for the team, the running game struggled because the OL is better skilled at pass blocking, a leftover from the Lembo era of pass-pass-pass and occasionally run outside to keep the linebackers honest, then pass some more. The blockers must pick up a whole new skill set, and obviously they are still having troubles doing so at a level to handle a large line like Laf's. Next year will be better with more experience and practice.
Threatt was good, came out in his zone, better than in prior games and not trying to take the world on his shoulders. The receivers were better than I expected (Thomas and especially Trovato showed their talent, and Fitzgerald has a future with this team). Must remember taht laf's secondary is quick if not particularly skilled, and can often get to the ball faster than our receivers (case in opint - the interception that ended the game with 2 minutes remaining).
I like the 3-4 defense for one reason: it's so hard at this level to recruit competent DLs. You're lucky anymore to get three good bodies out there. Lehi has Rakus and then a big dropoff in performance (recognizing that Morgan isn't the same since his injury and is playing on sheer guts and know-how).
No, my complaints are with the LBs, who did nothing as a group to show me that they were quality 1-AA players - much too flat-footed and slow to react to a speedback like White or a shifty runner like Hurt. The DBs were inconsistent - Austin made some great plays but also a couple of misses.
Not upset with the sets - Dennis K. is a smart fellow and is doing the best he can with less-than-perfect material. I saw yesterday a significant difference in natural talent between the offense and defense - an ugly reminder of the Hank Small era. That's why, in my opinion, we can score 4 touchdown and still get decisively beaten.
Coen is stuck with what he inherited on this team; all his coaches can do is try to get the best out of the material they were handed and recruit like mad to get some better players in here.
And for you Lembo fans --- 10-49 yesterday is worse than 27-49.
And as far as Sedale goes, the guy has a serious case of happy feet out there. Someone needs to teach this guy how to look for this secondary and tertiary options before he takes off running.
Unlike most of you I'm not all that excited about next year or even the year after. Because Lehigh took so damn long to name Coen as coach they pretty much threw away their 2010 recruiting class. This Spring is when Andy will finally get to select the guys he really wants instead of picking from the letovers.
"Was at the game, putting up with the usual obnoxious behavior by Laf students. Their alumni were much better behaved than usual, perhaps because they weren't there in high numbers - I counted more Lehi alums outside the 30-yard lines".
A little bitter are ya, pal? Counting alumni? I guess you couldn't bear to watch what was happening on the field.
"Coen is stuck with what he inherited on this team; all his coaches can do is try to get the best out of the material they were handed and recruit like mad to get some better players in here".
Yeah, that's some "strong alumni support". I'm sure the kids appreciate it.
Several classy LU fans left congratulatory comments on the LC board. They were appreciated. Unfortunately, the image LC alums have of Lehigh "fans" is that of pompous, front running, sense of entitlement, sore loser types like you.
If you had any idea about the game of football, you would have immediately realized that the reason Andy didn't go for it on 4th and 1 at the 48ish, is that he had no confidence in the defense. Make no mistake, I thought he should have gone for, but when your defense can't put in a stop, it becomes very risky to turn the ball over in your own territory.
this isnt the Colts or some great offense. Picking up 4th and 1 is no garentee. Lafayette's DL was much better than our OL so therefore Lehigh would prolly of had to throw for it. Coen made the correct call by punting. The defense got them in 3rd and longs (3rd and 13 i think on that drive), just Mauer and crew converted.