My wife, son and I came back from Villanova later in the evening after watching the 33-14 defeat to the Wildcats. The question I have now - which is the same question I had right after the game - was, what does this show us? After looking again at the stat sheets and reflecting on the game, I'm still having a hard time.
Was Lehigh blown out of the building? Not really. The Lehigh defense, as expected, did a pretty good job, especially in the first half. Senior LB Tim Diamond was a force of nature, with an interception and a strip of Villanova RB Aaron Ball which Diamond reovered and rumbled to the 1 yard line, which set up Lehigh's first touchdown. Junior LB Matt Cohen also came up big with a 4th down stop in the first half and several key stops.
But two other phases of the game -- offense and special teams -- struggled mightily against the #21 team in the nation.
Sophomore QB J.B. Clark's statline was not pretty: 20 for 44 passing, 200 yards, 1 touchdown, 4 interceptions, including one that was returned for a touchdown. Clark was running for his life a lot of the day: although the statline shows only three sacks registered by Villanova, the seven rushes for -17 yards also spoke volumes.
Senior RB Matt McGowan, who was so effective against Drake, wasn't able to get too much going with 12 rushes for 29 yards and 4 receptions for 29 yards.
Special teams, aside from not being able to break sophomore DB John Kennedy free on kickoff returns, were also allowing Villanova to really put our offense behind the 8-ball. On seven returnable kickoffs, four times we didn't make it out to the 20 yard line. Also, a fake punt on 4th-and-18 was well short of the first-down marker, giving Villanova a short field.
That led to a familiar scenario that Lehigh fans saw frequently in 2007: the offense doesn't hold onto the ball for sustained drives, while the defense is on the field way too much. 82 plays for an offense as good as Villanova's is simply catnip. "We tired their defense out. We had them running ragged," Coach Talley candidly said in the post-game press conference.
There are really two ways to look at this for Lehigh: half-empty or half-full.
The half-full view is that this is really Clark's first "start" since the Drake game wasn't really representative of a typical game situation, with J.B. asked mostly being asked to hand off to McGowan. Furthermore, he's working against one of the best teams in the nation who could very well be on their way to a CAA title. The Wildcats might be putting a lot of hurt on teams defensively this year, and it's a rough assignment for a rookie QB in his first "start" no matter how you slice it.
The half-empty view looks at what Lehigh was able to do against Villanova the past two years, and doesn't like the way things are heading. The half-empty person looks at things and says, "Two years ago we beat Villanova, and last year we might have taken that game with a few bounces. This game was never closer than two scores by the end of the first half. I remember when we used to win these games!"
Me? I take a look at that glass right now, and it's looking a lot more full than empty. "We played a very good football team today," coach Coen said first thing in the post-game press conference. "Those a people we want to compete against, and that's the type of team where we want to get to be. I hope we don't play a defensive front as talented as theirs the rest of the way." He's right, too. I think Villanova will be making more teams look bad when all is said and done.
I also saw some good things out of Clark on a tough "introduction" to FCS football against a playoff-caliber FCS team. He made some excellent reads, and had a great deep TD pass called back on a holding penalty. Give him time, the glass-half-full in me says. By the Fordham and Harvard games he'll be a completely different quarterback.
I think for the most part I see a full glass. The season is young, the defense will continue to be solid. and this team appears that they will learn the lessons of Villanova and move forward. I see it in the press conference when junior WR Mike Fitzgerald hangs his head and says things like "The defense is carrying us right now, and we've got to step up our game, make plays, put points on the board."
Yet sometimes I take backwards glances at this glass, and I see "empty". But that's a subject for tomorrow's "Word".
Was Lehigh blown out of the building? Not really. The Lehigh defense, as expected, did a pretty good job, especially in the first half. Senior LB Tim Diamond was a force of nature, with an interception and a strip of Villanova RB Aaron Ball which Diamond reovered and rumbled to the 1 yard line, which set up Lehigh's first touchdown. Junior LB Matt Cohen also came up big with a 4th down stop in the first half and several key stops.
But two other phases of the game -- offense and special teams -- struggled mightily against the #21 team in the nation.
Sophomore QB J.B. Clark's statline was not pretty: 20 for 44 passing, 200 yards, 1 touchdown, 4 interceptions, including one that was returned for a touchdown. Clark was running for his life a lot of the day: although the statline shows only three sacks registered by Villanova, the seven rushes for -17 yards also spoke volumes.
Senior RB Matt McGowan, who was so effective against Drake, wasn't able to get too much going with 12 rushes for 29 yards and 4 receptions for 29 yards.
Special teams, aside from not being able to break sophomore DB John Kennedy free on kickoff returns, were also allowing Villanova to really put our offense behind the 8-ball. On seven returnable kickoffs, four times we didn't make it out to the 20 yard line. Also, a fake punt on 4th-and-18 was well short of the first-down marker, giving Villanova a short field.
That led to a familiar scenario that Lehigh fans saw frequently in 2007: the offense doesn't hold onto the ball for sustained drives, while the defense is on the field way too much. 82 plays for an offense as good as Villanova's is simply catnip. "We tired their defense out. We had them running ragged," Coach Talley candidly said in the post-game press conference.
There are really two ways to look at this for Lehigh: half-empty or half-full.
The half-full view is that this is really Clark's first "start" since the Drake game wasn't really representative of a typical game situation, with J.B. asked mostly being asked to hand off to McGowan. Furthermore, he's working against one of the best teams in the nation who could very well be on their way to a CAA title. The Wildcats might be putting a lot of hurt on teams defensively this year, and it's a rough assignment for a rookie QB in his first "start" no matter how you slice it.
The half-empty view looks at what Lehigh was able to do against Villanova the past two years, and doesn't like the way things are heading. The half-empty person looks at things and says, "Two years ago we beat Villanova, and last year we might have taken that game with a few bounces. This game was never closer than two scores by the end of the first half. I remember when we used to win these games!"
Me? I take a look at that glass right now, and it's looking a lot more full than empty. "We played a very good football team today," coach Coen said first thing in the post-game press conference. "Those a people we want to compete against, and that's the type of team where we want to get to be. I hope we don't play a defensive front as talented as theirs the rest of the way." He's right, too. I think Villanova will be making more teams look bad when all is said and done.
I also saw some good things out of Clark on a tough "introduction" to FCS football against a playoff-caliber FCS team. He made some excellent reads, and had a great deep TD pass called back on a holding penalty. Give him time, the glass-half-full in me says. By the Fordham and Harvard games he'll be a completely different quarterback.
I think for the most part I see a full glass. The season is young, the defense will continue to be solid. and this team appears that they will learn the lessons of Villanova and move forward. I see it in the press conference when junior WR Mike Fitzgerald hangs his head and says things like "The defense is carrying us right now, and we've got to step up our game, make plays, put points on the board."
Yet sometimes I take backwards glances at this glass, and I see "empty". But that's a subject for tomorrow's "Word".
Comments
"Those are the kinds of teams we want to compete against" by the way "I hope we dont see a defense as good as that the rest of the season" "JB made some good reads" I think he needs to lay off the glass! It's one thing to give credit to your team to keep them motivated, but to make it sound that rosey and everyone else saw something different!
The AD is to complacent to tell Coen the future is now!
How does this guy have the opportunity to knock this program down to where it is and have the opportunity to see if he CAN build it up?
As for the pass protection, yes they came after him. The snack bar ladies could have told our coaches they where going to do that!
A big part of the blame is directly on the heads of the staff for not preparing our kids. Our o-line wasn't giving any size away aginst this defense.
It was very apparent this kid was not ready for this (again a coaching issue to some extent) holding on to the ball, very poor reads, running straight up and down on a QB draw, very slow feet, etc. etc.
Someone said it well in another post, thank god for the screen pass!
Coen's banking on the PL being so much easier. They watch films with the snack bar ladies and will be teeing off all day!
FUR CU
FIRST DOWNS 26 17
Rushing 16 10
Passing 9 7
Penalty 1 0
YDS RUSHING 304 159
RushAttempts 48 34
Avg Per Rush 6.3 4.7
Rushing Td's 2 3
Yds Rushing 310 179
Yards Lost
Rushing 6 20
NET YARDS PASSING
211 183Completions-Attempts-Int 15-24-0 17-21-0
Average Per
Attempt 8.8 8.7
Average Per
Completion 14.1 10.8
ToTAL OFFENSE YARDS
515 342
I see Fordham lost to PFL Dayton so the Pat League really stinks except for Holy Cross that hung with U-Mass
I think you will see this team improve week after week. They have a week to rest and will get to see Princeton in action against Citadel (can you say Coach Higgins). I say give this team and Coen a chance.
GO ENGINEERS!
Unless the alumni, concerned faculty and Trustees act we are going down fast. Did you notice we slid three spots in US News rankings