Lehigh 21, CCSU 28, Final

At the time, I didn't think this picture I took would be the story of the game. Unfortunately it was.

Tied at 21 after an ugly first half, Lehigh had only their second red zone opportunity of the game. Second and goal at the CCSU 4 yard line. Junior TE Alex Wojdowski starts the play and is wide open. Junior QB J.B. Clark hesitates, and then tries to fire it in - but CCSU DB Nick Delgado stepped in front of the outstretched arms of Wojdowski and stuffed the drive.

It would have given Lehigh their first lead of the day. It also would have negated what was an extremely sloppy first half, with an anemic offensive performance by the Mountain Hawks which was only mitigated by the fact that the Blue Devils turned over the ball twice in the red zone, and that junior DB John "Fear Itself" Kennedy turned a kickoff into a 93 yard touchdown. Also, on Lehigh's only sustained drive of the day (and I mean that), Clark found Wojdowski on a 7 yard TD strike to tie the game at 14. It was like the UFC: ugly slug. Counterpunch. Ugly slug. Counterpunch. Both locker rooms had to have been lit up with obscenity with the poor quality of play; only Lehigh's defense kept them in it.

Looking at the drive chart after the interception, the defense - who, remember, had injuries mounting on this hot day, were on the field nearly 30 minutes and were working their way down to the freshmen on the defensive depth chart - fell apart. The worst thing about the drive was that Lehigh had CCSU stuck on a 3rd and 5 - then tried to get a late personnel change while CCSU QB Hunter Wanket quickly snapped the ball. It was a 15 yard "illegal participation" penalty - which kept the drive alive and what ultimately ended with a 40 yard screen pass to CCSU WR Josue Paul for a TD. That TD would end up being the difference.

The genesis of this debacle was the offense. Clark's numbers defy belief. 7 for 29 for 122 yards, 2 TDs, 3 INTs. Take away the TD pass to the wide-open sophomore WR Jake Drwal for a 58 yard strike and you have only six more completions on the afternoon for 64 yards. There were only 18 rushes on the afternoon for a whopping 62 yards. Their longest drive of the game was four minutes, and only twice out of fourteen drives did an offensive drive go over two minutes.

As a result, the crowd was taken out of the game early. It was eerily quiet in the stands as CCSU would mount yet another drive after a Lehigh 3-and-out. The fourth quarter, Lehigh got the ball on offense for 2:12 out of a 15 minute half. There were ten incompletions, and only one first down as a result of one positive play from scrimmage. How can fans get into the game when they can't see any positive offensive progress? You can only cheer great hits and stuffs for so long.

One thing really gets my goat about this game.

I did not think that deep passing would win this game (because of CCSU's very solid secondary), and unfortunately I was right. Let's say that a steady diet of deep passing to set up everything was the gameplan; I can accept that. But why in Good Heavens would you keep going to it? Even a cursory look at CCSU would show that their great strength is running the ball, winning the time of possession game, and wearing down a defense: they were one of the top rushing teams in all of FCS last year. (And in this game, did they ever win that time of possession battle: they had possession 43 of 60 minutes in the game. Almost three straight quarters worth of CCSU offense.)

If you pass and you're not effective, all you're going to do is turn the ball back to that running offense. Did they think we would outlast them on defense, going down to the third string defenders? At the beginning of the game, you might want to establish the tone of the game as a track meet; again, I may not agree, but I can accept that. But when the tone is set and it's not how you want it, you can't just keep going to what doesn't work over and over again. When was someone going to try something different?

And what was infuriating was that on the one drive where Lehigh DID do well, they mixed up the run with junior RB Jay Campbell and junior RB Jaren Walker effectively. Why not at least try it again - just once - in the second half? At worst it might have given the defense a breather. Lehigh's running backs only had 12 rushes the entire game. CCSU's fullback had 13.

The sad thing is that Lehigh's defense played heroically. Backups like junior LB Ben Flizack and sophomore LB Devin Greene made some big stops to give Lehigh's offense a shot, and senior DT B.J. Benning, senior LB Matt Cohen, junior SS John Venerio, senior LB Heath Brickner and senior LB Tobi Showunmi had very good games. Yes, they did give up a lot of offensive yards to the Blue Devils, but considering they were on the field for 43 minutes and only gave up 28 points the effort was fairly amazing.

Give CCSU credit. They came to Lehigh to play Central Connecticut State football. And they did. Well. And Lehigh was unable - or unwilling - to play CCSU football. And as a result, Lehigh lost.

All that's left to ponder is if Lehigh will get any offensive yards against Villanova next weekend - who has one of the best defenses in all of FCS and who just uset FBS Temple this Thursday, 27-24. An 0-2 start seems likely.