LFN's 2015 Spring Preview - Offensive Line

Senior OL Matt Ford

We live in a world where we can judge the work of an offensive line by the overall output of the offense.

Gone are the days when you can look at a starters' height and weight and judge whether they will be a great Patriot League player, or not. And at Lehigh, especially, the bar is particularly high for offensive linemen, with OL Will Rackley making the NFL, and players like OL Ned Daryoush, OL Keith Schauder and countless other all-Patriot League offensive linemen to provide the protection and push to keep drives alive and allow the skill players to make things happen.

Yet last year's statistics, overall show again that, as a unit, this team too needs to improve.

Chip Kelly's Oregon teams averaged 82 offensive plays per game, which allowed the Ducks to become a perennial Pac-12 powerhouse while he was there. By this admittedly high standard, Lehigh's 70 offensive plays a game falls short.

Some statistics that show signs that Lehigh's offensive line did a good job in 2014 - like 4th down conversions (24th in the nation) and rushing offense (58th). But one thing's for certain - this unit, with four returning starters, will need to make one more leap to the next level if Lehigh is to compete for Patriot League championships once again.

One of the things that has to keep Andy Coen and offensive line coach Brett Sawyer up at night is how many healthy linemen they'll have to conduct the spring session.

With junior OL Zach Duffy and junior OL Brandon Short held out during the spring to recover from injuries, it's going to be a challenge to get a squad together if anyone else on the 51 man spring roster gets dinged up.

Fortunately for Coen and Sawyer, though, the offensive line's talent level across the board is fairly solid, and deep.

In 2015 Lehigh will undoubtedly be looking for the seniors on the O line, senior OL Matt Ford, senior OL Matthew Cohen, senior OL Stephen Camasta and senior OL Ryan James to be a huge part of the Mountain Hawks' offensive output.

Ford was an 11 game starter in 2014, and Cohen played in all 11 games, starting in eight of them.

Camasta was pressed into service when Short went out for the year, starting at center in the last four games of the season, while James also started in four games as well and played a lot of positions along the line.

One of their most important jobs this spring? Protecting junior QB Nick Shafnisky, who will be attending practices but not throwing, according to Keith Groller of The Morning Call.

"Nick will still be out there with us," Coen told him. "We just wanted to shut him down throwing-wise this spring. I'd love to have him out there going full bore, but we have to be smart about it and make sure he's ready to go in August."

All the dings on the offensive line mean that sophomore OL Tim O'Hara and junior OL Evan Sweeney should get a lot of reps this spring to develop depth along the "O" line, which will be something to watch this spring as well.

LFN's unofficial guess at the spring depth chart:

1st: Senior OT Matt Ford, Junior G Micah Tennant, Senior C Stephen Camasta, Senior OL Ryan James, Senior OT Matt Cohen
2nd: Sophomore OL Tim O'Hara, Junior OL Evan Sweeney

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

UMass 21, Lafayette 14, halftime

Are you watching this game? UMass had this game under control until about 3 minutes in the second quarter, and then got an interception, converted for a TD. Then the Leopards forced a fumble off the return, and then converted THAT for a TD, making this a game. It's on CN8. You really should be watching this.

Examining A Figure Skating Rivalry: Tonya and Nancy

It must be very hard for a millennial to understand the fuss around the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding figure skating scandal in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics. If you're of a certain age, though - whether you're a figure skating fan or not, and I am decidedly no fan of figure skating - the Shakespearean story of Harding and Kerrigan still engages, and still grabs peoples' attention, twenty years later. Why, though? Why, twenty years later, in a sport I care little, does the story still grab me? Why did I spend time out of my life watching dueling NBC and ESPN documentaries on the subject, and Google multiple stories about Jeff Gilooly , idiot "bodyguards", and the whole sordid affair? I think it's because the story, even twenty years later, is like opium. The addictive story, even now, has everything. Everything. The woman that fought for everything, perhaps crossing over to the dark side to get her chance at Olypic Gold, vs. the woman who

Lehigh Football Nation

Search This Blog