Skip to main content

Mountain Hawks Crushed Under James Madison Tidal Wave, 55-17

It was still very much a game after the first quarter.

After James Madison took their opening drive and drove 72 yards in 8 plays to go up 7-0, Lehigh responded with a perfectly-executed pass from junior QB Nick Shafnisky to freshman RB Dominic Bragalone over the middle, where the speedy running back from South Williamsport, PA showed a burst of speed, outracing the entire James Madison secondary to tie the game at seven.

They absorbed the Dukes' first wave of offense, and showed a sign that they might be able to get into a shootout with James Madison.

But in short order, the Dukes offense, pelting the Lehigh defense in waves, proved to be overwhelming.

Buoyed by 334 yards passing by QB Vad Lee, 286 yards rushing by a bevy of backs and a big special teams play converted into a touchdown, the Dukes scored 31 unanswered points in about a 14 minute span in the second quarter to overwhelm the Mountain Hawks.


"It really went awry for us in the second quarter," head coach Andy Coen said afterwards.  "We were pretty competitive at that point in time. Throughout the course of the game we didn't do a good job getting the Dukes off the field on third downs and we didn't convert third downs and that's not the right remedy."

For the game, James Madison converted 7 of 12 on 3rd downs, executing their first punt with 2:02 left in the third quarter up 45-17.

An early fumble recovered by sophomore DE Tyler Cavenas, wrestling the ball in Lehigh's favor at the bottom of the pile after Lee was stripped by junior LB Joe Barrett.

But an incredibly athletic play by CB Curtis Oliver to tip, then nab, the interception on the ensuing drive stopped any chance that Lehigh might have to build a head of steam after the turnover.

Then the Dukes kept coming in waves.

Big receptions from TE Dean Cheatham (8 catches, 118 yards), huge runs and receptions from RB Cardon Johnson (105 all-purpose yards, 3 TDs), and, of course, some big plays by Vad Lee (50 yards rushing, 334 yards passing) pounded Lehigh's defense on drive after drive.

As the waves hit, Lehigh defenders kept getting knocked out of the game.  Barrett, who forced the fumble, went out with an injury.  So did Cavenas, who recovered the fumble.

Then when things felt like they couldn't get worse, they did, after senior P Austin Devine fumbled the ball on a punt attempt, which was recovered by JMU's Rashad Robertson, who converted his miscue into a back-breaking touchdown to make it 24-7.

"I really don't think we put our best foot forward," Coen said. "We had the punt issue where the punter drops the ball and didn't get it kicked and it wound up being a touchdown.  We're a very young football team. I think we have 56 players who are freshmen or sophomores. A lot of them are getting an opportunity to play at a young age and that's a tough thing to do. When the bigger, faster, stronger team is there it's hard to beat that team and that's what happened today."

Youth wasn't the explanation for the missed tackles that consistently led to JMU scores, though.

"You have to tackle them and that's really all you can do," Coen said. "We didn't tackle very well today. I was disappointed in that. We had too many players lunging and diving instead of breaking down and executing the tackle the way it should be. That's something we have to improve ourselves upon."

There was evidence of some fight in this Lehigh team, especially scoring a touchdown at the end of the first half to sophomore WR Troy Pelletier, and the first possession of the second half, which was converted into a field goal by freshman PK Ed Mish.

But James Madison head coach Everett Withers didn't elect to call off the dogs, keeping his starters coming in waves well after the outcome of the game was not in doubt.

After two more scores would make James Madison go up 48-17, Withers would elect to execute an onsides kick, which JMU recovered, choosing to keep the waves coming despite being up 31 points early in the 4th quarter.

And yet even then Lehigh couldn't stop the JMU offense, yielding the Dukes' final touchdown on the ensuing drive.

James Madison provided a yardstick for Lehigh's team to show where they stand right now in the world of FCS.  They showed that the Mountain Hawks have a lot more work to do to get to where they want to be.  They need to figure out how to stop, or at least slow down, the waves.

Live On-Demand Video Link on Madizone.Com of Lehigh/JMU Game

Comments

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.