After holding Stony Brook scoreless in the first quarter and battling back to a 24-14 deficit at halftime, Stony Brooks' 2-play, 77 yard drive where QB Joe Carbone found TE Cal Daniels for a 40 yard touchdown pass to make it 31-14. Despite a couple of second half touchdowns to keep it somewhat close, Stony Brook would add four more touchdowns in the second half to really pull away from the Mountain Hawks.
Statistically, Lehigh battled pretty hard most of the way - especially on offense, when senior WR Troy Pelletier concluded his Division I football career as gaining the most receiving yards in Patriot League history. On the day he had 10 catches for 94 yards and a terrific touchdown grab that undoubtedly caught the eyes of some NFL scouts.
Junior QB Brad Mayes (33-for-48 passing, 333 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INT) and junior RB Dominick Bragalone (75 rushing yards, 40 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD) showed that they should be a great returning duo for next season with great performances, while senior WR Gatlin Casey (11 catches, 107 yards, 1 TD) finished out his Lehigh career with a stellar performance as well.
Tune in later for a fuller recap.
Comments
Best wishes to the Defensive Coordinator in his future endeavors.
Giving up 60 points and 600 yards/game is tough to watch in the playoffs for 2 years in a row.
Players and Alum aspire to greatness...make the needed changes!
If you look at the prior two Lehigh head football coaches (Higgins & Lembo), they both moved on to bigger and better things for a reason, they were good. Andy Coen isn't going anywhere unless someone makes him because he isn't good enough for bigger and better things, not because he wants to stay (Dick Biddle as an example simply didn't want to leave Colgate). This says something about who runs your football program.
The only team he has had in his 12! years at Lehigh that had a chance at beating the nations best was the 2011 team that unfortunately had some bad luck in both playoff draw and the twitter disaster.
The program needs a young talented coach + his new coaching staff that can recruit a competitive and BALANCED football team. Yes, you might lose them in a few years because they are good, but they can have an actual impact on the long term success of program.
Unfortunately, nothing is actually going to change with the way this program is run despite the hopes of many.
..please..
The problem remains Coen's choices of defensive coaches and his priorities.
Why was it that our offense, with good academic players, could compete with anyone in FCS, but not the defense? I think any objective observer would conclude that the LU offense in 2017 could compete with ANYONE in FCS. They weren't really stopped by a great Stony Brook defense with supposed slack academic standards.
So why is it that Troy, Gatlin, Brad, Dom, Zach and the rest of that stellar OL could both have great SAT scores and also be dominant players in FCS? Is the academic thing only an issue for defensive players? Why is that? Is it a matter of a defender having to have an undisciplined, wild persona, without much cognitive ability- whereas offense requires thinking and precision?
Good topic, curious to know why it only seemed to be a factor for defense in 2017.
Hell, I'm just trying to flush out the academic issue that someone raised, in presuming the LU academic standards are way too high, and saying the LU kids are too smart to play CAA level football. I do assume our LU kids have good scores, so yes. What's your take? Is this why our defense got blasted through like butter in the majority of games this year?
Lehigh had this year and still will next year have some top FCS offensive talent on their team - but the size, speed and physicality of the rest of the team cannot compete with these tops teams in FCS.
The 2017 Lehigh team might have been able to compete in the FCS playoffs in 2000, but the top of FCS has changed in the last 5-7 years and today the FCS talent is so much faster and stronger then it was back then.
The 2017 LU offense was superior to the LU 2000 offense. By far.
The 2017 LU defense was inferior to the LU 2000 defense. By far.
The Top FCS teams always have great athletes of both sides of the ball. I haven't seen a massive shift there.