Lehigh Football Nation

The term "control of your playoff destiny" is thrown around a lot. The 3-6 Mountain Hawks were in control of their destiny this weekend.  Win against Holy Cross, and Lehigh will stay alive for no worse than a co-Patriot League Championship and possibly a ticket to the FCS Playoffs. By the time the clock hit triple zero's, the Mountain Hawks did what they had to do, beating the Crusaders 34-21, and keeping destiny in their own hands with one more regular season game to go - the 153rd meeting of The Rivalry next weekend vs. Lafayette. Junior RB Dominick Bragalone carried the offense on his back with 30 carries for 205 yards and 4 touchdowns, but he and the offense fed off the energy of  some big Lehigh defensive and special teams plays.  Once Lehigh went up 14-0,  Holy Cross would never get any closer than a touchdown.

Not headed to the the frozen tundra at Murray Goodman Stadium to catch the critical Holy Cross/Lehigh game? Why?  THIS IS IT, FOLKS.  This is one to catch in person. Yeah, I know it's going to be cold.  Yeah, I know that life is busy.  But it's a home game, it's win, and stay alive for a Patriot League Championship.  It's a big game; there's no doubt about it.  You need to be there for big games.  Future generations of your family are counting on you to say that "I was there on that freezing cold day at Murray Goodman". So after that sales pitch, you still can't make it, and still want to know how to you catch the game? Never fear.  LFN's here.

We break down the Holy Cross game - and we give our fearless prediction below the flip. The old Forrest Gump saying that seems particularly apt about this matchup this weekend is: "Life is like a box of chocolates.  You don't know what you're going to get." So as it goes with Holy Cross, whose offensive outputs in every game this year have been: 20, 20, 51, 26, 7, 36, 0, 7, 24, and 42. Three games scoring less than 10 points; three games scoring more than 30 points, and four games scoring between 20 and 29 points - that defines inconsistency. In their high-scoring games, the ingredient that has seemed to help Holy Cross score points in bunches are the same thing that helped Lehigh so much this week: turnovers. In Holy Cross' two most impressive wins - against New Hampshire and against Fordham - in both games, the sequence "Holy Cross touchdown, get ball back after a turnover, Holy Cross touchdown" played a huge part in their wins.  Once they ...

Holy Cross' and Lehigh's paths to having fun playing football have been different, but two teams that appear to have reclaimed the fun to some degree will be facing off this weekend at Murray Goodman Stadium in an intriguing, important football game. The 4-6 Crusaders have only one path to a Patriot League co-championship: beat 3-6 Lehigh this weekend, and hope 3-6 Lafayette and 5-4 Colgate lose at least one game the rest of the way. But in Holy Cross' regular-season finale, it doesn't really feel like it's about the postseason - which would only happen in the unlikely event of Lehigh and Holy Cross finishing at 4-2, and Lafayette and Colgate finishing at 3-3 in league play. For Lehigh, though, the Patriot League Championship and the opportunity to play in the FCS Playoffs is still very much in play.  Beat Holy Cross, and beat Lafayette in the 153rd meeting of The Rivalry, and this Mountain Hawk team will have a ring fitting in their future and a football pr...

After the Bucknell victory, senior OL Zach Duffy said something that cut through the entire 2017 Lehigh football season. "We have 14 days to stay locked in and do whatever it takes to win another championship," he said to the team. And it's true.  It really doesn't matter what happened Week One, Week Five, or even last week.  When this Mountain Hawk team goes to bed, and wakes up again during the next six days, they are in the Patriot League Championship race.  If they win, and stay locked in for the next fourteen days and win two football games, they will win the Patriot League. It will require being locked in for fourteen days.