1 week Ago
Lehigh came into Saturday’s home Patriot League football game against Colgate having established itself as a run-oriented team. The Mountain Hawks had 625 more yards on the ground than in the air and also had 199 more carries than pass attempts. But the program that was largely known as Air Lehigh through its 12 Patriot League championship seasons between 1993 and 2017 quickly showed against the Raiders that it still knows how to throw the ball.
On the first play from scrimmage, first-year quarterback Hayden Johnson hit Geoffrey Jamiel for a 36-yard completion. Those two would hook up seven times overall for 125 yards and two touchdowns and for one day Air Lehigh regained its wings in an impressive 45-17 win that sets up quite a Saturday next weekend at Goodman Stadium. If Lehigh, now 7-3 overall and 4-1 league after going 2-9 each of the past two seasons, can beat rival Lafayette in the 160th edition of college football’s most-played rivalry, it would give the Mountain Hawks the league championship and a Football Championship Subdivision playoff berth for the first time since 2017.
The Leopards, however, also won Saturday, beating Stonehill 42-10 in Easton in a nonleague game and would like nothing more than to spoil Lehigh’s Patriotic plans. Lehigh won its fourth straight game and got some help from Holy Cross, which rallied to beat Bucknell 40-38. That means Lehigh is now tied with the Crusaders atop the league at 4-1 apiece but the Mountain Hawks hold the tiebreaker by virtue of last week’s 10-7 victory in Massachusetts.
In that one, Lehigh ran the ball 45 times and threw it just 10 times. Saturday’s offensive numbers were again run-dominant — 35 rushes and 21 passes. But Johnson, a highly-touted recruit from PIAA District 3 powerhouse Manheim Township, continued to show progress in his first season at the collegiate level and threw for a career-high 204 yards and three scores.
“The preparation this whole week helped,” Johnson said. “We’re batting injuries in the QB room, but we stayed strong, stuck with the game plan, and the O-line was obviously getting a big push up front and the receivers were getting open.” Johnson was an efficient 16-for-21 passing, taking just one sack.
In addition to hitting Jamiel for two scores, he connected on a post pattern to Mason Humphrey for a 19-yard touchdown to start a big second half in which Lehigh scored 28 points. Johnson has received outstanding tutelage from fifth-year player Dante Perri, who has started most of Lehigh’s games. The two work well together according to coach Kevin Cahill and Johnson is beginning to flourish.
“Obviously, I was a little shaky in the beginning of the season just trying to get used to college and this style of play under my belt,” Johnson said. “But the guys around me have just helped me every day doing things right. It was a big jump, but obviously everyone around me supported me.
” “Hayden is always texting me and sending me video clips,” Jamiel said. “We talk about ‘if we see this coverage, we need to do this’ and it’s really just that chemistry and it’s the extra work that Hayden puts in to build with the receivers. Today we got some of the coverages that we were talking about during the week and we just capitalized on them.
” Cahill and offensive coordinator Dan Hunt, the former Colgate coach who got to beat his old team for the first time, have a good feel for calling the right play at the right time. The ground game certainly wasn’t abandoned as first-year player Jaden Green ran for 103 yards and a TD run and Luke Yoder and Aaron Crossley added TD runs. Crossley’s score was a spectacular 84-yard race to the end zone that closed the scoring with 1:01 left.
Yoder and Crossley finished with 83 and 84 yards respectively and Lehigh totaled 271 on the ground. A balanced attack will be needed to keep the momentum going against Lafayette and possibly beyond. The defense will need to remain strong against a Lafayette team that racked up 484 yards on offense against Stonehill and got three TDs from Jamar Curtis — two rushing, one receiving.
QB Dean DeNobile was 18 for 24 passing for 275 yards. The Leopards (6-5, 2-3) took a 21-0 first-quarter lead and never looked back. In keeping with the one-day-at-a-time mentality that Cahill has instilled in the program, Lehigh didn’t particularly want to talk about Lafayette so soon after routing Colgate.
“Obviously, it’s a big game and you come here to play in that game,” Cahill said. “You are part of this program to play in that game. And we’ll focus on it and talk about it.
But we’ve also got to enjoy our victories. You know you put a lot of work in all week long to have the kind of result we had today. So, I want to tell the kids to enjoy it and celebrate in every way they want to.
And then let’s get back to work tomorrow.” Colgate 3 – 0 – 0 – 14 —17 Lehigh 7 – 10 – 14 – 7 — 38 FIRST QUARTER L: Luke Yoder 1 run (Nick Garrido kick), 12:51 (4 plays, 60 yards, 2:00) C: Luke Vogeler 25 field goal, 5:40 (14 plays, 60 yards, 7:04) SECOND QUARTER L: Nick Garrrido 37 field goal, 12:27 (15 plays, 51 yards, 8:07) L: Geoffrey Jamiel 7 pass from Hayden Johnson (Garrido kick), 2:24 (11 plays, 49 yards, 6:26) THIRD QUARTER L: Mason Humphrey 19 pass from Hayden Johnson (Garrido kick), 10:40 (5 plays, 68 yards, 2:26) L: Jaden Green 33 run (Garrido kick), 1:20 (8 plays, 80 yards, 5:02) FOURTH QUARTER C: Treyvhon Saunders 33 pass from Jake Stearney (Vogeler kick), 11:26 (10 plays, 75 yards, 4:54) L: Jamiel 51 pass from Johnson (Garrido kick) 7:05 (8 plays, 78 yards, 4:14) C: William Parker 8 pass from Stearney (Vogeler kick), 2:03 (15 plays, 75 yards, 5:02) L: Aaron Crossley 84 run (Canaan Kimball kick), 1:01 (3 plays, 75 yards, 1:02).
