Colgate

[LUFAN]

This is a poor effort in every respect.

Does anybody on the field or sideline care?

Lehigh can’t blame Gilmore forever.

Not forever, but certainly can this year. 3/4 of the team spent three years in a less-than-ideal cultural environment under Gilmore.

So far, I don't think the current coaching staff has proven itself any better than Gilmore and his team. And the new staff has contributed to at two losses....Fordham and Holy Cross.

I have stated on this forum that I was not fond of the Coordinator choices at all. Neither brings a new, innovative approach to their side of the ball. That said, culture is still lacking, and you saw that yesterday.

Tom Gilmore molded this disaster, and fixing it is not a 1-year project.

Is Cahill the man for the job? Certainly not my first choice.

[LU808]

IMO - Too early in the Engineer remake to pass judgement and issue grades...give this team a couple of recruitment and coaching cycles.

[HFO]

Sterrett has to go at AD. Still hanging around in some form of transition period which could end up being years.
They need to do a nationwide search with an AD with bigtime experience in football, basketball and wrestling. These are the revenue sports for Lehigh.

I suppose Cahill has a 5 year contract so he is here. Has to upgrade talent level and dominate FCS recruiting in NJ, NY, NJ, MD/DC. The FBS will get best. Lehigh has to compete to get the best of FCS recruits. The more players from high school teams who played for State Championships the better. We need players used to winning it all.

The coaching has been lackluster at position level and at HC and OC level. DC seems to be more together, but not enough talent or ability for a rotation of defensive line.

It will be a miracle if Lehigh is within 3 TD of Lafayette which is firing on all cyclinders.

On we go, Lehigh is degrading as an institution under Simon and now our own alumni Heible.

[RichH]

IMO - Too early in the Engineer remake to pass judgement and issue grades...give this team a couple of recruitment and coaching cycles.

+1

[Go Lehigh TU Owl]

There is talent on this team which is why they have been competitive in the majority of their games. Lehigh stood toe to toe physically (all things considered) with Holy Cross last week. The same HC team who was in a 60 minute game of gridiron trench warfare with Army yesterday. The showed the athleticism to give Fordham trouble. However, the lack of development on offense, Silbor looking very much like a "Hunt product", the no-shows/clear lack of preparation against Cornell and Colgate to start the game, and general lack of consistency/formation of an identity is concerning.

I'm not buying this team is devoid of talent. The schedule was very modest this year, easier than any schedule Gilmore faced imo, and they're staring at 2-9. When with just better cohesion there's 3 more wins to be had ala like last year under Gilmore. I actually give credit to Gilmore/ "Former LU Coach" for bringing in some talent that is capable of competing in the PL. However, the players are still trying to figure out how to win.

The staff is without question an odd construction. It just is, you have two former head coaches as coordinators and a first timer running the show. First, the two coordinators have "interesting" histories that are consistent with peaks and valleys. Not only that, once a head coach, always a head coach. They will look at things differently no matter how much desire there is to approach their responsibilities as someone who has only been an assistant. There's just a lot of moving pieces with how this staff was setup when cohesion/continuity is critical from the start.

I'm not here proclaiming doom and gloom but at times you do need to remove the brown and white/company line of excuses to see what's going on. There is a CLEAR track record, something worthy of further investigation, of quality head coaches/staff succeeding in year two; Biddle, Moorhead, Troxell, Chesney, Higgins, Gadd (Bucknell's only PL Title, 1996 came in his year 2). Troxell took over a program that hadn't had a winning record in 13 years, 13 years(!), and will likely celebrate the program's first 9 win season in over 40 years (!) and a trip to the FCS playoffs on Lehigh's home turf next Saturday. Can Lehigh win? As one figures it to be a relatively competitive game ala Fordham and HC, I think they absolutely have the players to win (they outplayed Laffy last year!). But will Lehigh win? The odds clearly say no.....

IIRC, won't the next two rivalry games be in Easton? Troxell has something cooking. Pards are well positioned to take over for HC by going on their own little run...

[ngineer]

Lehigh has never been a school that has made athletics a priority both in its budget and brand. Hiring a “big time AD” to come in and create a big revenue stream is hallucinatory. This is not the SEC or BIG Ten. Athletics has been and always will be a complementary aspect of of the school’s mission. Sounds to me that some would like to downgrade by eliminating some sports in order to funnel more funds to wrestling, football and basketball.

As far as the state of football, I was at Colgate, and Cahill was visibly upset with mistakes and lack of juice. Disconcerting given how hard they played Fordham and Holy Cross. They have shown the ability to play with most opponents. When you come into a situation in flux there are going to ebbs and flows as the coaches sift through the various players that have gone through this change. Lehigh’s loss at Colgate was more mental than physical. I am looking for this team to come out firing on both sides on Saturday. I expect Perri to play as Silbor’s injury appeared serious enough to require some rehab. Wouldn’t it be great for him, in his senior year, to have great final act and lead his team to a huge upset knocking the Laughyette Leotards out of the title and playoffs!

[jimk72]

So lets have some patience with Kahill. My freshman year (fall of 1968) Fred Dunlap was expected to get fired at season's end. How bad was it? How about two wins in three season since his hiring in 1965! Going into the Lafayette game 0f 68' we were 2-7 with wins over Drexel & Gettysburg, both of which were true cupcakes. In what turned out to be an almost magical season ending game, we stunned The Purple Pussies 21-6.

I don't recall much after the game except being half stew and watching any ugly brawl as both Lafayette and Lehigh students fought over the wooden goal posts. Ah, the "good" old days. But the game saved Dunlap's job. He went on to eight more reasonably successful seasons before returning to his alma mater. But the foundation had been built which led to perhaps the most successful era of Lehigh football with Whitehead, Small, Higgins, and Lembo.

I don't know if he'll get as much slack as Dunlap, but lets all relax and give Kahill time to turn this around.

[Richb-3]

I thought 1968 was the year we had a 24-6 lead over Gettysburg. with 5 minutes to go and lost 26-24, no one was looking for the onside after G-Burg narrowed the gap to 24-13. Drexel was indeed the win in the first game, but I know not the second win.

[Go Lehigh TU Owl]

Dunlap spoke to the Colgate team this season prior to the Raiders win over rival Cornell. His speech came on the heels of a rather "unique" email current head coach Stan Dakosty sent to alums/fans/former players knowing Colgate's performance had been subpar. I have tremendous respect for Dunlap's influence at both Lehigh and Colgate!

With that said, Lehigh did close 1968 with a win over Lafayette which naturally created some positive mojo heading into next year. The point is, without that positive conclusion to the season, 2-9 against a pretty easy schedule and losing to your rival who is having a seismic turnaround is the reality of the situation. Cahill not only has to turn around Lehigh from rather historic depths, he has to combat their arch rival's rise to prominence down the road. One could rather easily make the argument that Lehigh's demise as a program has aided in Troxell's resurrection of Lafayette football.

Adding to this is losing to Colgate like they did. As someone who really got into Lehigh football in the late 1990s and have been to Hamilton numerous times for Lehigh games plus their playoff win over JMU and is also a former Seven Oaks member, the Raiders have long been the Mountain Hawk's #2 rival since Delaware faded away. Those games were straight up nasty for the better part of 20 years and it was great!

[ngineer]

So lets have some patience with Kahill. My freshman year (fall of 1968) Fred Dunlap was expected to get fired at season's end. How bad was it? How about two wins in three season since his hiring in 1965! Going into the Lafayette game 0f 68' we were 2-7 with wins over Drexel & Gettysburg, both of which were true cupcakes. In what turned out to be an almost magical season ending game, we stunned The Purple Pussies 21-6.

I don't recall much after the game except being half stew and watching any ugly brawl as both Lafayette and Lehigh students fought over the wooden goal posts. Ah, the "good" old days. But the game saved Dunlap's job. He went on to eight more reasonably successful seasons before returning to his alma mater. But the foundation had been built which led to perhaps the most successful era of Lehigh football with Whitehead, Small, Higgins, and Lembo.

I don't know if he'll get as much slack as Dunlap, but lets all relax and give Kahill time to turn this around.

Actually, in the book, The Dunlap Rules, his son writes that Leckonby wanted to not renew Dunlap's contract, regardless of the outcome of the Lafayette game; but, President Lewis refused and overruled the decision as he liked Fred and and the new attitude he brought to the program and wanted to give him at least another year. Leckonby never got along with Dunlap and seemed to have a personal issue with him. Luckily, Lewis saw the qualities Fred brought to the program. Team won one more game in fall 1969 to go 4-5-1, and another 4 win season in Fall of 1970, with a heartbreaking loss at Lafayette on a game ending field goal, 31-28, after trailing 21-0 at halftime. However, the great upset of Delaware early in the season showed that things were headed in the right direction, and the following season had its first winning season since 1962. The rest, they say, is history as we went on the longest stretch of overall success until 2017, when everything started south due to Cohen's illness. You can't turn around a battleship quickly, and this will take some time. One thing Americans do not have anymore is patience.