Lafayette and Lehigh football have road games on Saturday
Lafayette football coach John Troxell said his program and his school have a lot in common with this week’s opponent — Duke.
“When you look at Duke and you look at Lafayette, both offer the chance to be at an institution where you can have the best of both worlds,” he said. “You can be a great player and a great student. It’s the kind of school we wanted to be associated with. What’s going to make this trip so much fun that we get to play against Duke and they get to play us. And I think if you ask them, they probably hate Lehigh as much as we do.”
Troxell’s comment at his weekly media luncheon drew laughs.
It obviously was in reference to Lehigh’s 75-70 win over heavily favored No. 2 seed Duke in the first round of the 2012 NCAA basketball tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina.
At 6 p.m. Saturday, Troxell’s Leopards have a chance to be another underdog Patriot League program from the Lehigh Valley to pull off a shocker.
His team plays the Blue Devils, who are ranked No. 21 in the country and fresh off their own upset of No. 9 ranked Clemson Monday night.
While watching Monday night football isn’t always good for college students, watching Duke take down the Tigers was almost like a homework assignment.
“I’m very excited for this game,” said the Leopards’ Jamar Curtis, a sophomore who is coming off a 181-yard rushing performance in a 19-14 win over Sacred Heart. “I like to compete and we’re going against a top-25 team in the country. We’re going to play with heart, and approach it like we would any other game. They put on their pads the same way we do.”
Junior safety Saiku White also said he was excited to play at Wallace Wade Stadium.
“It’s going to be a great challenge for us in all areas.” he said. “We have to look at it as a challenge and not as ‘oh, they’re so much bigger’ or whatever. I looked at what [University of Colorado quarterback] Shedeur Sanders said. He said on Twitter that there’s not a big difference between FBS and FCS football except on the O-line and D-line. Both teams have lines that average about 300 pounds. You can’t look at that difference. You just have to be able to step up to the challenge. I’m looking forward to it.”
Despite its win at Sacred Heart, Lafayette will need better production from its passing attack. It had just eight completions and 69 yards through the air.
That will be difficult against a Duke defense that returns eight starters from last year’s 9-4 team and limited Clemson to one touchdown.
“They’re really good football players we’re facing and we’re going to have be better in pass protection,” Troxell said. “We have to make sure we give our quarterbacks time to throw. We have to find a way to get the ball out in space as quickly as we can against a team like Duke. If you watched their pass rush against Clemson, you know that sitting back there with a five-step drop isn’t going to help us. We need to have a good three-step game and get the ball out of our hands quick.”
Lafayette tries to schedule an FBS level team every year, and last year it hung around against Temple in Philadelphia before losing 30-14. In 2021, the Leopards lost at Air Force 35-14.
“The biggest challenge is making sure the moment isn’t too big for our guys,” Troxell said. “We have a lot of young kids. We have a sophomore running back, the quarterback is a sophomore, we have five freshmen in our D-line. We’re a young team. We’re somewhat inexperienced. We’re trying to preparing them for the moment and make sure they the stage isn’t too big. And then you want them to go out and do the things they’re coached to do and just go out and play hard. If they do that, good things will happen. The ball bounces in funny ways.”
Lehigh at Merrimack
There were plenty of positive vibes around the Lehigh football program before its season opener against Villanova.
Those vibes haven’t diminished despite a 38-10 loss to the Wildcats.
The Mountain Hawks have attempted to learn from the mistakes, turn the page and prepare for a trip to North Andover, Massachusetts, to take on Merrimack, which made the transition from NCAA Division II to Division I FCS in 2019.
“We’re excited to get on the road and move on,” first-year Lehigh coach Kevin Cahill said. “Villanova was a very good opponent. We did not play well, but the positive that we took out of it was that our kids played hard for four quarters. They gave a lot of effort and that’s what we ask for. We just have to execute much better.”
Even though Merrimack doesn’t have the same name recognition on the national level as a Villanova, Cahill expects a similar challenge.
“It’s a very good football program with a lot of good athletes,” he said. “They’re very big up front. But we’re excited to get out on the road and spend time together as a team and go battle.”
Cahill said he was proud of how the team has rebounded from the opening-day loss and said he has seen growth.
“We want success, we need success and we’re trying to define success in different ways,” he said. “Our kids are starting to understand our philosophy and what we’re looking at.”
Merrimack lost at No. 5 Holy Cross 42-20 in its opener. But the Warriors led the defending Patriot League champions and 2023 favorite 17-14 at halftime. They were 8-3 last year, including 6-1 in the NEC.
In addition to preparing for Merrimack, Lehigh has had to deal with the heat.
“We’ve been practicing a little bit later in trying to help our kids out with their academic schedules,” Cahill said. “It was hot, but we’re conscientious of what we’re doing and we’ve been making some adjustments. Hopefully, it’s not this hot on Saturday.”
Lehigh won the only other meeting against Merrimack, 10-3, in 2019 and it gave Tom Gilmore his first win as Lehigh coach. Now, this team would like to get Cahill his first win.
Gaige Garcia, the Southern Columbia product who scored the team’s lone touchdown Saturday against Villanova on a 7-yard pass from Brayten Silbor, said the key on offense is to play less tense.
“We can’t put so much pressure on ourselves,” he said. “I think we saw that a lot in our first game, especially in the first quarter. We weren’t ourselves at all. We didn’t execute and we had turnovers. We have to be ourselves and play more relaxed and just enjoying the game. Those are the things our offense needs to get to.”
The fun could start on the way to New England. A win would make the ride home even more fun.
“We love road trips; they’re fun,” Garcia said. “It’s a long bus ride up there and back and you get to spend a lot of time together in the hotel. It’s a different atmosphere. We’ve been trapped here at Lehigh all summer. It’s good to get out there and go have an adventure.”
