Virus forces rivalry to wait — again

Competitors haven’t lined up since 2019

If they couldn’t play in their normal late November time slot, the Lehigh and Lafayette football teams were at least happy to renew one of the great traditions in Lehigh Valley sports on Easter weekend.

Around noon on Tuesday, Lafayette coach John Garrett and several of his players talked with the media and expressed their excitement and heightened anticipation of Saturday’s scheduled game with Lehigh at Fisher Stadium in what would be meeting No. 156 of college football’s most-played rivalry.

Several hours later, however, word came out that due to a positive COVID-19 test within the Lafayette program, Saturday’s game was postponed with a rescheduled date to be announced.

The postponement was the latest blow to a beleaguered Patriot League football schedule that may have been well-intended, but has ultimately added to the feeling of frustration of two programs who have been largely on hold since Nov. 23, 2019, the date of Lafayette’s 17-16 win over Lehigh in meeting No. 155 of the two local Division I programs.

By now, each team was supposed to have played three games this spring.

But Lehigh’s game at Colgate, originally scheduled for March 20, was wiped out by the coronavirus and then even a second meeting with Holy Cross was scheduled and canceled within a day by COVID-19.

Lehigh was supposed to host Bucknell last Saturday, but that game was moved to the weekend of April 10-11.

Lafayette was supposed to play at Bucknell on March 20, but that game was moved back a week.

All of the changes and disruptions have slowed the momentum both programs were hoping to attain this spring after tough 2019 seasons when Lehigh was 4-7 and Lafayette was 4-8 and the loss of the entire 2020 season.

Lehigh has lost the only game it has played so far, a 20-3 defeat to defending Patriot League champ Holy Cross. Lafayette has split its two games, beating Colgate 24-10 and losing to Bucknell 38-13.

The league had planned to crown division champs with Lehigh, Lafayette and Bucknell in the South

and Fordham, Holy Cross and Colgate in the North. The league title game is scheduled for April 17 with the winner advancing to the FCS playoffs.

Where that stands is anyone’s guess. If Lehigh, Lafayette and Bucknell all ended 1-1 in their divisional games, a complicated tiebreaker was going to be used to determine the South champ.

All of that was secondary to Saturday’s game, which was supposed to make up for the sense of loss of the entire 2019 season and the one-game season that is the Lehigh-Lafayette game.

“It’s a great rivalry, it’s the best rivalry in sports if you’ve ever been a part of it,” Lafayette coach John Garrett said. “No one cares more about this game than the Lafayette and Lehigh people. It’s always an exciting game and a great game. You can throw records out, you can throwing everything out. It’s all about how the team responds to the events of the game.”

Malik Hamm, Lafayette’s junior defensive end who was the 2019 Patriot League defensive player of the year, said the game’s emotion often has little to do with the scoreboard.

“I really think this game is important because a lot of times this is the last game of the season and what goes through your head is like ‘Wow, I am not going to be playing again with the guy who is lined up next to me’ and that always gave me a little more juice to go out there and send those guys out with a win,” Hamm said. “You build lifelong relationships with people throughout your four years and to realize it’s the last time you’re going to be playing with them . … it hurts your heart.”

Now, hearts are hurting on both sides because of the uncertainty of when or if the rivalry will be renewed this spring.

Lafayette thoughts had turned to Lehigh on the bus ride home from Lewisburg Saturday night.

The energy, emotion and anticipation of this game, even with the crowd largely limited to parents of the players, is unmatched.

“You definitely feel the nerves running through you before the game” Simpson said. “But once the game starts, you feel this monster energy that’s sort of unexplainable. Other guys you get hyped up for, but for this game, it’s definitely something that feels different.”

Lafayette placekicker Jeffrey Kordenbrock, who was named MVP of the 2019 Lehigh-Lafayette game after kicking the game-winning field goal in the final minute, said no matter when the game is played it will be special. He said he was thankful of the opportunity, regardless of the steady stream of changes, to play again.

“When the season was canceled in the fall, a lot of our players were bummed out,” Kordenbrock said. “We thought there was a chance we’d never play football again. A lot of us kept working, kept practicing, but in the back of our heads there was always that scary thought that we wouldn’t play again. So coming into the spring season, we thought we had an extra chance to play and we thought it awesome.”

Even with the postponement, the attitudes won’t change.

“This has definitely made me not take anything for granted and made me just enjoy every single day I’m out there,” Kordenbrock said. “I’m not really playing to put points on the board or get all of these crazy awards. I just want to have fun playing with my teammates and just have the best time I can out there.”