Lafayette has its biggest game in years
If you separate Lehigh vs. Lafayette as a season all unto itself – as many area college football fans do – then Saturday’s Leopards game at Holy Cross may be the program’s biggest since 2009. That’s the last time Lafayette had a winning season and had a game so meaningful this deep into the season.
Lafayette is 5-1 for the first time since ’09 and one win away from clinching a winning season. The Leopards will visit Worcester, Massachusetts, hoping to accomplish more than that, however.
Holy Cross is ranked 11th in the country among FCS programs and is a four-time defending Patriot League champion. The Crusaders haven’t lost a Patriot League game since 2019 are 2-0 in the league this year and have scored 41.5 points per game, fourth best in the country. Their 478 yards per game on offense also ranks fourth nationally.
But Lafayette, which played Holy Cross as tough as anyone in the league season before falling 24-20 at Fisher Stadium, won’t be intimidated.
The Leopards have only lost to nationally ranked FBS opponent Duke this season and have won six straight against FCS-level teams. They have the fourth-best defense against the run, allowing 79.8 yards per game and are No. 1 nationally in sacks with 27.
The Patriot League championship could be on the line at the Crusaders’ Fitton Field and John Troxell’s team seems up to the challenge.
Does the closeness of last year’s game give Lafayette an increased level of confidence for this year’s meeting? No, it’s actually how this year’s team has played that is cause for the optimism.
“Last year was last year,” Troxell said. “Our team is totally different and I guess that’s what makes this year exciting. We talked about possibilities at the start of the season and it’s really a credit to our kids and what they’ve done. I’m excited that they get the opportunity to go out and play a nationally ranked team and get a chance to prove that we’re better than we were last year. It’s going to be an exciting day.”
Both teams are coming off their bye weeks. Even though Lafayette has been on a roll and may not have wanted a break, it came at a good time.
“It was a good time for it,” Troxell said. “The kids were feeling good about themselves in terms of what we’ve been doing on the field. We had guys out there doing extra work and that happened all last week during the bye. They’re putting in that little bit of extra on their own. They’ve put themselves in a situation to have a pretty good season. Whether we win them all, I don’t know, we’ll find out at the end. But it’s really been about the journey with these guys and what they’ve done and how much fun it has been. No one win or loss is going to define what they’ve done.”
Troxell said no matter what, the 2023 team has begun to make a change in the program.
“They’re getting us back to where we used to be and need to be and should be,” he said. “I’ve said this a long time ago. We’re not going to wait here to win. We want to give these kids an opportunity to win now.”
One of those players happy for the chance to win now is fifth-year offensive lineman John Olmstead who started his collegiate career at Notre Dame. He was injured last season and missed the Holy Cross game, so he’s eager to get his chance at taking on the Patriot League champs.
Lehigh at Bucknell
While Holy Cross hosts Lafayette in a battle of teams at the top of the standings, Lehigh and Bucknell square off at the same time (1 p.m.) in Lewisburg in a battle of teams looking for their first Patriot League win.
Like Olmstead at Lafayette, Lehigh’s Dean Colton is another fifth-year player who has stayed the course through a lot of tough times and has no regrets about still being a Mountain Hawk despite the team’s current 1-6 record.
Colton’s poise and leadership may not result in a turnaround this season, but the way he goes about things could pay dividends for the younger players.
“Going into this season, expectations were high,” he said. “I think the thing is we have taken a lot of huge strides from a program and team perspective. We’re building a great foundation for the future. We’re instilling essential core values into every single player on the team. We’re getting young guys to learn what consistency and hard work is all about and what it takes to win games. They’re learning this season how hard it is to win a football game. We saw at Fordham how frustrating it can be when you don’t finish. When you turn on the film, it has been night and day different from what it has been the last few years. Unfortunately, it’s not showing in the results.”
First-year coach Kevin Cahill is happy to have Colton around.
“He is going to be very successful in life because of his perspective and what he has been through,” Cahill said. “He and I have become close over this past year and I rely on him a lot. I get the beat of the team from him and how life’s going in general. He’s an awesome leader for us.”
Cahill said the team continues to work hard and looks forward to having four more chances to win games especially with games against Holy Cross and Lafayette looming in November.
“There’s no easy road ahead of us,” he said. “It’s all league play and in the league it’s going to come down to who is going to make the play in the fourth quarter and who doesn’t. Right now, we’re not making those plays. But practices have been great. I give all of our kids a lot of credit, especially our seniors for their leadership. If you see us in practice, you’d never know we’re a one-win team.”