In winning 12 straight games and earning the No. 3 ranking in the country in NCAA FCS football, Lehigh football did an outstanding job of putting opponents away when the Mountain Hawks had the chance.
But on Saturday in the second round of the FCS playoffs at Goodman Stadium, Lehigh couldn’t quite finish drives, nor could it finish off Villanova.
A 28-yard touchdown pass from Pat McQuaide to Braden Reed with 2:56 left provided the winning points as the Wildcats beat the Mountain Hawks 14-7 before an engaged crowd of 8,848 that stayed warm despite it being the coldest day of the season.
Villanova (11-2) advances to the quarterfinals, while Lehigh ended one of the best seasons in school history at 12-1 and with the Patriot League championship.
It was Lehigh’s first home playoff game since 2004, and it played out in a similar fashion to James Madison’s 14-13 win over Lehigh that year.
Lehigh hurt itself with a missed field goal and two turnovers in Villanova territory. The Mountain Hawks lost two fumbles after losing just one all season. They also had a drive end at the Wildcats’ 2 in the first quarter.
“It was obviously a disappointing ending to a tremendous season,” said Lehigh coach Kevin Cahill, who won the Eddie Robinson Award as the FCS coach of the year earlier in the week. “But I told our seniors that what they built here is pretty special. We’re not going to be judged by this game. We talk about being process-oriented, and I know that the last time we played Villanova, it was my first game, and there might have been 10 people in the stands, and it was over after the first drive. A lot has changed in three years, and I want these seniors to take pride in that. And take pride that when we looked at our side of the stands, it was sold out, and it was loud and proud. But at the end of the day, we didn’t play well enough to win the game, and Villanova did.”
The Mountain Hawks outgained Villanova 339-235, including 178-27 on the ground, and had the ball much longer (33:18 to 26:42), but went just 1-for-4 in the red zone, scoring only an Aaron Crossley 5-yard touchdown run on their first possession of the second half.
“You can look at the stats and all of that stuff, but the bottom line is they scored 14, and we scored seven, and there were a lot of things we wanted to get done but didn’t,” Cahill said. “You give Villanova credit and wish them well in the rest of the tournament. But I am proud to be a member of Lehigh, proud to wear brown and white, and proud of all the guys in the locker room.”
While last year’s season ended with a 34-13 loss at Idaho, in which there was little doubt about the outcome, Lehigh may always wonder about the “what ifs” in this one.
“We made some mistakes that are uncharacteristic of us … we can’t afford to put the ball on the ground a couple of times and lose some fumbles against a great team like that,” senior wide receiver Geoffrey Jamiel said. “Credit to them for causing turnovers, and they did a great job on defense. We could have done a better job on offense of protecting the ball and controlling those things.”
The best scoring chance for either team in a scoreless first half was a Lehigh drive that covered 14 plays and 86 yards. Palmerton’s Matt Machalik had a 14-yard run for a first down on the possession.
But on fourth-and-goal from the Villanova 2, Lehigh shifted out of field goal formation and tried to run for the touchdown. However, Aaron Crossley was stopped for a loss.
“Once we shift, we run it,” Cahill said. “We had a guy fall down, so it wasn’t the outcome we wanted. But we wanted to be aggressive. When you call those things, you live with it. We just didn’t execute it. The downside was it didn’t work out was they were getting the ball at their own 2-yard line, and I had confidence in our defense.”
The first half ended with the Mountain Hawks holding a 142-74 edge in total yardage. The Wildcats had just 26 yards on the ground and five first downs.
Those numbers tilted more in favor of Lehigh when the Mountain Hawks drove 75 yards on five plays to get a touchdown on their first drive of the second half. Hayden Johnson hit Matt D’Avino for 39 yards on the first play and Luke Yoder ran for 31 yards.
Yoder, the MVP of the Lehigh-Lafayette game and the Patriot League’s Offensive Player of the Year after rushing for 1,329 yards and 15 touchdowns in the regular season while averaging 7.1 yards per carry, was used sparingly due to injury.
“Luke hasn’t practiced for two weeks, and that was the first time he carried the ball since the [Lafayette] game,” Cahill said. “I give our athletic training staff a ton of credit for doing whatever they could. Luke is a tough kid. If anybody would have seen the injury he had and saw that he still played … I mean, that’s just the love he has for his teammates, and I give him a lot of credit because he tried like heck to get out there and had a couple of nice carries. But with the ‘next man up’ philosophy, we knew Jaden Green and Aaron Crossley would play well. They’re always ready to go. It stinks, and you wish Luke Yoder were 100% but nobody is 100% at this time of year.”
Lehigh had a chance to make it a two-score game with a drive to the Villanova 35, but Yoder fumbled. The Wildcats recovered and struck quickly for a 59-yard drive to tie it with 2:56 left in the third quarter.
It stayed 7-7 as both teams missed field goals, and Lehigh had another drive stopped on downs when Yoder was held to no gain on fourth-and-1.
Just when it appeared the game would go to overtime at 7-up, Villanova got the big pass play from Pat McQuiade to Reed.
“Their goal was to stop the run, which they did pretty effectively,” said Wildcats coach Mark Ferrante. “Their safeties were coming downhill and the middle just opened up. Braden took it and Pat, fortunately, saw it. Sometimes you miss on plays like. We missed on some others. None of them are easy. You just have to come up with a play, and thankfully, we came up with that play when it presented itself.”
Ferrante was asked about going into halftime scoreless.
“It was a slugfest in the first half,” Ferrante said. “It was bittersweet, I guess. We were thankful they had zero, but we would have liked not to be at zero. But there was no panic in the locker room. Our guys were ready to come back out and play 30 minutes. I think Pat said we’ve been here before, meaning tied or down at halftime, and then we come out and play better in the second half.”
Lehigh, as it has all season, responded to the Villanova touchdown with a good drive of its own, going 54 yards in four plays, but Johnson fumbled on a designed run at the Wildcats’ 11 with 1:49 left. McQuiade found Antonio Johnson for a 12-yard gain on third-and-8 for one last first down and the game was over.
Ferrante was asked about entering the Patriot League next season and said he was excited about that, but added: “We want to finish this year and we’re still under the flag of the CAA, and we want to represent the CAA well right now.”
Villanova will play at No. 4 seed Tarleton State, from Stephenville, Texas, in the quarterfinals. Tarleton routed North Dakota, 31-13, in its playoff game on Saturday.
Scoring summary
Villanova 0 – 0 – 7 – 7 — 14
Lehigh 0 – 0 – 7 – 0 — 7
THIRD QUARTER
L: Aaron Crossley 5 run (Connor Poole kick), 12:29 (Drive: 5 plays, 75 yards, 2:25)
V: Ja’briel Mace 1 run (Jack Barnum kick), 2:29 (Drive: 6 plays, 59 yards, 3:10
FOURTH QUARTER
V: Braden Reed 28 pass from Pat McQuaide (Barnum kick), 2:56 (Drive: 3 plays, 51 yards, 1:24)
Stat leaders
RUSHING
Villanova: Ja’Briel Mace 11-48, TD; Isaiah Ragland 9-19.
Lehigh: Luke Yoder 11-80; Jaden Green 14-43; Hayden Johnson 10-25; Aaron Crossley 5-12, TD.
PASSNG
Villanova; Pat McQuaide 18-28-0, 208 yards, TD.
Lehigh: Hayden Johnson 12-20-1, 161 yards.
RECEIVING
Villanova: Luke Colella 8-71; Braden Reed 3-70, TD.
Lehigh: Geoffrey Jamiel 4-41; Matt D’Avino 3-57; Crossley 2-36; Mason Humphrey 2-20.
