PU Football

Lehigh blanks Princeton 31-0|Tigers’ night lights fail to turn on their game

By Justin Feil
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Lehigh University’s football team did its best to conserve energy Saturday night.
In the first night football game at Princeton Stadium, the No. 16 ranked Division I-AA team in the country turned the lights out quickly on the Princeton Tigers, 31-0.
"I don’t have a lot of smart things to say," Tosches said following the game. "We’re a football team that, we’re trying to get better, we’re trying to improve, we’re trying to eliminate mistakes. And tonight we ran into a damn good Lehigh football team.
"I hope that’s as good a team as we see all year. I hope there’s not a better one on our schedule. They’re good. They’ve got good team speed on both sides. They have good experience. They make plays. They’re explosive — all the things we’re trying to work toward."
The performance of the Tigers, who fell to 0-2 for the first time in head coach Steve Tosches’ 13-year tenure, was about as palatable as the drinking water in Princeton this week.
By halftime it was 21-0, and Princeton showed no signs of coming back. The Tigers had just 92 yards of offense — two rushing — and had crossed midfield once when they got to the Lehigh 46-yard line before quarterback Tommy Crenshaw threw an interception — one of three for the sophomore Saturday — five seconds before halftime. On the other side of the ball, Princeton had allowed 282 yards of offense including 223 yards by Lehigh quarterback Phil Stambaugh.
"He’s a good one," Tosches said of the Mountain Hawks’ senior who ended up 19-for-26 for 267 yards and one touchdown. "He’s a very, very good quarterback. Over my 15 years here, I’ve seen some pretty good guys come in here, and he’s right up there with some of the best. And so is the running back. He’s a good, good football player…. You stand there and watch this kid and it brings back some nightmares of an awfully good football player."
Lehigh’s Ronald Jean rushed for two first-half touchdowns and an early fourth-quarter score that added into his workmanlike 137 yards of rushing on 33 carries. Even Lehigh’s top receiver, Kody Fedorcha, got in the act with a career-high 123 yards receiving.
Tosches had wanted to see improvement after the opening-season 20-3 loss to Cornell. In that game, Princeton was plagued by mistakes and third down ineptitude. Saturday saw that continue as the Tigers converted just four of 15 for the game, including one of six in the first half. Though the first 30 minutes were tough for Princeton fans to watch, it got worse.
"We had a horrible third quarter," Tosches said. "We only had nine snaps. We have to convert third downs right from the beginning of the football game. That’s the bottom line right now for this football team. If we can convert some third downs, then we’ll start to get the ball in the end zone. Then when you can do those things, you put yourself in a position to win a football game.
"Tonight what happened to us early is we weren’t very efficient on first down. We fumbled one ball, fortunately recovered it. I think we might have had a penalty on another. A couple times our guys said they couldn’t hear the cadence. We didn’t run a clean play. We were at second-and-long. Then it got to be third-and-long. You have to stay on schedule. You have to create third and shorts, not third-and-long, then you have a chance for conversion."
And while Princeton’s offense sputtered, Lehigh, which improved to 3-0 this season, scored on three of their last four first-half possessions. They did it on drives of 71, 73 and 82 yards, each time using less plays and less time than the drive before.
Princeton’s best drives came in the last quarter when Crenshaw, who started and played the last three possessions of the game, drove the team 50 yards to the Lehigh 21-yard line, its deepest field position of the day, and 28 yards to the Mountain Hawks’ 34-yard line. The first drive ended with an interception, the second one Princeton turned over on downs.
"I thought toward the end tonight, Tommy Crenshaw played well," said Tosches of his young starter who finished 13-for-26 for 118 yards passing. "I thought he moved the ball well. You know, he’s a sophomore. He’s very inexperienced. We’ve gone through two weeks now, I said all along we’ll evaluate it each week.
"When things start to break down a little bit, Tommy’s going to look to make the play. Tommy’s going to look to keep the thing going as long as he possibly can. He’s a big strong kid. He’s not afraid to get up and run. I just like the way he continues to handle himself. And again, he needed game experience to be able to do that. I think two weeks in a row. He made some mistakes, but he’s a young quarterback and those things are going to happen. It’s part of a maturity process and he’s got to go through it."
And after two losses, Tosches may be starting to mix up the lineup to get results. His confidence in the sophomore quarterback over junior Jon Blevins at the end of the game, in addition to not playing junior running back Kyle Brandt — the Tigers’ leading rusher against Cornell — could signal a movement toward more youth. Tosches admitted to trying to use more of the speedy freshmen.
"We wanted to get (running back Cameron) Atkinson in, and we had hoped to get Andy Bryant (another running back) in and that just didn’t work out. We were able to get Chisom Opara on the field (at receiver) quite a bit.
"I think as the weeks go on, we think these guys have some pretty good talent plus some pretty good team speed. We’d like to continue to try to move in that direction. It does not mean that Kyle Brandt or Derek Theisen is not going to play football for us. They are, but we’re going to try to mix these guys in as best we can."
Tosches knows he will have to do something.
Otherwise, it will be lights out on the Princeton Tigers’ hopes for a good season.