With 36 first-year players, Lehigh University’s football team was expected to use the 2024 season as a first step toward a bright future.
As it turned out, it’s a bright present as well.
Completing one of the most remarkable one-year turnarounds in school history, Lehigh beat rival Lafayette 38-14 Saturday before a sellout crowd of 15,097 at Goodman Stadium to win take the 160th edition of college football’s most-played rivalry, and perhaps, more importantly, win the Patriot League title.
First-year quarterback Hayden Johnnson was voted game MVP after he threw for a touchdown and ran for another, and another first-year player, Palmerton grad Matt Machalik, ran for a score as Lehigh put the finishing touches on an 8-3 regular season one year after going 2-9. The Mountain Hawks went 5-1 in the league to take their 13th Patriot League championship and first since 2017.
The Mountain Hawks will advance to the FCS playoffs — they will find out who and where they are playing Sunday afternoon on the FCS playoff selections show.
WATCH: Lehigh fans tear down goalpost after win over Lafayette. See where it ended up.
Second-year coach Kevin Cahill enjoyed a lot of success as an assistant coach at Yale but wanted to come to Lehigh for moments like the one he, his team and the Lehigh community experienced Saturday.
“This is Lehigh football,” Cahill said. “You come here for the rivalry. You come here to win a championship. You come here to do things the right way and we’ve taken a big, big step in year No. 2 to get Lehigh football back where Lehigh football should be and we’re going to enjoy. I don’t care who we play in the playoffs. We’re in the playoffs and that’s all that matters.”
Johnson completed 10 of 13 passes for 115 yards and hit Mason Humphrey for a 23-yard touchdown that was part of a 21-point second quarter for the Mountain Hawks. He capped the quarter and the half with a 5-yard TD run just one second before halftime.
It was 28-7 at intermission and while Lehigh’s offense only produced a field goal by Notre Dame-Green Pond product Nick Garrido in the second half, a pick-six by Mason Moore that covered 41 yards with 7:30 left sealed the Mountain Hawks’ 37th win in their last 60 meetings with Lafayette and closed the Leopards’ lead in the all-time series to 82-73-5.
Lafayette, the defending league champion, finished 6-6, 2-4 Patriot League. The next two games in the series will be played at Fisher Stadium in Easton as part of Lafayette’s bicentennial celebration.
With the game at Lehigh for the last time until 2027, the Mountain Hawks students made sure to make it memorable by getting down the goal post in the southern end of the stadium and carrying it out of the stadium.
The goal post provided more resistance than the Leopards defense did at times as Lehigh outgained Lafayette 344-283 and ran for 229 yards.
While Johnson came away with the MVP trophy, several others earned a piece of it, particularly the Mountain Hawks offensive line anchored at the center position by fifth-year player George Padezanin.
“It’s a surreal feeling,” Padezanin said. “I always dreamed of being in this moment. I planned on doing this every single year and we fell short every single year. Finally, it just happened. It’s a credit to all of the guys on the team to buying in, fully buying in, and doing everything they possibly could and everything in their power to get us to this point. It’s also a credit to the staff. They’re awesome and they brought a new energy here. I’m super thankful to be in this position.”
Lehigh won its fifth straight game after starting 3-3.
The formula throughout the streak has been old-school in nature. Run the ball, control the clock, minimize turnovers and play outstanding defense.
The Mountain Hawks haven’t given up more than 19 points in any game during the streak. They have nearly 900 more yards on the ground than in the air and have a seven-minute advantage in time of possession.
On Saturday, they had the ball for 32:01 and won the turnover battle with two interceptions to one by Lafayette.
When the Leopards got an interception by Gabe DuBois on Lehigh’s second possession they had a chance to seize the lead and momentum. They took over at Lehigh’s 47 and got a first down, but from second-and-5 at the Mountain Hawks 28, they had a one-yard loss on a run, a 5-yard penalty for a false start and a 9-yard loss on a sack that took them out of field goal range.
Lafayette had eight penalties for 90 yards, compared with three infractions for 35 by Lehigh.
“The penalties were a problem for us,” Leopards coach John Troxell said. “It hurt our ability to sustain drives and it kept drives alive for them.”
Lehigh took the lead on Jayden Green’s 19-yard TD run to cap its first possession. Lafayette answered with a 9-yard TD run by Jamar Curtis and Lehigh shook off the interception to regain the lead on a short run by Machalik and extended it on Johnson’s TD pass to Humphrey with 6:53 left in the half.
Lafayette appeared in position to get back within one score and run out the clock in the first half, knowing it would get the ball to start the second half.
But a drive to the Lehigh 26 stalled and Nick Peltekian intercepted a pass in the end zone with 1:01 left in the half.
Not content to run out the clock, the Mountain Hawks went on a 6-play, 80-yard scoring drive aided by 30 yards in penalities.
It ended with Johnson finding his way to the end zone with just a second left, Lehigh out of timeouts and the Mountain Hawks head coach ready to admonish his QB for not throwing the ball away.
“He was lucky there was one second left on that clock,” Cahill said. “Sometimes you have first-year players out there and you’re going to get first-year mistakes, but that wasn’t a mistake so I have to eat that one.”
Johnson said: “Coach told me right before that if I don’t see anything on the first read or the second read I should just throw it away and get another play off, but I don’t know, I just saw the hole open up and went for it.”
Lehigh finished with three players rushing for 67 yards or more. One of them was Machalik, who had his biggest day in a Lehigh uniform, totaling 69 yards on 10 carries, including a 24-yard dash.
“We play two or three running backs every game and we’ve played three quarterbacks in almost every game and Matt had a huge role today,” Cahill said. “We thought the QB run would be effective and Matt is a special talent and has been getting better each week. Hayden can also scramble.”
Last year, Lehigh led 21-14 at halftime, but the Leopards responded with 35 unanswered points. Even up 28-7 at halftime, the Mountain Hawks couldn’t relax and Cahill wasn’t happy when Lafayette scored on its first possession of the second half.
But the Leopards wouldn’t score again.
Troxell left the postgame news conference already looking ahead to next year, just as Cahill did a year ago.
“My press conference after this game is a little bit different from last year,” Cahill said. “I was a little upset last year because I didn’t think we finished well last year. We started thinking right away about how we can get better. Now I’ve switched shoes with [Troxell] and I have a tremendous amout of respect for him and they’ll be fine because they have a lot of athletes over there.”
Troxell said: “I thought our effort was good and the kids kept battling. We have 28 seniors and not all of them played and contributed to our success on the field but they were great teammates. And the hope is they valued the experience they had and 2025 starts now.”
Scoring summary
Lafayette 7 – 0 – 7 – 0 — 14
Lehigh 7 – 21 – 3 – 7 — 38
FIRST QUARTER
LE: Jayden Green 19 run (Nick Garrido kick), 9:47 (9 plays, 69 yards, 5:03)
LA: Jamar Curtis 9 run (Jack Simonetta kick), 5:13 (9 plays, 82 yards, 4:26)
SECOND QUARTER
LE: Matt Machalik 1 run (Garrido kick), 12:16 (8 plays, 68 yards, 4:44)
LE: Mason Humphrey 23 pass from Hayden Johnson (Garrido kick), 6:53 (5 plays, 59 yards, 3:08)
LE: Johnson 5 run (Garrido kick) 0:01 (6 plays, yards, 1:00)
THIRD QUARTER
LA: Curtis 2 run (Simonetta kick), 10:19 (10 plays, 76 yards, 4:32)
LE: Garrido 31 field goal, 2:02 (12 plays, 54 yards, 8:10)
FOURTH QUARTER
LE: Mason Moore 41 interception return (Garrido kick), 7:30
Stat leaders
RUSHING
Lafayette: Jamar Curtis 21-131, 2 TDs; Troy Bruce 4-9.
Lehigh: Luke Yoder 14-67, TD; Jaden Green 11-69, TD; Matt Machalik 10-69, TD; Hayden Johnson 5-25, TD.
PASSING
Lafayette: Dean DeNobile 20-25-2, 171 yards.
Lehigh: Hayden Johnson 10-13-1, 115 yards, TD.
RECEIVING
Lafayette: Elijah Steward 10-78; Chris Carasia 4-28; Carson Persing 3-22; Dallas Holmes 2-28.
Lehigh: Geoffrey Jamiel 4-39; Mason Humphrey 1-29.
