Some leftover thoughts from Leopards' loss to Princeton

Cleaning out the notebook from Lafayette's 38-17 loss to Princeton.

It was as though someone from Princeton had gotten his hands on a copy of the Lafayette football game plan.

The Leopards lined up for the first play at the 35-yard line after the Tigers’ kickoff went out of bounds. Good field position without having to take a hit.

Lafayette Coach John Garrett called a simple running play. Instead of it being stopped for no gain, DeSean took it for five yards. Nice.

Second-and-5, and another running play, with Brown gaining another four yards.

Can it be the Lafayette coaches are onto something? Will they be able to get control of the clock? Third-and-1. Run it again? A quarterback sneak maybe?

Princeton’s defense will be stacking the line of scrimmage, for sure. So, let’s throw for it. Something nice and safe. A couple of yards and a first down.

Ooops! As though Princeton’s headphones and Lafayette’s phones were on the same frequency, as soon as quarterback Sean O’Malley gets the ball, the Tigers are charging and he’s in full retreat.

First down? Hah! Loss of 11. Geez, why?

So much for the beleaguered offense having a chance to get a bit of confidence in the opening minutes.

Fast forward to the third quarter. Lafayette has just given up a touchdown to go down by 21 points. The game is about to get out of hand.

The Leopards res;pond. A 31-yard pass to Joey Chenoweth … a 13-yard pass to Dylan Wadsworth … a13-yard pass to Rocco Palumbo and the Leopards are at the Princeton 29.

A personal foul penalty against the Tigers and a 9-yard pass to Brown put the ball on the 10. An incomplete pass and a one-yard loss on an O’Malley keeper makes it fourth-and-2.

They’re going for it! Ooops, a false-start penalty moves the ball back to the 15. Fourth-and-7.  Lafayette timeout.

Change of plans. A 33-yard field goal attempt. The kick Barely clears the heads of the lineman and is well short.

No points for the Leopards. Instead, the Tigers turn around and drive 74 yards for a touchdown 34 seconds into the fourth quarter.

During the postgame press conference, Garrett was asked if he ever second-guesses himself and would he like to have 4^th-and-7 back again?

“Well, if I knew he was going to miss the kick, yeah, I would like to have said, yeah, let’s go for it,” Garrett said. “You have confidence in him. He had a great week of practice. He’s been kicking really well since he got here. And he just mishit it. So, if we get those two field goals (a 43-yarder was missed earlier). we get a little confidence, we’re six points closer, they change a little bit how they play. All plays and all kicks are not the same.”

Those are just two situations, but they are examples of the kind of things that often happen to teams that just can’t find their way over that line between winning and losing. Lafayette has spent a lot of time on the wrong side of that line, and it is apparent that crossing over is going to be an ongoing challenge.

I had an earlier exchange with Coach Garrett about the 28-unanswered-points segment of the game that took it from 10-10 to 38-10, Princeton. Twenty-one of the points came in the second and third quarters, which have been a recurring nightmare for the Leopards this season. The total now stands at 109-9 for the opposing teams in the middle periods.

“Well, the second quarter was good Paul; we had the lead most of the time,” he said. "So, I’m not really sure what you are asking, so, just repeat that again.” I guess I did a lousy job of rephrasing my question , and he finally said, “Are you talking about this game?”

“This game and others,” I said, and he said, “Okay,” at which point Brad Wilson added, “They had 21 points in the second quarter.”

“It has nothing to do with the quarter,” Garrett said. “It’s about how they execute and how we execute. They’re a good offense, very well-coordinated with veteran players and a very talented quarterback, some talented receivers and a talented runner and they were executing. They were able to control the ball running it and they did a good job on third down to sustain drives.  We’re not really concerned about this quarter or that quarter; we just take each play as it comes and try to execute it the best.”

What Garrett didn’t say and what I was trying to get at is that it seems Lafayette has been unable to tweak the defense on the fly. The opposing teams seem to make adjustments to the Lafayette defense and then implement them immediately. Lafayette has not had success and countering those punches. Opposing teams have outscored Lafayette 74-3 in the second quarter and 42-6 in the third.

Opposing offense have experienced players, to be sure, but Lafayette also has experienced players on the defensive side. Maybe it’s a good thing defensive coordinator Luke Thompson is bald because he’d probably be pulling out his hair by now. Four opponents have averaged 229.5 yards per game rushing and 240.2 passing. Opponents have averaged almost 75 plays per game. The defense has had just four sacks and 18 tackles for loss, with no player having more than 2.5. This is not what anyone forecast.

The good news is that Lafayette is 0-0 in the Patriot League. That will change this week when the Leopards go to Worcester, Mass., to face a team that is coming off an overtime loss – in which it went for a two-point conversion to try to win the game in OT and also missed a regulation PAT that would have won the game – and three victories, one in the league.

Peter Pujals has passed for 1,125 yards and eight touchdowns and three different guys have been sharing the duties in the running game, which has averaged 137 yards a game. The offense is averaging 418 yards per game.

For Garrett, Thompson et al, the REAL season begins now. If they’ve been holding some cards we don’t yet know about, this is the time to play them.

NOTE: The announced crowd of 7,239 was easily the biggest of the season to this point. Getting them back will require some improvement. The only remaining home games are against Fordham Oct. 7, Bucknell Oct. 21 and Colgate Nov. 11.