Leopards: The 2019 Patriot champs? Or not!

I, Paul Reinhard, being of sound mind (obviously questionable) and body (doubtful) do hereby, with great trepidation, make the following declaration:

Lafayette College will win the 2019 Patriot League football championship -- without losing a game.

WHAT?!?!?! Have I gone mad?  Did someone slip me a Mickey?  Do we need that guy Adam Schiff to start some witch-hunt-type investigation?

It’s nowhere near April Fool’s Day, so it can’t be anything like that April 1, 2003 column I wrote exposing the “fact” that Mario Andretti was coming out of retirement to drive for his son Michael at the Indianapolis 500. That’s a story for another time.

But the idea of the 2019 Leopards winning the league title might sound just as preposterous as that Andretti challenge. They are, after all, 0-5 as they take their midseason bye week. And the next opponent, Ivy League favorite Princeton, the No. 2 offensive team in the FCS after its first two games, doesn’t figure to set the stage for a title run for Coach John Garrett’s team.

As a matter of fact, Lafayette is now mired in the longest losing streak (eight games over two seasons) since it lost 14 in a row from Oct. 20, 1951 through Sept. 26, 1953. It had a 14-game winless streak from 11-2-63 through 9-18-65, but two ties, including to Lehigh in THE GAME No. 100, figured in there. It lost seven straight during that drought. I’m pretty sure the Lafayette sports information guys won’t be including that information in next week’s game notes.

Also, this year’s team has no Ross Scheuerman to run for 1,113 yards and 14 touchdowns and finish with 1,920 all-purpose yards … no Mark Ross to catch 74 passes for 1,078 yards and eight touchdowns … no Matt Smalley to intercept five passes, break up and defend 21 more and contribute 562 yards and two kickoff-return touchdowns.

But they do have a freshman quarterback whose overall numbers compare well with Drew Reed’s 132-182-5, 1,887 yards and 17 touchdowns and a 184.9 efficiency ranking as he teamed with the three all-stars just mentioned above to rally the Leopards to their last bit of Patriot League glory in 2013, a season that included an 0-5 non-league record.

I remember at some point during that 2013 season saying, “If this team can play a little defense, it can win this thing!” And it did. It defeated Fordham and Lehigh when they were ranked among the top 15 FCS teams in the country.

There are no ranked teams this season. But Lafayette is 26^th in NCAA FCS passing offense this week and 64th-of-124 in total offense.

Lafayette spent the first two years of the John Garrett searching for offense. The new coach picked a freshman quarterback to lead his team. For a while, it looked like Sean O’Malley might be the man, but the Leopards couldn’t do better than 3-8 with him at the helm and Garrett making all the calls, and O’Malley’s second season did not match his first from an individual standpoint, either.

And then, along came Keegan Shoemaker. Garrett awarded two-year starter O’Malley, originally a walk-on, a scholarship – then put him on the bench in favor of the new freshman phenom. In fact, O’Malley dropped behind Cole Northrup into the third place in the QB lineup.

Shoemaker and Northrup shared time in one game, neither seeming to have a clear advantage statistically. But Garrett settled the competition quickly, starting Shoemaker in the second game, and the talented Texan has turned plenty of heads.

Shoemaker has completed 102 of 159 passes for 1,291 yards, eight touchdowns and five interceptions. He also has gained 227 yards on lots of scrambles and some designed runs. But he also has been sacked 25 times and 144 lost yards. In the end, he has 91 net rushing yards and two touchdowns. His total offense of 1,392 yards (276.4 per game) leads the league. He has been rookie of the week twice and offensive player of the week once.

The sacks are the biggest concern for me. Last year, Lafayette’s offensive line allowed only 15 sacks, least in the league. At this point, the Leopards are last.

Last week, Shoemaker stayed down after two of the seven Penn sacks. He eventually got up and he missed only one offensive play. Kudos on his toughness (but I must admit I questioned his being put back in late in the fourth quarter). Things won’t get any easier on him as league teams take aim at the bull’s eye on his back. If one of those hits puts him out for significant time, I want my prediction back.

The offensive line has made some positive strides this season as Lafayette has rushed for an average of 99 yards per game, which isn’t bad considering the fact that Coach Garrett has yet to make the ground game a major priority for his offense. The average yards passing per game are up 113 over a year ago, the running average just 12 ypg. Last year’s final numbers included that 280-yard aberration at Fordham; the average for the other 10 games was 68 ypg.

If trainer Matt Bayly and the team doctors can get captain and offensive tackle Jake Marotti back to full strength, things will certainly pick up. Only once all season have they had the same starting o-line in back-to-back games.

Four running backs have shared that spot, with Selwyn Simpson being out since the second game. J.J. Younger and Jaden Sutton have contributed, but Gay seems to have the best north-south moves. Through it all, the only player who has run the ball more than 10 times a game is Shoemaker. The QB has 16 more carries than the top running back. Maybe that will change come league play.

The Leopards have what has to be the best crop of receivers in the league. But how they are used is befuddling sometimes. Take Zadok Scott, a sophomore tight end. Probably the No. 3 guy until last weekend, Scott caught his first pass – in fact his first six passes – and scored two touchdowns against Penn. Steve Stilianos, another sophomore who had 15 catches in the first four games, had two vs. Penn.

At the wide receiver slots, junior Quinn Revere, another Texan, had five catches for 84 yards and Nick Pearson had five for 96 yards. Julian Spigner, the Bethlehem Catholic High product who started the first three games of the season, has apparently lost that spot and has had only three catches in the last three games. He has two touchdowns but only 10 total catches.

All three of those players, along with Gillette and the tight ends, give Lafayette too many weapons for any opposing defense to handle. And, if Garrett wants to do it, the attack need not be limit to dump-off type throws. In what turned out to be a 56-40 loss to Sacred Heart, Shoemaker’s 391-yard passing day included plays of 44, 41, 40, 33 (twice), 29, 21 and 20 yards. And when the passing game was working, the Leopards also managed a 44-yard touchdown RUN and another 25-yard run.

At the beginning of the season, I’d have said that the success for the Leopards would be determined by the improvement of the offense. Well, the offense has produced an average of 22 points per game, which should be enough to win a bunch of games.

Lafayette now needs the more experienced defense to step up. It is allowing an average of 208 yards per game rushing and 252 per game passing. That’s 464 yards per game total offense, which puts it 104^th out of the 124 FCS teams. Opposing teams have successfully converted 47 percent of their third-down plays and 60 percent of their fourth-down plays. They have scored points on 21 of 23 trips into the red zone, where Lafayette has actually done some of its best work, forcing opponents to settle for field goals six times and stopping two other chances completely. They have just six sacks and two pass interceptions.

Patriot League coaches will probably apply extra study to the Leopards’ game with Sacred Heart. The Pioneers really picked on the ‘Pards’ secondary that day, scoring touchdowns on plays covering 75, 65, 37, 24 and 20 yards and finishing with 407 passing yards on just 22 completions.

QBs the Leopards will have to prepare for include Fordham’s Tim DeMorat, who threw for two TDs last year under the worst of conditions and has passed for eight this year; Logan Bitikofer of Bucknell, who passed for three TDs in last year’s 29-27 loss to Lafayette – and even Georgetown’s Gunther Johnson, who has four TD passes this year on only 48 attempts and who ran the option for two scores against the Leopards a year ago.

So, I’m not saying that Lafayette has any kind of a cakewalk to a 6-0 PL record in 2019. I actually think the league is so balanced (that’s parity, not power) that the Leopards could also lose six in a row.  But I’m not the consummate pessimist and it’s a lot more fun to consider the possibility of winning, despite what I think are some high hurdles on the sideline.

I can think of more cases in which defeat has been snatched from the arms of victory over the past 27 games, of which Lafayette has won but six. Bucknell and Lehigh in 2017 and Monmouth and Georgetown in 2018 stand out. Then you had the 2018 game with a Lehigh team that was ripe for pickin’ but used a 43-yard fumble-recovery touchdown on the first play of the game as a catalyst for 34-3 butt-kicker in the 154^th meeting in the series.

But this year is going to be different because the young players who are going to make it happen don’t know any better. Most of them had never even heard of Lafayette until a recruiter showed up at their scho0l – in Texas, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina – yes, even Pennsylvania. Freshmen don’t often walk in and contribute immediately. But the 2019 edition of Leopard football is loaded with rookies.

Shoemaker, out of Prosper, Tex., is the biggest influence on my midseason opinion. Wide receiver Joe Gillette (Strongville, Ohio) has 18 catches for 282 yards and a TD and also has a 44-yard TD run on a jet sweep. Running back John Gay (Jeannette, PA) has 192 yards and two touchdowns on 44 carries and also has a 26-yard receiving touchdown. Both have become starters the last three games.

And on the offensive line, Alex Barshaba (Staten Island, NY) and Nathan Slater (Hudson, Ohio) have had lots of meaningful playing time. And we can’t forget running back Sutton (Winston-Salem, NC) and receiver Julius Young (Houston, Tex.), who has only four catches, but they account for 112 yards. Both have played in every game.

                                                                     

Damon Washington (Iselin, NJ) and Marco Olivas Fort Worth, Tex.) have made the biggest contributions on defense. They have 24 and 36 tackles, respectively. They have come along at the right time, too, because the Leopards’ biggest problem in 2019 has been the size of the injury bug.

Coach Garrett doesn’t appreciate any talk about injured players, but it’s hard for him to sidestep the issue these days. Having to play without the likes of Harrison Greenhill, Ian Grayson – and a handful of others to a lesser extent – has affected the overall product. The two-deep chart for the Penn game had freshmen in all four second-unit linebacker spots.

It also seems that Malik Hamm, the Patriot League’s defensive rookie of the year in 2018, is a marked man this year. Teams are finding ways to blunt his effectiveness. He has yet to record a sack and has three tackles for loss among his 17 total in five games. Nine of those tackles were in the season opener. He has also blocked a kick. I do think he’ll solve the puzzle; hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later.

The other contributing freshman is kicker Ryan O’Hara (Little Silver, NJ). He has done all the punting, with a long of 56 yards, and has kicked off seven times, sharing duty with placekicker Jeffrey Kordenbrock.

Special teams have not yet had a major impact for the Leopards, but they have given up one kickoff-return TD. J.J. Younger has 15 kickoff returns for 311 yards, but his longest is 28 yards. He is, however, capable of going the distance. He showed it with a 95-yarder last season. Kicking away from him is not the best option, either, because I think Gillette may be every bit as dangerous a returner.

So, that’s my look at the Leopards. Now, here’s a quickie look at the competition.

GEORGETOWN (3-1) – The latest Patriot League stats show the Hoyas leading the league in scoring offense and defense, pass and total defense, rushing offense, least sacks allowed and leading the FDCS in turnover margin (plus-9). That should be impressive enough to move them to the head of the class. Still, it’s hard to give a lot of weight to routs over Marist (1-3, win over Stetson) and Division III Catholic University (0-4). But the win over Columbia (1-1, 24-10) gets your attention. The Hoyas put together a nonleague schedule that gives them a chance for success as they learn, with Davidson (3-1) and Cornell as the other ’19 foes.

FORDHAM (2-3) – Stony Brook is 4-1 and Ball State is 1-3, its only win over the Rams. Richmond is 1-3, Bryant is 0-5; CCSU is 3-1. Junior Zach Davis is the league’s leading rusher, with three 100-yard games and is the only back averaging 100 yards a game; and QB Tim DeMorat is second in passing ypg and total offense. Fordham also is the leader in sacks with 15 in its five games. Ellis Taylor is the league leader with four. Linebacker Ryan Greenhagen is the tackles leader with 55.

HOLY CROSS (1-3) – Arguably the toughest out-of-league schedule, beating New Hampshire (2-2), but losing to Navy (2-1), Yale (2-0) and Syracuse (3-2, routed by Maryland, Clemson).  That schedule has left the Crusaders 112nd among the 124 FCS teams. Coach Chesney is reportedly doing a bang-up recruiting job, and people are saying they will be the dominant team in the league before long.

LEHIGH (1-3) – Problems for the first-year head coach Tom Gilmore; only win so far was 10-3 over Merrimack (2-3), a new FCS team. Losses were to Villanova (5-0) and UC-Davis (2-3, including 27-16 loss in ND St) and 3-2 St. Francis. Bright spot is rush defense, leading the league at 90 ypg allowed. But the Brown and White hasn’t yet found the successor to Dominick Bragalone or Brad Mayes, for starters.

BUCKNELL (0-4) – The scheduler didn’t make things easy for new head coach Dave Cecchini. Temple (3-1), Sacred Heart (3-1), Villanova (5-0), Princeton (2-0). Enough said. Bison defense, often the team’s strength, is ranked at the bottom of the league in most categories, including 545.8 ypg average.

COLGATE (0-5) – Villanova (5-0), Air Force (3-1), William & Mary (2-3, win over Albany), Maine (2-3) and Dartmouth (2-0) was a nonconference murderer’s row. The Raiders, gutted by graduation and then losing their veteran starting quarterback, are learning the hard way.

It’s really hard for me to have the Raiders at the bottom of the pile. The big question mark is quarterback Grant Breneman. I figure the rest of Dan Hunt’s crew will be ready for the league games, which for them kick off this week against Lehigh.

Just not ready enough for the Leopards.

I think.

And here’s the small print. I’ve been wrong before, so take this for what it’s worth.