THE RIVALRY: Trivia and a mea culpa

JEFFREY KORDENBROCK

I’ve been thinking a lot of Lafayette’s 17-16 win over Lehigh last Saturday in game No. 155 of college football’s most-played rivalry.

I have been trying to figure out how I would play it in one of my final blogs with which I plan to assess the 2019 season. Every season, after all, is in some way affected by the outcome of the Lafayette-Lehigh game.

This is a game that produces all kinds of trivia, so here’s what I think is the best addition of 2019.

This is the first time Lafayette has won the game by a single point.

It is also only the second one-point game in the entire series. Lehigh won the 1929 game 13-12 in a game where quarterback Arthur Davidowitz kicked what proved to be the winning extra point. Lehigh broke a 10-game losing streak to Lafayette in that game and the Brown and White blocked two extra point attempts and a late field-goal try to preserve the win.

Here is the second paragraph that appeared in The Morning Call the next morning, Nov. 24, 1929, courtesy of my favorite historical website these days, newspapers.com. The sports writer is not mentioned.

“Scenes such as probably never before been witnessed in the concrete saucer of Lehigh University were witnessed in the hysterical demonstration following the final whistle of referee W.C. Crowell. Out onto the field rushed the Lehigh partisans, fairly smothering the Lehigh players in their frantic efforts to reach them, and one swaying mass of humanity ushered the players off the gridiron. Staid old grads for the time forgot themselves to join in the wild demonstration and the steel city was truly a typical college town last night in every sense of the word.” 

That’s a great story to add to the history of The Rivalry, but it’s not the only reason for this blog.

Frankly, I screwed up in my Sunday morning story and this is a mea culpa to Lafayette kicker Jeffrey Kordenbrock, head coach John Garrett, everyone else connected with the Lafayette program, and to the readers who expect much more accuracy from a guy who’s been in this business in one form or another for 60 years.

In the press conference after the game, Coach Garrett addressed Kordenbrock’s 28-yard game-winning field goal. At the time, I asked Garrett if he had a distance in mind for a field goal attempt.

He said, “Every game we establish the kick line based on circumstances, the weather, the field, all that stuff. Before the drive, before the half if we’re in two-minute or at the end of the game. The kick line was 33. We were well inside of that because of how well the offense executed.”

I knew immediately that I had the angle for my Morning Call story. I also asked Kordenbrock about the kick line a bit later, but when I finally got to writing the story to meet an early Saturday deadline, I hadn't transcribed my entire interview with Kordenbrock. The clock was ticking.

Garrett’s “The kick line was 33” was in my head. It wasn’t until Sunday, when I had more time to devote to remarks after the game, that I realized I had misunderstood Garrett’s answer.

If I had taken more time, I would have heard Kordenbrock tell me, “I told coach I was comfortable from 33 in, which would come to a 50-yard kick. Anything inside of that I felt comfortable. He definitely put me inside of that.”

That phrase “which would come to a 50-yard kick” changed the whole meaning of the winning kick. I wrote with the understanding that the “33” meant a kick of 33 yards was Kordenbrock’s comfort zone. That meant the offense had to get to the Lehigh 16.

The fact is, Kordenbrock was telling me he would have been comfortable with a kick in which the line of scrimmage was the 33-yard line, which would have put the holder at the 40 and the distance of the kick would have needed to be 50 yards, taking into account the 10 yards from front to back of the end zone.

Fortunately, Keegan Shoemaker and his friends on the offense got the ball to the Lehigh 11, which set up a hold at the 18 and a winning kick of 28 yards. I got all of that correct. Whew! Thank goodness.  

I also must admit that I woke up in the middle of the night and wondered what it must have been like when Kordenbrock and his college roommate and field-goal holder Sean O'Malley were alone in the room, after the victory celebrations. I wonder how many times they relived the moment.

O'Malley was Lafayette's starting QB the last two seasons but lost the job to Shoemaker this year. On Saturday, Kordenbrock said, "Sean and I have a really good relationship. He's been a good sport about it ... done everything he could to help the team. Whether that be as the backup quarterback or as the starting holder, he's definitely making an impact on the team and you can see that on the field." 

Kordenbrock was good on 11 of his 14 field goal attempts this season. Eight of the 11 were longer than Saturday’s boot – one a career-best 44 and three others of 40 yards or more. He missed only one kick when the Leopards were in the red zone. This year’s performance, which included three FGs against Holy Cross, put him in a tie for eighth in field goals made in a single season.

As a reward for his effort on Saturday, Kordenbrock was named the Patriot League's special teams player of the week today. He also received that same honor after his Holy Cross effort. Congrats to him.

He needs eight next year to get into the top 10 for his career. All he needs are chances, and there’s no reason to think he won’t have them.