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When Lafayette football coach John Troxell looks at this year’s Lehigh football team he sees a lot of his 2022 Leopards in the 2023 Mountain Hawks.

“Watching tape, they’ve gotten better week in and week out through the season,” Troxell said. “You look at the Fordham game and they lose on a last-second field goal and the Holy Cross game where Holy Cross wins by four. This is not a pushover or anything like that. While the record is not great, it’s not indicative of how much they’ve developed in one year under Kevin Cahill.”

Lafayette finished 4-7 last year with a 14-11 win over Lehigh in Easton wrapping up Troxell’s first season in charge.

Cahill would love to follow the same course. He would love to beat Lafayette in the 159th edition of college football’s most-played rivalry and use it as a springboard into a much better season next year.

Kickoff is set for noon Saturday at Lehigh.

It won’t be easy because Lafayette has gone from 4-7 to 8-2 and needs only to beat the Mountain Hawks to earn at least a share of the Patriot League title and earn the league’s automatic berth into the FCS playoffs.

Just as Lafayette needed a win over Lehigh a year ago to validate the progress made under the new coaching staff, Lehigh is in a similar position this season.

“A win would be big for our seniors, for our team, for our alumni and all of Lehigh and we know that,” Cahill said. “We’ve taken a lot of steps forward from the beginning of the year until now and I’m proud of that progress. But we know we have a lot of work to do and this would be a big step for us.”

Cahill is most happy with how his team has fought and remained competitive.

“I don’t think we were truly competitive early in the season, day in and day out,” he said. “If you watch us practice, we’re competitive on Tuesday and more competitive on Wednesday and every day there’s more competition and it shows on the field, just not consistently enough. With everything we’re doing there’s competition. We’ve got to compete in practice and have it show up on Saturday and even into the offseason because there’s a lot of things to address as soon as the season is over.”

Cahill said the recruiting process is already in full swing. He has the advantage of more time than he had last year when he was hired less than a week before Christmas.

From that point, he had to scramble to complete the list of recruits for the early signing day and also had to assemble a coaching staff.

This year, he has a staff in place and a better idea of where the program is at in terms of talent and where more depth is needed.

On the positive side, Lehigh has been a better running team as the season has gone on. The Mountain Hawks averaged just 61.5 yards rushing per game over the first four games, but have produced 144.7 yards on the ground per game in the last six.

However, in the passing game, they have not completed more than 19 throws in a game since completing 21 against Cornell in Week 3 and haven’t had a 250-yard passing effort since Fordham (257) in Week 6.

Sophomore Brayten Silbor started the first 10 games, but was injured last week against Colgate. Senior Dante Perri, who started the last two Lehigh-Lafayette games for the Mountain Hawks, is expected to get one more start against the Leopards.

Perri was 14 for 24 for 183 yards and a touchdown in a 17-10 win two years ago and completed 29 passes in 57 attempts for 343 yards and one TD last year in the loss.

The biggest challenge for Lehigh will be trying to slow down Lafayette’s offense led by sophomore running back Jamar Curtis. The Leopards are averaging 193.9 yards rushing per game and the Mountain Hawks are giving up an average of 183 yards on the ground.

Senior linebacker Mike DiNucci said the defense has had its ups and downs but is determined to put its best foot forward on the natural grass of Goodman Stadium.

“We’ve had some good games and some bad ones, games where we had some miscommunication errors and guys not filling the right gap or being in the right coverage,” DiNucci said. “But this is a game where we need to lock in. This obviously is our biggest game of the year. It’s our Super Bowl no matter what our record is. It’s the biggest game no matter whether you’re playing for a league title or you’re not.”

DiNucci said he came to Lehigh during the pandemic and there have been lots of ups and downs ever since. However, the seniors have stayed the course and been able to lay a foundation for future success.

“It has been a long journey, but our senior class has really stuck together,” DiNucci said. “We have a team, we have a brotherhood. We haven’t lost that many guys to transferring or not playing football anymore. As a senior class, we’ve stayed together as a team on and off the field.”

Senior center Jackson Wiles said that while everyone wanted more wins this season, a foundation is in place.

“We’ve had a good, positive attitude through it all,” Wiles said. “We’ve put the process over the outcome of these games. We’ve continued to build toward what we want this program to be and what it’s going to be.”

Cahill, who is familiar with a college rivalry that’s perhaps even more famous than Lehigh-Lafayette having coached in 10 Harvard-Yale games, said he’s looking forward to experience one of the Lehigh Valley’s greatest events for the first time.

“I will definitely lean on my experience in the Yale-Harvard rivalry and I know what that’s like emotionally,” he said. “But I’ve heard so much about this game and the history and the tradition of it and now to be a part of it is going to be pretty cool.”

Lehigh 2023 schedule

HOME GAMES IN CAPS

Sept. 2: VILLANOVA, L 38-10

Sept. 9: At Merrimack, W 14-12

Sept. 16: CORNELL, L 23-20

Sept. 23: At Dartmouth, L 34-17

Sept. 30: At Monmouth, L 49-7

Oct. 7: At Fordham, L 38-35

Oct. 14: GEORGETOWN, L 17-7

Oct. 21: At Bucknell, W 27-18

Nov. 4: HOLY CROSS, L 28-24

Nov. 11: At Colgate, L 37-21

Record: 2-8, 1-4 Patriot League.