Playoff football is back at the Brick House for a third straight season. The storylines write themselves in this one, as Richmond gets a Patriot League preview against 2024 champion Lehigh. The Mountain Hawks will be looking for their first playoff win since 2011, while the Spiders need to build off the great effort against William & Mary.

Lehigh Mountain Hawks

A great season from Lehigh after consecutive 2-9 campaigns. 8-2 against the FCS, with losses to Bucknell and Yale. They’ve played their best football in November, winning three games by 24+ points. They’re a higher scoring team than when we faced them a couple years ago, averaging 31 PPG. Lehigh will view this as a statement game even more than we will, so the Spiders need to put the letdown of not getting a top 8 seed behind them quickly.

Betting

Spiders look to be 14-point favorites in this one, with an O/U in the high 40s. Projected score is 31-17. 31 points would be our highest offensive total since October.

Spiders on Offense

Fast start – Lehigh puts it to teams in the 1st half. Their scoring differential is +117 in the 1st half and -10 in the 2nd/OT. Richmond followed a similar pattern, going +99 in the 1st half and +28 in the 2nd half. Campbell is the only game in a while where we didn’t get to dictate how we played in the 2nd half. The offense hasn’t needed to push too hard to close out games, which is great, however against a fast-starting Lehigh squad we need to match that energy early on or we’ll be playing catchup.

Possessions – Richmond was in some low possession count games recently. Our offense only got the ball seven times against both Hampton and William & Mary. When you’re as talented as we are I’d like to see this much higher, somewhere in the 10-11 range. The issue is that Lehigh does a great job of shrinking the game – opposing offenses the past three weeks got the ball eight, seven, and eight times. A game of this style plays to their strengths, similar to what Hampton did. Even though we scored efficiently in the 1st half against the Pirates, all it took was one 2nd half fumble to put them right back in the ball game. Keeping our foot on the gas becomes important as we face better and better competition.

Offensive line – Lehigh boasts two 1st team All-Patriot selections on the D-line, along with one linebacker, so our offensive line will have their hands full. It’s a battle of strength on strength, as they win games by controlling the line of scrimmage while UR put games on ice in the same manner.

First, I’m curious to see how we approach Lehigh’s strong run defense. The Mountain Hawks only allowed opponents to run for >150 yards three times. During their five-game winning streak to end the season, they allowed just 88 YPG and four total rushing TDs. The Spiders were primarily run heavy throughout November, and there’s no reason to think we’ll stray from ZPS now. Richmond finished a few yards short of 200/game and hit the 150-yard mark in 9/11 FCS matchups.

If Lehigh can make things difficult up front we may see us turn to the pass earlier. When we do pass it there will likely be pressure, the second part of this test for our O-line. Lehigh forced 33 sacks in 11 games (T-11th in FCS), led by Matt Spatny (11.5 sacks). The difficult part are their blitz packages – Lehigh brought 167 pressures from linebackers, including 97 by Buck Buchanan finalist Mike DeNucci. Those 97 pressures are the 12th most of all LBs, as Lehigh won’t be afraid to bring the heat on any down. The Spiders didn’t face too many pressure-heavy teams in 2024 yet had great success when we did face blitzes.

Completion % remains high, as does YPA, when Coleman faced pressure. Solid numbers from #14 across the board and we’ll need more of this on Saturday. An equally important part of this is great communication up front, which falls on 1st team All-CAA center Tom Elia. It’s no surprise that one of the best offensive lines at both running the ball and protecting the QB has a 1st team center. Assuming the Spiders can maintain the pocket, expect Coleman to hit some big plays against an aggressive Mountain Hawk defense.

Redzone – Good news for the Spiders here. Lehigh allows TDs on 75% of opposing redzone trips, the 9th worst rate in the FCS. You can pull up any other game preview/recap to get my thoughts on our redzone offense so far – Richmond needs another solid game in this aspect and this seems to be a good opponent to do it against.

Spiders on Defense

Turnovers – For a defense that struggled to force turnovers in non-conference play, we sure came on strong in October/November. Richmond forced 17 turnovers in eight CAA contests, ultimately never losing the turnover battle in CAA play. That’s a huge part of our winning streak and is also a big factor for Lehigh’s offense. In their three losses, Lehigh had nine turnovers. In eight wins they had just seven. The Mountain Hawks are 1-3 when turning it over 2+ times and 7-0 with zero or one.

Force them to pass – Very much a run-first offense from Lehigh. Two running backs get the majority of the touches, Luke Yoder and Jaden Green. Together they average 26 carries and 144 YPG. We’ll also see some option and designed QB runs, as they’re an offense that prioritizes staying on schedule. QB Hayden Johnson only attempted 20 passes in two games and threw for <100 yards more often (three times) than he threw for >200 yards (twice).

Every game they won this year was predicated on running early and often. In wins, they stuck to their gameplan and averaged just 15.5 passing attempts – in losses, they got off schedule and that number rose to 27.5. Richmond needs to get Lehigh behind the sticks early and force them to play a game they aren’t too comfortable with.

Edge defenders – I got multiple questions/comments about how our defense continued to improve this season despite injuries/departures at key spots. While it’s always a combination of things, I think I big factor is the level of play on the edges.

First, Jeremiah Grant is playing THAT well. First snap against W&M (below) he’s 3 yards in the backfield when the ball is handed off. Even though it won’t always show in the box score, the amount of disruption he causes is crazy. I can find at least three other plays in the game where #2 immediately gets W&M off track.

With Grant (1st team) and Byrd (2nd team), UR has two of the best edge defenders in the conference.  It’s not only about the D-line though. Outside linebacker QMW continually grades well in both run and pass defense, giving UR another boost on the edge. Add in Matthew Traynor taking over a starting spot in week 5, and we’ve seen our strong safety much more involved in run support and making plays in the flats.

This really showed against William & Mary. They came in averaging 5.6 YPC on runs outside the tackles, yet our defense held them to 1.4 YPC. It’s been an overall fantastic effort from all 11 guys on defense and I think the Spiders are going sideline-to-sideline better than we’ve seen.

3rd down – One of the few areas the Spiders don’t have a positive trend in. Through October we allowed conversions on just 31% of 3rd downs. In four November games that rose to 50%, even with W&M going 3/12. Lehigh converts 47.2% of 3rd downs, a key factor in them controlling the clock and limiting possessions. I’m hoping our 3rd down efforts against the Tribe were a sign that we can get back to a rate in the low-30s.

Special Teams

The Mountain Hawks have a solid kicking game, averaging roughly 40 yards/punt while going 7/8 on field goals.

Despite allowing a 100-yard TD against Bucknell, their KOC unit still ranks in the top 50 across the FCS. Lehigh also has 12 touchbacks the past four games, so I’m not expecting a big KOR day for the Spiders.

KOR is their strength, averaging 22 yards/return. That’s good for 29th in the FCS and would be 2nd in the CAA. Richmond remained steady in kickoff coverage after the mishap down at Campbell, so we should be able to limit any fireworks on special teams.

All-CAA Honors

12 Spiders received All-CAA honors, which is what happens when you go 8-0 in conference play. Congrats to all the honorees, especially CAA Defensive Rookie of the Year Matthew Traynor.

Traynor joins Sherman Logan (2005), Eric McBride (2007), and Tristan Wheeler (2019) as other UR defenders to win the award. That’s a highly decorated list.

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FCS Playoffs First Round – 2024: Lehigh recap – Monday, December 2nd