Unfortunately for Head Coach Kevin Kelly and the Georgetown football team (1-6, 0-2 Patriot League), college football is played in two thirty-minute halves, not one. This tale of two halves reared its head again as the Hoyas fell at No. 16 Lehigh (6-1, 1-1 Patriot League) this past weekend 45-24 in their official Patriot League opener. Despite outscoring the Mountain Hawks 21-7 in the second half, the Hoyas couldn’t overcome an insuperable halftime deficit of 35 points.
The Hoyas have been outscored 66-3 in the first half their past two games, but have outscored their opponents 33-13 in the second half in those same two games. The loss also marked the team’s 13th straight defeat to Lehigh, an opponent the Hoyas have not beaten since the Calvin Coolidge administration.
“We have shown spurts where we played well, and we have shown spurts where we played poorly,” Kelly said. “But obviously, we have to be more consistent in what we are doing and if we do that we have a chance of winning.”
For the second consecutive week, the Hoyas struggled to establish the tone early. The Mountain Hawks imposed their will, dominating on the both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball throughout the first half as they built an insurmountable 38-3 halftime lead. The absence of several defensive starters certainly showed for Georgetown, as Lehigh scored on seven of its first eight possessions and amassed 380 yards of total offense in just the first half.
Although senior linebackers Dustin Wharton and Nick Alfieri returned to the lineup, senior co-captain and defensive lineman Sean Campbell, sophomore defensive back Ettian Scott, and sophomore defensive lineman Hunter Kiselick were unable to play against Lehigh and their statuses are uncertain for this Saturday’s game.
“We’re getting some guys back, but we’re still a little nicked up at some positions,” said Kelly. “We’ve had a good week of practice and I expect that we’ll have a pretty good ball game [this week].”
On the offensive side of the ball, sophomore quarterback Kyle Nolan made his first start of the season for the Hoyas and played solidly, completing 19-of-30 passes for 140 yards and a touchdown pass. Nolan has appeared to emerge as the team’s starting quarterback, over redshirt senior quarterback Isaiah Kempf and freshman quarterback Tim Barnes. Kempf, who was the starter heading into this season, struggled the past few games with injuries and mediocre play. Barring injury, Nolan will be team’s the starter for the remainder of this season. Hopefully for the Hoyas and their stagnant offense, Nolan can provide stability to a position that has seen six different occupants over the past two seasons.
“At the quarterback position, Kyle Nolan will start,” Kelly said. “I thought he started out slow last week, but he finished strong, so after another full week of practice, we think he’ll be better this week.”
Senior running back Nick Campanella was one of the few bright spots for the Hoyas, scoring a career-high of three touchdowns and rushing for 129 yards on 23 carries. Campanella led a strong Georgetown running attack, which amassed 229 yards on the ground.
“Nick Campanella is running extremely hard,” said Coach Kelly. “He had been banged up for a few weeks and wasn’t the Nick that people expected to see, but I thought Saturday he had an excellent football game, ran extremely hard and we’re expecting the same thing at Colgate.”
This week the Hoyas return home to Multi-Sport Field this Saturday, where they will look for their elusive second win against Patriot league foe Colgate (2-5, 1-0 Patriot League).
The Raiders have won two of their last three games, defeating Holy Cross last week 28-24 and Cornell 41-20 just a few weeks ago. Stopping the Colgate running game will be imperative for success this Saturday, as the Raiders average 202 rushing yards per game this year.
The Hoyas will look to exact revenge against the Raiders, who blew them out last year 57-36 in Upstate New York in Kyle Nolan’s first career start, a game where the Hoya defense allowed 31 first downs and a school record 707 yards of total offense.
“Every week we try to get better and better,” said Kelly. “We’ve had some injury issues, so continuity hasn’t been where we’d like it, but Colgate is a run-type football team, so obviously we need to stop the run this week.”
After their duel with the Raiders, it’s three more Patriot League games to conclude what has been a disappointing season, their seventh losing season in the past eight years.
