Luke Yoder Breaks Lehigh Rushing Record as Mountain Hawks Survive Bucknell 31-30

Sam Milligan did just about everything a football player can do on a Saturday afternoon in Bethlehem. Milligan threw a touchdown. Milligan ran for one. With two seconds left, Milligan caught one. The only thing the Bucknell senior could not deliver was the last thing the Bison needed: two more points.

Lehigh held off Bucknell 31-30 at Goodman Stadium on Halloween, stopping a two-point try after Emmett Dowling found Milligan for a 19-yard touchdown with two seconds on the clock. Lehigh came away with the onside kick, took a knee, and snapped a two-game losing streak. The Mountain Hawks moved to 7-2 overall and 5-1 in the Patriot League. Bucknell fell to 1-8 and 0-6.

Nobody saw a game this close coming. DraftKings had Lehigh as a 27.5-point favorite, and Bucknell had been routed 34-3 at Holy Cross a week earlier. And yet the Bison outgained the home team 416 to 318, piled up 25 first downs to Lehigh's 16, and had the ball in the end zone with the game on the line. What saved Lehigh was a piece of school history: Luke Yoder became the program's all-time leading rusher on the go-ahead touchdown.

A trick play and a long first half

Lehigh came in reeling. A week earlier, Villanova stopped the Mountain Hawks at the 2-yard line on the final play, snapping their 16-game Patriot League win streak, and that came on the heels of a 48-38 loss at Cornell. First-year head coach Rich Nagy needed a get-right afternoon. The first quarter did not provide one.

Bucknell's second possession went 69 yards in nine plays. Dowling kept it alive with a 9-yard completion to Owen Garwood on fourth-and-3 at the Lehigh 37, and on the very next snap the Bison reached into the bag of tricks. Milligan, the senior wide receiver, took the ball and threw it 28 yards to Jackson Nowinski for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead with 6:37 left in the opening quarter.

Lehigh's offense, meanwhile, sputtered. The Mountain Hawks answered once, with Luke Yoder punching in a 1-yard score early in the second quarter to tie it at 7. After that, their next three possessions ended in punts, and starting quarterback Derek Morgan could not find much of anything through the air.

Bucknell made them pay before the break. Dowling went to work on a 71-yard march, hitting Jack Sullivan, Milligan twice and Jack Bohm-Squicciarini for 21 yards, and Sullivan finished it himself on a 2-yard run with 48 seconds left. The Bison went to the locker room up 14-7.

The turning point: Josh Lenart and a new quarterback

The game tilted early in the third quarter, and it started with a Lehigh defender. On second-and-14 from the Bucknell 29, Dowling threw and Josh Lenart picked it off at the 35, returning it 6 yards to the Bison 29. It was the only turnover of the day.

Lehigh made a change on the ensuing drive. Patrick Coan replaced Morgan at quarterback, and Coan's first snap was a 7-yard completion to Nick Palumbo. Aidan Mayfield did the rest, ripping off a 9-yard run and then scoring from 4 yards out to tie the game 14-14 with 6:58 left in the third.

Bucknell responded like a team that had no interest in folding. The Bison put together a 14-play, 62-yard drive that ate 5:46, converted a fourth-and-2 on an 8-yard Dowling throw to Milligan, and settled for a 30-yard field goal from Garanton. Bucknell led 17-14 heading into the fourth quarter.

Coan stayed in, and the Lehigh offense finally looked like itself. A 10-play, 75-yard drive leaned on Yoder and Trey Tremba between the tackles before Coan lofted a 30-yard touchdown to Matt D'Avino with 10:53 to play. Lehigh led for the first time all day, 21-17.

Milligan keeps coming, Yoder answers

Milligan was not finished. Dowling hit Jerry Harrison for 9, JJ Gomez for 23 and Milligan for 15, and then Milligan took the ball 19 yards to the end zone on the ground with 7:11 left. Bucknell 24, Lehigh 21. It was the fourth time Bucknell had taken the lead.

That is when Lehigh handed the ball to the reigning Patriot League Offensive Player of the Year and asked Yoder to settle it. After a kickoff return set the Mountain Hawks up at their own 38, Yoder ripped off runs of 24 and 14 yards. Lehigh converted a fourth-and-1 at the Bucknell 15, and Yoder went the final 11 yards with 3:05 left to make it 28-24. According to The Brown and White (opens in a new tab), that run moved Yoder past Dom Bragalone for sole possession of Lehigh's career rushing yards record and tied Bragalone's school mark for career rushing touchdowns.

Yoder finished with 183 yards and two touchdowns on 31 carries, the second-best single-game total of Yoder's career per the student paper, pushing the season total past 1,200 yards with 16 rushing touchdowns, an FCS-leading figure. On a day when Lehigh threw for 79 yards as a team, Yoder was the offense. The Mountain Hawks ran it 50 times for 239 yards, and that ground game is how they won time of possession, 32:14 to 27:46.

Bucknell's next possession is the one Nagy's defense will remember. Facing fourth-and-8 from its own 27, Jadin Nelson sacked Dowling for a 7-yard loss, handing Lehigh the ball on downs at the 20. Lehigh drained clock, and Connor Poole drilled a 33-yard field goal with 1:47 left for a 31-24 cushion. It looked like insurance. It turned out to be the winning margin.

Two seconds, two points

Bucknell started its final drive at its own 25 after a touchback. Dowling and Milligan moved the Bison past midfield, with a 20-yard completion getting them to the Lehigh 45. They converted a fourth-and-6 with 55 seconds left. They converted a fourth-and-4 with seven seconds left. Then Dowling found Milligan from 19 yards out with two seconds on the clock, and Bucknell was one snap from either tying the game or stealing it.

The Bison went for the win. The two-point pass failed, Lehigh secured the onside kick, and a one-point margin held up.

The numbers that tell the story

Dowling completed 33 of 52 passes for a career-high 318 yards with a touchdown and the interception. Milligan, who entered the day tied for Bucknell's career record for receiving touchdowns at 18, according to the school's pregame notes, took sole possession of it with the final score. Milligan caught nine passes for 122 yards, ran for 26 more and threw for 28. Linebacker Brandon Biagiarelli was everywhere, with 16 tackles, a sack and two tackles for loss, enough to push the linebacker past 200 career tackles.

Bucknell converted 4 of 5 fourth downs and was flagged just once all day. The gap was on the ground. The Bison ran 26 times for 70 yards, while Lehigh averaged 4.8 yards a carry. For the Mountain Hawks, William Parton and Jackson Dowd led the defense with eight tackles apiece, Parton added two tackles for loss, and Lenart's pick was a college first. Every snap is in the box score (opens in a new tab) and the play-by-play (opens in a new tab).

What it means

Lehigh did what it needed to do, which was win. At 5-1 in the Patriot League, the Mountain Hawks sit atop the standings with Richmond (4-1) right behind them, and Lehigh now leads the 90-game series with Bucknell 52-35-3. The path forward is clear: Colgate visits Goodman Stadium on Nov. 7, Lehigh travels to Richmond on Nov. 14, and the regular season closes at Lafayette on Nov. 21.

But a defense that let a one-win team throw for 346 yards will have a long week of film, and the quarterback picture is worth watching after Coan, a first-year, went 3-for-3 for 46 yards and threw the first touchdown pass of a young career in relief of sophomore Derek Morgan.

For Bucknell, the record says 1-8. The tape says something else. The Bison scored 30 points against a team that was ranked as high as No. 4 in the FCS earlier this season, a week after managing three at Holy Cross. Next up is a home game against Fordham on Nov. 7.

The last word

Lehigh will take it, and it should. A week after losing on the final play at Villanova, the Mountain Hawks were on the right side of a final snap this time, and Yoder's 183 yards made sure there was a lead worth protecting. But on an afternoon built for scares, Bucknell came about as close as a team can to pulling off the biggest one of the Patriot League season. Two points. Two seconds. Close enough to haunt both sidelines for a while.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play, The Brown and White, Bucknell Athletics pregame notes, DraftKings odds via ESPN. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Wikimedia Commons (file photo of Goodman Stadium).