Villanova Stops No. 11 Lehigh at the 2 on Final Play, Wins 24-18 on Homecoming

Twenty plays. Eighty-five yards. Three and a half minutes of Lehigh doing everything right, and then Garrett Rogan came off the edge and erased all of it.

Villanova held off No. 11 Lehigh 24-18 on Homecoming Saturday at Villanova Stadium, and the Wildcats needed every inch of a goal-line stand to do it. Lehigh had the ball first-and-goal at the 2 with under 30 seconds to go. Two passes fell incomplete. On third down, Rogan, a fifth-year linebacker, blitzed and sacked Derek Morgan, and the clock ran out with the Mountain Hawks still two yards short.

That sack was Rogan's 13th tackle of the day, a career high, and it ended more than a game. Lehigh's 16-game Patriot League winning streak is over. The Mountain Hawks fell to 6-2 and 4-1 in league play, while Villanova evened its record at 4-4 and moved to 3-2 in the Patriot League.

Villanova owns the first half

For 30 minutes, this looked like a Villanova blowout. The Wildcats took the opening kickoff and went 75 yards in 16 plays, a drive that ate 8:01 and ended with quarterback Pat McQuaide keeping it himself on a 7-yard touchdown run.

Isaiah Ragland added a 14-yard touchdown run in the second quarter to finish a quick five-play, 93-yard march. Then Lehigh rolled the dice on fourth-and-1 near midfield and came up empty, and Villanova cashed in six plays later when Ja'briel Mace punched in a 1-yard run. Dominic LeBlanc was perfect on extra points, and it was 21-0 at the half.

The numbers at the break were ugly for the visitors. Villanova had 227 total yards. Lehigh had 82. A team ranked in the top 15 in the country looked like it had left its offense on the bus.

Lehigh flips the script

Whatever happened in the visiting locker room, it worked. Lehigh came out of halftime and played like the program that has owned this league, outgaining Villanova 290 to 110 after the break.

On the first drive, Luke Yoder ripped off runs of 28 and 16 yards, and the senior finished an 11-play, 75-yard march with a 5-yard touchdown run. That 28-yard burst also pushed him past 1,000 rushing yards for the season. Connor Poole followed with a 34-yard field goal with 2:53 left in the third quarter, and suddenly it was 21-10.

Lehigh opened the fourth quarter with an 80-yard drive, and Morgan finished it himself with a 6-yard touchdown run. Then came the gutsy call. Down 21-16, Lehigh went for two and ran a reverse pitch to Anthony Feaster, who walked in to make it 21-18 with 8:28 to play. It was Lehigh's first successful two-point conversion since 2022 against Colgate.

The drive that almost broke Homecoming

Villanova needed an answer, and it found a quiet one. The Wildcats put together an 11-play, 65-yard drive that burned 4:55 off the clock and ended with LeBlanc's 27-yard field goal. That made it 24-18 with 3:33 left, a six-point cushion that forced Lehigh to go the length of the field for a touchdown.

It looked like a bigger ask after a muffed fair catch left the Mountain Hawks starting at their own 5. They went anyway. Lehigh picked up six first downs on the drive, two of them on fourth down. Morgan scrambled for 7 yards on fourth-and-6 to keep it alive, then hit first-year receiver Bryce Werner for 8 yards on fourth-and-4. A pass interference call on Villanova on a throw to Werner put the ball at the 2 with under 30 seconds to go.

That is where the Villanova defense, which had been bent all half, finally refused to break. Two incompletions. Then Rogan. The drive covered 85 yards in 20 plays and produced zero points.

The turning point

You could point to the final sack, and nobody would argue. But the play that decided this game might have come in the second quarter, when Lehigh went for it on fourth-and-1 near midfield and did not get it. Villanova turned that stop into a touchdown and a 21-0 lead. In a game decided by six points, a failed fourth down that becomes seven points the other way is the whole margin and then some. Lehigh spent the entire second half paying it back and ran out of time two yards early.

The players who decided it

Rogan is the headline, and he earned it. Thirteen tackles is a full day's work for any linebacker. Making the last one a game-ending sack on third-and-goal is Homecoming folklore.

Mace led Villanova on the ground with 91 yards on 17 carries and the 1-yard score. McQuaide ran in the opener and kept the offense steady enough in the first half to build the cushion that ultimately saved the day. Villanova threw for 201 yards and ran for 136.

On the other side, Yoder was terrific. He carried 20 times for 132 yards and a touchdown and became just the second player in Lehigh history with three 1,000-yard rushing seasons, joining Dom Bragalone. He now sits 169 yards behind Bragalone's school career rushing record of 4,324. Morgan, a sophomore, ran 17 times for 94 yards and threw for 134 on 17-of-33 passing, but he was sacked three times. The last one cost him the first 100-yard rushing game by a Lehigh quarterback in 10 years, which feels like an insult on top of an injury. Werner led Lehigh with five catches for 45 yards, and senior linebacker William Parton paced the defense with seven tackles.

The stats that matter

Here is the strange part. Lehigh won most of the categories that usually decide games. The Mountain Hawks outgained Villanova 372 to 337, rushed for 238 yards, piled up 24 first downs to Villanova's 19 and held the ball for 33:18. Neither team turned it over.

The difference showed up in two places. Villanova owned the sack column 3-0, including the one that ended the game. And all three Villanova touchdowns came in the first half, while Lehigh had to settle for a field goal in the third quarter and then came up empty on its last, longest march. Drives that end in three instead of seven add up fast, and Lehigh came up exactly one score short. The full numbers are in the official box score (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Villanova, this is the kind of win that changes the tone of a season. The Wildcats started the year ranked, then lost close games to Colgate and Morgan State and sat at 2-4 at one point. Now they have won two straight, beaten Lehigh for the 13th consecutive meeting and taken a 16-5 lead in the all-time series. They also beat Lehigh 14-7 in last year's FCS playoffs, so this is starting to look personal. Next on the schedule was a Halloween trip to Lafayette, with a run of eight straight road wins against FCS opponents on the line.

For Lehigh, the picture is more complicated. A week after Cornell snapped its 23-game regular-season winning streak, the Mountain Hawks have now lost two straight. They are still 4-1 in the Patriot League and very much alive in the race, but the margin for error is gone. Next on the schedule was a Halloween home game against Bucknell at Goodman Stadium, and the second-half version of this team was the one it needed to bring. Both schools have more in their recaps, from Villanova (opens in a new tab) and from Lehigh (opens in a new tab).

The last word

Lehigh played the better second half. Villanova played the better first one and banked just enough in it to survive.

Homecoming crowds come for the reunion and the tailgate. This one got a goal-line stand, a 20-play drive that died at the 2 and a linebacker who saved the day with his 13th tackle. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday evening on the Main Line.

Sources: Lehigh Athletics recap and box score, Villanova Athletics recap and the Associated Press. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Lehigh Athletics/Hannah Ally.