Lehigh football coach Kevin Cahill enjoyed his team’s bye week.

He’s just glad there weren’t two of them, back-to-back, as there was in 2024.

“That was terrible,” he said. “I don’t recommend that for anybody. Having the one week is a lot easier, and we’ll see how we come out and play on Saturday, but I think our kids are ready to go.”

The unbeaten and 7th-ranked Mountain Hawks are resuming their season where they left off — in New York City.

Two Saturdays ago they beat Columbia, 31-7 in northern Manhattan. This time they will be in the Bronx to take on Patriot League rival Fordham. The Rams (1-6, 1-2) played Ivy League power Dartmouth tough for a half and were tied 6-6 at halftime last week, but ultimately lost 30-13.

The game kicks off the five-game stretch run for Lehigh with all remaining games in the league.

“There’s such parody in our league, too, and all of these games are going to come down to the fourth quarter,” Cahill said. “Did you make the play or did you not make the play? So, we have to remain focused on Lehigh and know that we haven’t done anything yet. Yeah, we’ve won enough games to be happy, but it really means nothing right now. We have to focus on ourselves and continue to improve.”

Despite its record, Fordham figures to be formidable. The Rams have won eight of the last 11 meetings and haven’t won at Jack Coffey Field since 2019.

Cahill has a long-term relationship with Fordham coach Joe Conlin. The two of them coached together on Tony Reno’s Yale staff from 2013-17, and for four of those seasons, Cahill was Yale’s assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach while Conlin was associate head coach and offensive coordinator.

“They will make you defend the whole field, sideline to sideline, and they will hit with you some shots down the field as well,” Cahill said. “So we have to do a good job of making open-field tackles and eliminating the big plays. And then offensively, we’ve got to do a good job of playing our brand of football, finding a way to run the ball, hitting the play-actions, and hitting the quick game and do what we need to do at a high level.”

Lehigh, which has won 12 consecutive regular-season games, has dominated on the ground in becoming an FCS powerhouse.

The Mountain Hawks lead the Patriot League and rank in the top-six in the nation in both rushing offense (236.4 ypg) and rushing defense (70.1 ypg). Luke Yoder has had three straight 100-yard rushing performances and his 761 rushing yards rank seventh in FCS football.

The defense is second in FCS football against the run and has limited its last three opponents to an average of 57 yards on the ground.

So, during the break, there were plenty of positives to build on and a few things to improve on.

“We got a chance to refocus on our players and not worry so much about scheme and everything, but just dwell on how we do things and who we are,” Cahill said. “We also could bring some of the younger kids along that we’re going to need down the stretch and just see what they can do for us and how we can get them better.”

Sparkling Spatny

Senior defensive lineman Matt Spatny may have had the week off along with the rest of the team, but he still picked up another accolade. He was chosen Patriot League defensive player of the week after making six tackles, including three for loss and two sacks, at Columbia. He has 21.5 career sacks, putting him just 2.5 behind 1999 graduate Nick Martucci for the all-time Lehigh sacks record.

“Matt is a great, great football player,” Cahill said. “We’re really happy to have him be a part of our program because he is an awesome person. He has made Lehigh better, and we always talk about the impact you make on our program and our campus on a day-to-day basis. Matt has made the program better, and he has made the school better just by being the person that he is. He’s a tremendous student, a phenomenal athlete, and someone who just makes everybody better.

“He doesn’t have any eligibility left with us, but he has a tremendous opportunity to get to the next level. A lot of teams are interested in him and looking at him. But he is not focused on that. He is just focused on making Lehigh better.”

Spatny is from Cleveland where he says “the sports culture is very good.”

“If we ever win the Super Bowl with the Browns, I think the city might burn down,” Spatny said. “The parade for the 2016 Cavs was so crazy. I was there. I think I was in middle school, but I still remember it.”

The Lehigh football community will always remember Spatny.

“I love the Lehigh community, and this campus is beautiful and everything here is just tremendous,” he said. “Every game is the biggest game of the season from here on out. It’s like the Super Bowl every time we step on the field. It’s like the Super Bowl every time we step onto the practice field, too. You have to attack every day like you have no other.”

Lehigh (7-0, 2-0) at Fordham (1-6, 1-2)

When/where: 1 p.m. Saturday at Moglia Field, Bronx, New York

Storylines: Lehigh is the 7th-ranked team in the country and owns a 12-game regular-season winning streak dating back to last season. The Mountain Hawks are coming off their bye week. There is no time for rest or a letdown now as it’s all Patriot League play the rest of the way. The Mountain Hawks have created a lot of optimism and excitement for their fans with home games against Georgetown and Holy Cross coming up. Fordham coach Joe Conlin knows Lehigh coach Cahill well, and how he likes to attack teams, and the Mountain Hawks have had their troubles at Fordham and can’t overlook the Rams.

Players to watch: Lehigh quarterback Hayden Johnson has completed 61.9% of his passes for 1,312 yards and 12 touchdowns with just three interceptions mixed in. Geoffrey Jamiel has 41 catches for 639 yards and four TDs and Mason Humphrey has 20 receptions for 351 yards and 2 TDs. Brycen Edwards has 52 tackles, including 4.5 for loss and two sacks. Fordham’s Gunnar Smith has thrown for 250.9 yards per game, tops in the Patriot League. His 22 completions per game is also a league-best. James Conway leads the league in tackles per game with 14.2. Conway, a grad student, has 539 career tackles, which is just 11 shy of the NCAA FCS record of 550 set by Boomer Grigsby of Illinois State.

Keith Groller’s prediction: Lehigh 38-28