By DAN GARTLAND
EXECUTIVE SPORTS EDITOR

Between the standing-room-only crowd and the national TV audience, the Fordham football team attracted plenty of attention on Saturday afternoon.

After a convincing victory over 10th-ranked Lehigh, the Rams moved into the top 10 themselves.

Fordham’s offense simply cannot be stopped. The Rams tore up Lehigh to the tune of 52 points and 630 total yards in Saturday afternoon’s 52-34 victory.

“We got beat handily today by a very good football team,” Lehigh head coach Andy Coen said.

Redshirt sophomore quarterback Michael Nebrich continued to play like one of the top quarterbacks in the country, completing 26 of 36 passes for 384 yards (a career-high and the 10th-most in school history), with four touchdowns. He also had 56 rushing yards on 13 carries with a touchdown.

As a result, Nebrich raked in several weekly awards. He was named Patriot League Offensive Player of the Week for the third time this season. He was also named National Performer and National Quarterback of the Week by the College Football Performance Awards, in addition to earning National Co-Offensive Player of the Week honors from The Sports Network.

“He’s the best [quarterback] I’ve seen in a long time,” Coen said of Nebrich. “This guy is unbelievably accurate. He’s got great feet. He’s obviously coached very well, you can tell that.”

Three of Nebrich’s touchdown passes went to junior receiver Sam Ajala.

“Today, the safety on my side, he wasn’t back far enough,” Ajala said. “So we just kept going by him and Nebrich was throwing great balls.”

Nebrich and Ajala connected for the game’s first score, a 25-yarder on the game’s opening possession. A holding call on Ajala wiped out a long run by Nebrich, but Ajala made up for it by catching a touchdown pass on the very next play.

Ajala’s second touchdown came with only 13 seconds left in the first half and gave Fordham a 24-14 halftime advantage.

Lehigh opened the second half by scoring a touchdown, but the Rams answered with a brilliantly executed play for a touchdown of their own. Nebrich faked a handoff to his running back, then faked a pitch to a receiver who motioned into the backfield from the slot. The double play-action allowed Ajala to break free behind the Lehigh defense, and Nebrich dropped the ball right into his hands for a 62-yard score that put Fordham up 31-21.

Lehigh scored on its ensuing possession to bring the Mountain Hawks back within a field goal late in the third quarter. After forcing Fordham to punt, Lehigh appeared to have changed the momentum of the game.

“Everyone on the offense was pretty confident we were going to go down and score a touchdown to take the lead,” Lehigh senior running back Keith Sherman said.

But, the punt was muffed by the Lehigh return man, and Fordham recovered the ball at the Mountain Hawks’ 15-yard line. After a delay of game penalty backed the Rams up five yards, senior running back Carlton Koonce bounced a run to the outside for a 20-yard touchdown.

Lehigh could have rebounded and scored a touchdown to draw within a field goal once again, but the Mountain Hawks’ senior quarterback Brandon Bialkowski was intercepted by Fordham junior safety Levon Williams.

The Rams took advantage of the turnover by scoring yet another touchdown to stretch their lead to 45-28, leaving Lehigh with only 12 minutes left to mount a comeback. But Fordham forced another Lehigh punt and scored its third straight touchdown to take a 52-28 lead. The Mountain Hawks added a meaningless touchdown with 2:48 left to play and failed on a two-point conversion attempt to make it 52-34. After Fordham recovered Lehigh’s onside kick attempt, the Rams were able to run out the clock.

Coen said he thought “the game really swung on the turnovers.”

Nebrich agreed.

“I think those two turnovers really just gave us the chance to just pull away and close the door on them,” he said.

With the win, Fordham improved to 6-0 for the first time since 1988, when the Rams were still in Division III.

Fordham is now ranked 10th in The Sports Network poll and 9th in the FCS coaches’ poll. The Rams are one of  five FCS teams with a record of 5-0 or better.

Fordham travels to Washington, D.C. next week to take on Georgetown. The Hoyas are 1-4 on year, with their lone win coming over Davidson (0-5) on Sept. 7.

If Fordham wins, the Rams would be 7-0 for the first time since 1930. But Nebrich says his team is not caught up in the history.

“The history of the school and the best start in 25 years — it’s cool to be a part of it, but we’re trying to create our own legacy here,” he said. “We really don’t focus too much on the past. This team just really wants to create its own legacy and show everyone what the 2013 version of the Fordham Rams is all about.”

Categories: Football, Sports

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