The 1979 Lehigh Engineers football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented

Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epis ...

as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

during the

1979 NCAA Division I-AA football season The 1979 NCAA Division I-AA football season, part of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the Division I-AA level, began in August 1979, and concluded with the 1979 NCAA Division I-AA ...

. The Engineers finished the year ranked No. 3 in Division I-AA and qualified for the four-team national playoff. They won their semifinal but lost the 1979 NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship Game. In their fourth year under head coach John Whitehead, the Engineers compiled a 10–3 record (9–2 in the regular season). Rich Andres, Jim McCormick and Eric Yaszemski were the team captains. Lehigh returned to the national championship two years after winning the

NCAA Division II Football Championship The NCAA Division II Football Championship is an American college football tournament played annually to determine a champion at the NCAA Division II level. It was first held in 1973, as a single-elimination tournament with eight teams. The tourna ...

and the

Lambert Cup The Lambert Trophy is an annual award given to the best team in the East in Division I FBS (formerly I-A) college football. In affiliation with the Metropolitan New York Football Writers (founded 1935), the Lambert Trophy was established by brother ...

in 1977. Its two regular season losses in 1979 were away games at Colgate, a

Division I-A The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

team, and at

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

, the eventual Division II champion. Lehigh played its home games at

Taylor Stadium Ralph and Debbie Taylor Stadium at Simmons Field (also Taylor Stadium at Simmons Field) is a baseball stadium at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. It is the home field of the Missouri Tigers baseball. It was also the home of ...

on the university's main campus in

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19, ...

Schedule

References

{{1979 Division I-AA football playoff navbox Lehigh Lehigh Mountain Hawks football seasons Lehigh Engineers football