The 1980 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 1980 NCAA Division I-AA football season. Lehigh went undefeated through the regular season and was the No. 1-ranked team in Division I-AA, but lost its national semifinal game. In their fifth year under head coach John Whitehead, the Engineers compiled a 9–1–2 record (9–0–2 in the regular season). Mike Crowe and Mark Yeager were the team captains. The Engineers' participation in the 1980 Division I-AA playoff marked their third year of postseason play in a four-year stretch, beginning with 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 ...

in 1977, and continuing with their loss in the 1979 NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship Game. 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

{{1980 Division I-AA football playoff navbox Lehigh Lehigh Mountain Hawks football seasons Lehigh Engineers football