NCAAF Heat Check
Team Heat Check: Lehigh Run Hot, New Hampshire Run Cold (College Football)
Published
Form is the story the standings tell slowly and the last ten games tell fast. Right now the fast version of College Football is easy to summarize: Lehigh are rolling, New Hampshire are reeling, and the gap between those two feelings is enormous.
Who's hot
Start with Lehigh. They have won 5 of their last 5, and they have not been sneaking past anyone: the points margin over that stretch is +97, which breaks down to about 33.6 scored and 14.2 allowed per game. That is the arithmetic of a team winning on merit, not on bounces.
The chase belongs to Austin Peay, who have gone 4-1 with a +100 margin of their own.
North Dakota (4-1) round out the warm end of the ledger.
For scale, the league as a whole is averaging 23.9 points a game over this window, Lehigh are clearing that bar by 9.7 a night all on their own.
The cold end
At the bottom of the temperature map sit New Hampshire: 1-4 in their last 5, -101 on points margin. That is about 20.2 a game in the wrong direction, and no lineup shuffle fixes it overnight.
Holy Cross are not far behind on the misery index at 1-4.
Do not ignore the middle class, either: UAlbany (2-3) and Indiana State (2-3) sit close enough that a single hot or cold series flips their order.
The board
The top of the ledger, at a glance:
| Team | Last 10 | Points +/- |
|---|---|---|
| Lehigh | 5-0 (5 gm) | +97 |
| Austin Peay | 4-1 (5 gm) | +100 |
| North Dakota | 4-1 (5 gm) | +61 |
| Colgate | 4-1 (5 gm) | +52 |
| Richmond | 4-1 (5 gm) | -38 |
The fine print
As always, watch where record and points margin tell different stories about the same club. The margin tends to know first.