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Football

Football Rivalry Sites to Shift in Upcoming Seasons Due to Bicentennial

Leopards will play in Bethlehem in 2023 and 2024 and Easton in 2025 and 2026

EASTON, Pa. – College football's most-played rivalry, Lafayette vs. Lehigh, will see a slight adjustment to the schedule over the next four seasons. The teams, whose 2023 meeting is scheduled for Nov. 18 in Bethlehem, Pa., will also play the 2024 installment at Lehigh's Goodman Stadium in a game originally slated for Easton.

The series will move back to Fisher Stadium for two straight contests in 2025 and 2026, when Lafayette undertakes its bicentennial celebration in the 2025-26 academic year in honor of the school's 1826 founding by the citizens of Easton. From 2027 on, the ledger will feature the matchup rotating between the two campuses located less than 20 miles apart.

"Football and the Lafayette-Lehigh rivalry are such important parts of the culture of Lafayette College and Lehigh University. We wanted our rivalry game to be one of the many events that we are able to celebrate on College Hill during our bicentennial," said Lafayette Director of Athletics Sherryta Freeman. "We'd like to thank the Lehigh administration, including Lehigh's Dean of Athletics Joe Sterrett, for the willingness to shift games on the calendar."

"Although our teams and athletes compete with passion and purpose whenever Lafayette is our opponent, we also collaborate often to achieve meaningful educational or community building outcomes," said Lehigh Dean of Athletics Joe Sterrett. "This schedule adjustment reflects that mindset.  We know Lafayette would do the same for us."

Lafayette opens the 2023 campaign at Sacred Heart on Sept. 2 and the regular season concludes with Rivalry 159 at Goodman Stadium in Bethlehem, Pa.

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