Palm Harbor University/East Lake product Luke Yoder (shown in photo vs nationally ranked Army-West Point earlier this year) is a sophomore at Lehigh, a Pennsylvania school that won the Patriot League championship at the Division I/FCS level and played in the second round of the national playoffs today at Idaho. He was a second-team All Patriot League selection this year in only his second year.
It’s halftime (if you see this — its 10:45 pm as I type, you can catch Luke on ESPN+) and he’s leading all rushers in a road game at national FCS power Idaho.
Luke went over 1,000 rushing yards today, and has two years to go. His father, Todd Yoder, got a Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Bucs in 2002.
Luke played varsity football at PHU in 2020 and 2021 — setting the single-season rushing school record as a junior in 2021 at 1600+ yards, as well as the single-game record against Countryside that year (300+, I saw this game — incredible effort). He transferred to East Lake for his senior year in 2022. Between PHU and East Lake, he rushed for more than 3,500 yards in his 3-year varsity career in Pinellas County
Always cool to see the locals doing well nationally. This has been the best Lehigh team since another Tampa Bay native — quarterback Brad Mayes, a Berkeley Prep grad — roamed the sidelines until 2018. This year was expected to be a lovefest with Lafayette and Holy Cross — but Lehigh broke that up, with Yoder helping lead the way. Three first team All Patriot League players and four second-team players were underclassmen for the Mountain Hawks this year.
