Lehigh Football Nation

Johns Hopkins and the Future of Independent Lacrosse

2013-05-22T13:14:00.000-04:00

In football, there is BYU, Notre Dame, Army and Navy, the last independents in an FBS world of conferences and the payouts they generate for their members. In men's lacrosse, there is Johns Hopkins, High Point, Marquette and Mercer - not exactly the same cavalcade of stars as in bowl football. But one of those four, Johns Hopkins, the nine-time NCAA champions of the modern era, are superstars of the lacrosse world. Founded in 1883, they are one of the founding fathers of the sport of lacrosse and have been involved in its play essentially since the founding of the university in 1876. What the people say around this 130 year old lacrosse program matters - and they've said that finally, after 130 years of competing as an independent, they are finally joining a conference in...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Patsy Ratings: Georgetown's Class of 2017

2013-05-06T15:18:00.001-04:00

(Photo Credit: Washington Post) The term is "Hoya Paranoia", and back in the 1980s it meant the hoops legend of John Thompson, Patrick Ewing and the golden era of Hoya basketball. There's even a blog dedicated to those teams in that time frame. To Hoya football fans, though, the term Hoya Paranoia has meant something much different. To them, head coach Kevin Kelly has been fighting a losing battle in the Patriot League, despite being one game away from the title in two of the last three years. They say that the new reality that has football scholarships in the Patriot League is bad, bad news for the Hoyas, and that the inevitable decline of the program is right around the corner as a result. In this reporter's opinion, in past seasons, the argument hasn't held...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Boykopalooza

2013-05-01T12:32:00.000-04:00

Future NFL players spend their drafts differently. Some spend it in celebration with friends in the city, or surrounded by family at home. Some of the big names have the cameras embedded with the players, awaiting with baited breath their reactions, or their expressions of relief. But LB Billy Boyko didn't do much different than he does many weekends. "Boyko, the all-league linebacker from Northampton, spent Saturday working on cars at Maple Grove Raceway," the Morning Call reported, "where his family is immersed in the drag racing scene." Working on his father’s dragster during "the season opener of the Sunoco Race Fuels Money Trail," a release from the Maple Grove Raceway said, he "kept two cell phones in his pockets at all times,"...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

A Most Exciting NFL Draft Weekend for Lehigh Football Fans

2013-04-26T12:48:00.002-04:00

There have been many football offseasons when I've covered the possibility of one, or perhaps two, Patriot League players getting signed as free agents playing at the next level. This offseason, we might see something unprecedented. Four Lehigh football players - QB Mike Colvin, TE Jamel Haggins, LB Billy Boyko, and, of course, WR Ryan Spadola - all have an excellent chance at finding themselves in NFL training camps in the next couple of months. One - Spadola - is a strong candidate for being drafted this Saturday. Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Spring Game Roundup

2013-04-22T10:14:00.000-04:00

(Photo Credit: Stephen Flood/The Express-Times) Below the flip get all the links and wrapups of this weekend's Spring Game. In the meantime, check out rising senior S Rickie Hill about to deliver some punishment to senior WR Sergio Fernandez-Soto! Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Brown 46, White 37, Final

2013-04-21T11:39:00.000-04:00

(Photo Credit: Kevin Mingora/The Morning Call/April 20th, 2013) By any measure the defense probably had more of its share of concern - and attention from coaches and fans alike - in this Spring season. They had heard the issues all Spring long - the fact that only three starters returned on defense, including four new starters in the secondary and three new starters on the defensive line. “The defense needs to get better,” Coen said in the release before the Brown/White game. “They didn’t perform very well in our last scrimmage and our coaches have challenged them." The defensive Brown team, led by new team captains senior LB Nigel Muhammad and senior FS Tyler Ward, responded to the challenge. Using a modified scoring system, the Brown defense scored 14 points off of sacks and...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Lehigh Spring Football - The Defense and Special Teams

2013-04-19T17:10:00.000-04:00

Last season, there was little drama on the defensive side of the ball going into the spring season. With all-Patriot League names like DT Sajjad Chagani, DE Tom Bianchi, LB Billy Boyko and CB Bryan Andrews on the roster, you knew that the squad was more in a mode to "tweak" rather than to "retool". This season sees not only these three position leaders graduate, but plenty more, making the defense much less experiences, and a much larger area of competition, than last season. “The defense needs to get better,” head coach Andy Coen said in this week's release. “They didn’t perform very well in our last scrimmage and our coaches have challenged them. We haven’t had a lot of live tackling because we’re in a tailback situation. Last week we got more into it, we...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Lehigh Spring Football - The Offense

2013-04-09T13:08:00.001-04:00

Can it be already that half of spring practice is already in the books? While many of us were watching the NCAA Tournament, ripping up our office pools while watching Louisville upend Michigan in the championship, the Lehigh football team was getting better. "We're just trying to learn and get better each day," head coach Andy Coen said in Lehigh's mid-season spring report. "We've got so many young, young players... I think we have a lot of talented players here, but a lot of the guys haven't had the type of opportunity that they're getting now." "I think this team is lacking experience," Coen told me, "but I don't believe we are lacking talent. We have been fortunate over the past three years to have some very talented...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Lehigh Spring Football - The Hunger Games

2013-03-22T12:59:00.000-04:00

A 10-1 record. A thrilling win on the road in front of over 17,000 fans over the Big South co-champs, Liberty. Thrilling wins over Princeton, Holy Cross, and Georgetown. And five straight over the Mountain Hawks arch-rival in Easton. There was an awful lot for Lehigh football fans to celebrate from last year's 10-1 season, only the tenth season in Lehigh's nearly 130 year history in which the Mountain Hawks had more than ten victories. So what's the first thing that head coach Andy Coen brings up as the spring football season and schedule got unveiled today? “This group is all going to be about being hungry,” he said. Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Eagles Training Camp Bites the Dust at Lehigh

2013-03-15T13:18:00.000-04:00

I've often said privately that I thought that the departure of Andy Reid would probably be the end of Eagles Training Camp at Lehigh. With the hiring of new head coach Chip Kelly, this sad day for the Lehigh Valley and Lehigh University has finally come. In a noon press release, the Philadelphia Eagles organization announced their intentions of holding preseason training at the NovaCare complex and having some free practices at Lincoln Financial Field. I can understand why the Eagles did it, but it's a decision that makes me no less sad. Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

NCAA Wrestler's Case Shows Need For Updated Rules

2013-02-28T12:32:00.002-05:00

(Photo Credit: NY Times/Emily Dunker/The Minnesota Daily) I am not usually one to rake the NCAA over the coals. As the cops of collegiate athletics, I understand their job is hard, and too many athletic departments are trying to break the rules. Even if some rules are strange or restrictive, at their heart they are there for good reasons. But they've been slow to adapt in some ways to an ever changing digital world (as Lehigh football fans undoubtedly are well aware). And yesterday, an enforcement case came to light that just begs for commentary. It's the case of Minnesota wrestler Joel Bauman, who was yanked from competing for the Gopher wrestling team for violating an NCAA bylaw. His crime? Recording a song and charging 99 cents for it on iTunes. Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Could Nova/Pitt Hand Lehigh a 12th Game?

2013-02-19T12:27:00.000-05:00

Do I seem obsessed with the idea of Lehigh having a 12th game in 2013? Yes, I believe I am. While my initial thoughts on a 12th game for Lehigh involved a lot of expense - for example, a possible trip to Bozeman, Montana to take on last year's Big Sky co-champions Montana State - it so happens that there's another possible 12th Mountain Hawk game that could come about that is not only a whole lot less expensive, but also would give Lehigh an extra home game. The forces at work would not be from the FCS world but the FBS world. More accurately, a game versus Pitt and Villanova. Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Patsy Ratings - Lehigh's Class of 2017

2013-02-18T16:47:00.002-05:00

With two Patriot League Championships in three years and a 10-1 record last year, Lehigh head coach Andy Coen certainly has high standards to meet every year. It's not nearly enough to have a "year off" recruiting when you're at - or, in Lehigh's case, near - the top. You lose all-league players like WR Ryan Spadola and DT Sajjad Chagani and you have to recruit all-league players to replace them. There's never any room for error. Lehigh fans who have been waiting with baited breath to see how scholarships have found their way into Coen's class of 2017 finally have a chance to discover what, if any, impact scholarships have. The Patsy Ratings offer an answer, and it's a surprising one. Scholarships seem to have had a good impact on Lehigh's first...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Patsy Ratings - Holy Cross' Class of 2017

2013-02-15T16:30:00.004-05:00

Every once in a while, a Patsy Point class crosses the desk of the Committee where the Members check the other side of the paper for more names. "Is that all?" they ask, with no response forthcoming. Such is the case with Holy Cross head football coach Tom Gilmore's Patsy Point class this go-around, his first with football scholarships at his disposal. It's a small class, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, necessarily. But as you'll see below, the Patsy Point rating system was - shall we say - not kind to Holy Cross' incoming class for this season. Everyone knows, and nobody is more aware of this than the Committee members, that the Patsy Ratings are a deeply flawed system. They are for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to the true...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Patsy Ratings - Fordham's Class of 2017

2013-02-14T23:28:00.000-05:00

Fordham knows the ropes when it comes to football scholarships, and so does head coach Joe Moorhead. Coming last season from the coaching staff at UConn, and himself a former Fordham football player, he's seen the academic side, and the scholarship side. One of the great things about the Patsy Ratings is that it treats all schools equally. Scholarships, grants, it attempts to treat all the teams the same, whether they've been recruiting with football scholarships for one year or four. Fordham has been ineligible for the Patriot League title the past three years, but they're still eligible for the Patsy Point title in 2013. Let's see how they did. Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

B1G's Collossally Stupid Decision To Stop Scheduling FCS Schools

2013-02-13T15:29:00.000-05:00

It is truly hilarious when people who don't know what they're talking about try to make news points, and news decisions, based on one side of the story. Such is the case with the breathless coverage of the Big 10's decision, led by former Wisconsin head football coach (and current athletic director) Barry Alvarez, who shared with the Milwaukee-Journal that Big 10 officials "recently agreed to stop scheduling nonconference games against FCS programs." Of course, the first thing papers around the country do is pull a picture from such an FCS game involving Wisconsin from last season - surely a poster child for a blowout, right? Um, not exactly. Northern Iowa gave Wisconsin "all they could handle" in a 26-21 nailbiter. Wait, it gets better. Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Patsy Ratings - Bucknell's Class of 2017

2013-02-12T17:54:00.000-05:00

Another day, another foray into the Patsy Ratings, where Joe Susan's Bucknell Bison now go under the microscope. There are no statistics, of course, which say, definitively, that Bucknell wasn't totally using their grant-in-aid money to effectively scholarship football players last season. (None, except the fact that Bucknell hasn't won a Patriot League football title since 1997.) But with the prospect of conventional scholarships came the prospect of a different type of recruit becoming attracted to the delights of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. (Delights which escaped me during my "recruiting" trip there, but I digress.) Did it work? Is there a significant boost in the type of athletes headed to Bucknell? And was the net result a Patsy Point haul that reflects...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Patsy Ratings - Colgate's Class of 2017

2013-02-11T23:30:00.000-05:00

Next up in the Patsy ratings extravaganza is Colgate, who, as you'll see in a moment, seem to have not only embraced scholarship recruiting with the gusto The Bear attacks chicken wings, but also seem to have crafted an incoming class that seems, strangely, to almost be geared towards scoring Patsy Points. The Committee, after seeing the numbers racked up by Colgate in this area, asked a question. What is, actually, the highest Patsy Rating ever recorded? Does this mega-class have what it takes to make it to the pantheon of Patsy Rating heroes? The answer, surprisingly, is no. In the limited number of years the Patsy Ratings have been running, there have been at least six classes with higher ratings than Colgate's fine class this season - and at least two classes that never...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Patsy Ratings - Lafayette's Class of 2017

2013-02-10T22:12:00.003-05:00

My first foray in the world of the Patsy ratings is Lafayette, who, in the past five years running, has been the first to announce their incoming class, was (I believe) the first Patriot League school to recognize National Letters of Intent, and has consistently made the biggest deal of "signing day". The question is on every Lafayette fans' mind, of course: So, now, we have scholarships. That means those low Patsy ratings for our incoming class are also a thing of the past, right? Is this the year the big Patsy Points start to roll in? What different types of kids will we get, they say? Which head-to-head recruiting battles will we win that, in other years, we weren't even in the running? This class gives the first opportunity for the Leopards to see exactly what...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

The 2013 Patsy Ratings

2013-02-08T12:06:00.002-05:00

Something new is coming to Lehigh Football Nation, and no, Jerry Lewis has nothing to do with it. Once upon a time, there was a legendary Lafayette message board poster called carney2, who came up with a way to attempt to rate, in a somewhat unbiased manner, Patriot League recruiting classes. For years he posted his spreadsheet-based evaluations on the Any Given Saturday message board, and his somewhat dry, humorous description of the methodology and the rating. For hardcore Patriot League fans, it was an important, must-read part of the offseason. This year, his Patsy ratings - which don't have to do with real Patsies, incidentally - come to LFN. All those printouts, formulae, and (hopefully) some of the dry wit now are a part of the website. In the upcoming weeks, I'll be...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

SIgning Day Gallery: Class of 2017

2013-02-06T22:55:00.000-05:00

Below the flip enjoy a gallery of the latest Lehigh football commits for the class of 2017! Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Spadola Represents Nation, Speeds Towards Combine

2013-02-05T12:31:00.000-05:00

When you are looking to make the NFL, every moment, and every all-star game and combine, matters. This past week, former Lehigh star WR Ryan Spadola, who is currently looking to be one of those guys that play on Sundays, looked to make every moment of his appearance in the Texas vs. The Nation All-Star game matter. That didn't just mean the game itself, where Ryan's stat line read 1 catch for 8 yards, a pass from Tulane QB Ryan Griffin, or the outcome, which was a 24-13 win for the (appropriately named) Nation team over Texas. (In a strange twist of fate, Ryan didn't wear the gold helmet of Lehigh at the game, but more on that later.) It also meant the positive press in the run-up to the game, and the large number of scouts available to see their progress. In my...

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

The Unofficial Georgetown Commit List for the Class of 2017

2013-01-30T16:52:00.002-05:00

High school players across the country right now are making decisions on their college futures, and some are making choices involving Patriot League schools. The news trickles out slowly, from a variety of sources, and finally ends with the official announcement from the schools of the incoming football recruit class. But with a little work (and a lot of help), it's possible to get a list together of verbal commits to the individual Patriot League schools. Below the flip, get a sneak peek of Georgetown's class of 2017, including links to some highlights, and also embedded video clips - and come back to this page often, as I'm going to be updating it frequently over the next few weeks until the Hoyas officially release their Class of 2017. Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

Bucknell's Trouble With Math

2013-01-29T13:48:00.000-05:00

Late this past Friday, at a time that is popular for dumping unpleasant news, Bucknell president John Bravman, well, dumped some unpleasant news on an unsuspecting public. Like all the schools of the Patriot League, Bucknell prides itself as being one of the most selective schools in the country. Not just anyone can get in; you need to be near the top of your class. So it came as a shock to me, and plenty of others, when Mr. Bravman dropped the bombshell that Bucknell had reported false SAT and ACT averages for a seven year stretch from 2006 to 2012. It was a shocking admission that makes one ask the question: Why? Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]

The Unofficial Lafayette Commit List for the Class of 2017

2013-01-28T00:30:00.000-05:00

High school players across the country right now are making decisions on their college futures, and some are making choices involving Patriot League schools. The news trickles out slowly, from a variety of sources, and finally ends with the official announcement from the schools of the incoming football recruit class. But with a little work (and a lot of help), it's possible to get a list together of verbal commits to the individual Patriot League schools. Below the flip, get a sneak peek of Lafayette's class of 2017, including links to some highlights, and also embedded video clips - and come back to this page often, as I'm going to be updating it frequently over the next few weeks. Read more »

[[Visit http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com for the entire content.]]