Lehigh Football Nation

Revolutionary Thinking to Save the CAA

2012-05-25T12:22:00.001-04:00

In every place in America that I've lived, there's been evidence of the times of the American revolutionary war. Close by, in some form or another, I've been amongst 18th-century farmhouses and ancient taverns where George Washingon, Ben Franklin or John Adams might have sipped madeira or stayed the night. I've visited 12 of the original 13 colonies (South Carolina is the only one that has evaded me). I've been to Boston, the epicenter of civil disobedience against the British, and live near Philadelphia, where the founding fathers made a functioning government amidst the chaos around them that still, to this day, serves as an example worldwide. The theme of revolution seems to be apropos to the collegiate realignment maelstrom that continues to swirl through...

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Congratulations to the Class of 2012

2012-05-22T11:50:00.001-04:00

For some reason, this picture (credit to graduate Larry Shulman, who tweeted this picture of graduation as it happened) seems to perfectly capture the state of Lehigh's graduating class of 2012. Lehigh graduates are entering an uncertain world, where youth unemployment is high and the jobs of tomorrow aren't exactly as clear as they could be. Some, like the young woman in the picture, seem just a bit apprehensive of what's up ahead. Here's a dirty little secret, grads: there's always something to be apprehensive about. But you have the tools - starting with your Lehigh degree - to make it. Read more »

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Richmond Burning Final Bridges with CAA?

2012-05-10T13:17:00.001-04:00

When the Patriot League allowed for member schools to offer conventional football scholarships this past winter, then Lafayette president Daniel Weiss noted that "we believe over time what this decision is in the best interest of the league because it will help us with future membership prospects." While everything I've heard still points to the Patriot League taking a cautious eye at expanding with new football-only or all-sports members, the League has definitely put themselves in a better position to attract potential new members in the maelstrom that is college football realignment at the moment. It is in this environment where Richmond athletic director Jim Miller waded, into a swamp where the CAA awaits word of a resolution of the Mexican standoff between Old...

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Colgate at Lehigh in November: Jim Rome Approves

2012-05-07T00:14:00.000-04:00

Today, CBS Sports Network and the Patriot League announced their two-game national broadcast schedule for Patriot League football, and it had a major surprise. One of the games listed on their schedule was none other than the Lehigh/Colgate game on November 10th. What's surprising not was that a Lehigh game appeared for national broadcast - after all, last year's Lehigh/Colgate game up in Hamilton was broadcast on the CBS Sports Network as well. It also wasn't surprising that Jim Rome, CBS Network's star power, gave the OK for the game as well. (Well, we don't know that Mr. Rome has say over everything broadcast on CBSSN, but we can speculate, of course, right?) No, what was surprising was that this broadcast will be the first nationally-produced broadcast of a...

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Final Thoughts on the Spring Game

2012-04-24T17:31:00.000-04:00

(Photo Credit: Matt Smith/The Express-Times) With the spring season officially in the books - and the 43-43 tie now finally the last public word on the spring football season - I thought I'd empty out my notebook in regards to the spring season and my thoughts going forward. Read more »

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Brown 43, White 43, Final

2012-04-22T01:36:00.000-04:00

(Photo Credit: Kevin Mingora/The Morning Call) Head coach Andy Coen said after the Brown/White game had you called him up last night, he would have wanted a result like the 43-43 score that he (and Lehigh Nation) got on this picture-perfect morning for spring football at Murray Goodman stadium. After the defense dominated the proceedings early, the offense, led by team captain senior QB Mike Colvin, rebounded from three early picks to connect for a touchdown to set up the tie, and coach Coen saw the White offense finally take from the Brown defense, sending all the Lehigh folks home fairly happy but with an eye on all of the work that still needs to be done. Read more »

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Game Preview: Brown/White Scrimmage

2012-04-20T00:35:00.000-04:00

(Photo Credit: Lehigh Valley Live) Four offensive linemen out - junior OL Matt Lippincott, junior OL A.J. Hood, senior OL Mike Vuono and sophomore OL Wenner Nunes. The star running back of last year, senior RB Zach Barket? Still recovering from the broken leg he suffered last year. Two candidates for defensive captain next year, senior LB Billy Boyko and senior CB Bryan Andrews? Both shut down for the spring. The big question about this weekend's Brown/White game might not concern who's ahead in the race for starting nods next season. It could be whether they need to suit up people in the stands to play a complete game. Read more »

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Spring Football: The Defense

2012-04-05T17:52:00.000-04:00

Last week, I took a look at Lehigh's spring offense - and the huge challenge of fielding a spring offense with only three of the faces that suited up last fall for the White team. This week, I take a peek at the spring defense, and unlike the offense, the Brown team will see a lot more continuity this spring. With a now-veteran defensive backfield, led by senior CB Gabe Johnson, senior SS Billy O'Brien and LFN fave senior CB Bryan Andrews, the onus will be to develop the replacement for the graduating all-American LB Mike Groome - a player whose epic goal-line stands and never-stopping motor is difficult to envision replacing completely. Read more »

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Lehigh Spring Football Season Has Started

2012-03-30T01:41:00.000-04:00

Last Friday, the first step of Lehigh's quest for the threepeat began. The two-time Patriot League champions showed up for the first spring practice of the year a week ago, signalling the end of the 2011 victory laps in the form of banquets, awards, and even pro days. Though the beginning of the spring season was kicked off with some fun with the team - a strongman competition to show off the team's offseason weight training gains - the truth of the matter is this will be the most challenging and eye-opening Mountain Hawk spring season of the last three years. That's what happens when you need to replace four of the top players in the Patriot League last year, including the Walter Payton award runner-up, QB Chris Lum, and two more all-Americans. Read more »

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VMI to the Patriot League?

2012-03-26T19:23:00.000-04:00

When Lafayette president Daniel H. Weiss announced to the world that the Patriot League would be allowing schools to allow merit-based aid - i.e., allowing the same types of athletic scholarships that other FCS schools can offer - there was a lot of rejoicing with Patriot League fans for a variety of reasons. "We make this decision in recognition that we believe that it will help the league to remain strong and competitive." he mentioned in his opening statement, "We believe over time what this decision is in the best interest of the league because it will help us with future membership prospects." This past week, a subtle change to the Patriot League website seems to indicate that perhaps, just perhaps, that future membership prospects might be happening sooner...

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Interesting Pro Day at Lehigh for Lum, Drwal, McKenna

2012-03-25T01:36:00.000-04:00

It's starting to become a habit. For the second straight year, Lehigh hosted a Pro Day for three athletes,QB Chris Lum, WR Jake Drwal, and TE Troy McKenna, as well as some other athletes from the area as well. While it wasn't the same as last year, where Will Rackley had a slew of NFL scouts travel to Bethlehem to see his numbers, the trio did bring a very solid performance on a beautiful day in front of a crowd of well-wishers and fans. Read more »

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Pro Day Beckons for Three Mountain Hawks

2012-03-22T19:10:00.000-04:00

When you're a 6'4, 280 lb offensive tackle in college, the three letters "NFL" don't usually enter your thought process. Unless, of course, you're senior OT Troy McKenna. When many players at all levels of football were hanging up their cleats for good after the season, Lehigh's FCS All-American tackle never stopped working to pursue a dream - making it to the NFL. As a tight end. The dream of making an NFL training camp continues for three former Lehigh football players tomorrow with a Pro Day at the University: McKenna, QB Chris Lum, and WR Jake Drwal. Read more »

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Wilcher and Roberts Will Be Co-Defensive Coordinators Next Season

2012-03-21T19:03:00.000-04:00

It's never easy on a coaching staff when you lose a great assistant coach or coordinator. And when Dave Kotulski announced that he was going to be headed to Stanford, head coach Andy Coen announced that he would be searching for new candidates "immediately". Fortunately for all Lehigh fans, the best possible solution was reached in terms of replacing Kotulski - involving promotion of two existing coaches to co-defensive coordinators - and the return of a familiar face. Read more »

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Lehigh 75, Duke 70, Final

2012-03-17T03:06:00.001-04:00

I've got a confession to make: March 16th, 2012 did not start out well for me. It was not a day that felt like history was going to be made, starting with a sleepless night, and another long workday ahead after already logging more than forty hours at the office. But by the end of the night, all the stress, all the frustration and all the hard work of the last week were gone. There was nothing else but the extraordinary achievement of this very, very special Lehigh men's basketball team. The best Lehigh basketball player I've ever seen out-performed one of the best guards in the ACC - and played a huge part in writing the Mountain Hawks into NCAA tournament history. Read more »

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Mountain Hawk Madness

2012-03-14T01:18:00.001-04:00

You know by now that Lehigh is going to the Big Dance. You know by now that they're facing off against Duke in Greensboro, North Carolina on Friday ay 7PM, to be seen nationally on CBS. You knew, too, that there would be Madness surrounding the trip to the NCAA tournament. But quite this much Madness? When Lehigh faced off against Kansas two years ago, Lehigh's odds of winning the tournament were put at "a Googleplex-to-one". Literally. This time around, though, I can tell you this - it's not a Googleplex anymore. And a whole lot of fans around the Lehigh Valley think maybe, just maybe, this team can bring down Mike Krzyzewski's team on the 20 year anniversary of Christian Laettner's shot and only two years removed from beating Butler for their most...

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Defensive Coordinator Dave Kotulski Leaves for Stanford

2012-03-01T15:55:00.000-05:00

It's always bittersweet to hear about a key part of the coaching staff leaving for a different job. But when the new job involves a move to a BCS-level program, it does take away a little bit of the sting. Coaching veteran Dave Kotulski, who was Lehigh's linebackers coach and defensive coordinator, will be taking a position as the inside linebackers coach at Stanford. Read more »

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Is Temple The Big East Domino?

2012-02-29T14:36:00.001-05:00

I've tried to stay out of this FBS realignment talk. Really I have. Like many of you, I see the headlines scroll by on Twitter, and try to make some sense of it all - Texas A&M to the SEC! Conference USA and the Mountain West merge! Texas State goes to the WAC! But in many ways, it's like Tibetan soccer to me: a foreign sport that has little to nothing to do with the goings-on in the league I care about, the Patriot League. That all changed with talk that Temple could be joining the Big East. These talks about Temple joining the conference - a school in direct competition for the heart and soul of the Philadelphia market with one of its current members - could be the move that destabilizes everything. Read more »

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The Decision: The Presidential View: Bucknell's Thoughtful Study

2012-02-23T16:30:00.000-05:00

Last Monday, the Patriot League presidents delivered a monumental decision to allow football scholarships. Since that day, the pride and joy of Lewisburg, Bucknell men's basketball, rated No. 70 in the Real Time RPI rankings and home to the Sojka Psychos, has not won a single game. Coincidence? It might not seem that way to a multitude of folks who have assumed that the Bison - who, at times has seemed to be a school that values hoops over halfbacks - were against allowing football scholarships all the way through. Reading the official statement from Bucknell president Dr. John C. Bravman, too, it looks like football scholarships are seen as much as a challenge to their athletics program than something to be embraced. Read more »

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The Decision: The Presidential View: Fordham's Vision

2012-02-17T01:16:00.000-05:00

Earlier today, I took a look at the scholarship decision from the perspective of Georgetown and Dr. John DeGioia, who seems to see his school at a crossroads after the decision to offer scholarships was made. But on the other side of the argument for need-based aid, it should come as no surprise that the school that is most enthusiastic about the decision was Fordham, who already offers scholarships and may now once again be eligible to compete for the Patriot League championship very soon. Before this past week, Fordham, under former president Fr. Joseph A. O’Hare, might have gone down in history as the school that nearly broke the league apart. But with the news this week, Fordham, under current president Fr. Joseph M. McShane, they might become known as the school that saved the...

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The Decision: The Presidential View: Georgetown's "Options"

2012-02-16T12:38:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has followed the Patriot League in any capacity has some sort of opinion on the decision to allow football scholarships. (Including myself, of course.) But in the end, it was only the opinion of ten men and women who mattered - the eight presidents of the full-time Patriot League schools, and the two presidents of the football-only members. Shortly after history was made, there were a flurry of different documents released - including an official Patriot League release of comments from all seven of the football-playing schools - as well. The varied documents provide a fascinating glimpse at a process that was, over the course of the past five years, basically closed to the public, save the occasional leak to the local press. It also gives a look as to which schools are...

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The Decision: My Thoughts

2012-02-14T12:37:00.002-05:00

The Patriot League presidents finally made a decision on football scholarships, allowing what the rest of FCS college football considers "scholarships" starting with the football recruiting class of 2017. It was a bold decision that many folks, including myself, thought might never happen. That's because bold decisions, by their nature, are difficult. They entail risk. They involve a break away from comfortable situations. They involve a challenge of the status quo - a re-evaluation of the comfortable relationships and certain existence that the league has in the FCS football world they inhabit. It was a bold decision - and one that was a lot more difficult, I think, than folks realize. But I also think, ultimately, it was also the right decision. Read more »

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Decision Made: Patriot League Football Goes Scholarship

2012-02-13T23:05:00.000-05:00

Today, a decision was made by the Patriot League. The decision on Patriot League football scholarships that many, many followers of the quarter-century-old league have been waiting for. The decision came in the official announcement that the Patriot League "endorsed a policy that will allow athletic merit aid for the sport of football, beginning with the class entering school in the fall of 2013." After a surprise press conference and official press release announcing the result of the presidents' deliberations on the matter, the Patriot League entered a brand new world. Read more »

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Engineers, Leopards.. at the Home of the Yankees?

2012-02-10T15:48:00.000-05:00

For the past few years, Lehigh and Lafayette folks have had informal talks about how to commemorate the 150th football meeting between the two schools, in the most-played college football rivalry in history. One of the ideas, mentioned on this blog back in April, was to possibly move the game to a neutral location, in order to accomodate all the added interest in that particular game. As the date of November 22nd, 2014, inches closer, some of the big ideas for the 150th continue to come into focus. This week, Barry Miller of the Express-Times reported the rumor that folks at Lehigh and Lafayette are "messing around with the idea of playing the 150th edition of their football rivalry in 2014 at Yankee Stadium". In a week where the football discussion generally involves the...

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Lehigh Announces Class of 2016

2012-02-08T15:24:00.000-05:00

For the first time, I scooped them. Today, the afternoon before the football team is to be honored at halftime of the American/Lehigh women's basketball clash in Stabler, Lehigh athletics officially announced the members of the incoming class of 2016. For the first time, though, their list of 22 recruits did not match my 24 announced recruits that I had compiled over the course of the last two weeks. What came of the two names that were on my list that didn't make it to Lehigh's, ATH Conor Gum and WR Julian Turner? Read more »

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Lehigh Signing Day Photo Gallery

2012-02-07T12:36:00.001-05:00

Last week, a whole lot of student-athletes who play football pledged that they were going to continue their education at Lehigh. (My complete unconfirmed list, with video and links to their announcements, is available here.) I thought it would be a fun idea to compile all the photos of "Signing Day" that I was able to find into one blog posting celebrating Lehigh's "Signing Day". While Lehigh's official announcement of the Class of 2016 will be taking place tomorrow, rabid Lehigh football fans can experience some of the excitement of "signing day" from this impromptu photo gallery of pictures collected from around the world-wide-interwebs. (The photo above is of Lehigh commit DL Josh Chiasson, from Annapolis, Maryland, courtesy of the Pasadena...

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