The Blog For Lehigh Fans

It's the middle of July, and I've been taking a small break from writing on my blog to (finally) go on a vacation and to finish some writings for the upcoming FCS Preview Magazine which was formerly sponsored by I-AA.org. The past couple weeks for me have involved a long-deserved break from work and writing to spend some quality time with my family -- followed by a mad blitz of writing, editing, and preparing for the upcoming FCS season. (Can you believe Patriot League Media Day is right around the corner?)

I may as well also announce that on College Sporting News I am officially going to be assuming the responsibility of senior FCS columnist, taking over for the legendary Dave Coulson (who will now be writing for the Sports Network, taking over for Matt Dougherty who was recently hired as the Patriot League Director of Media Relations).

That means that the diaries that I've been doing for College Sporting News are going to be fewer in number, and I'm going to be writing a more conventional column covering all of FCS. I'm really looking forward to the challenge of stepping into Dave Coulson's shoes, and it will require even more preparation and time than ever (i.e., I may have to do research every once in a while).

My expanded role with CSN is making me think about my Lehigh blog more as well. I really enjoy being the "point man" for news and opinions on Lehigh football and other Mountain Hawk sports, as well as Patriot League developments and other interesting news. I see no reason why I can't continue that as well as my column for CSN. After all, Lehigh football is my passion and it's how I got to writing about FCS football in the first place. It's also a great outlet for the passionate fan in me.

But - somewhere - there has to be a line of separation between Lehigh and the rest of FCS in my writings. It's something I've been thinking about for some time, and something you, the readers, have also been trying to tell me for some time. My goal this year is to have the Lehigh stuff and the Patriot League stuff in the blog, and anything that is "FCS National" go in my CSN column. This means the "Water Cooler", where I pick the games in the Top 25, are moving to CSN, but my Patriot League football picks will remain here on the blog.

This blog, for those coming here for the first time, talks about news and opinion involving Lehigh football, the Patriot League, and (in the off-season) other Lehigh sports. Each week I sum up the news, press conferences, give out my "Game Balls", and on Sunday I pick up a "word" to describe the weekend that was for Lehigh.

I always want to beat those Lafayette pansies every year. Don't be surprised if a "Lafayette Sucks" pops up in one of my posts, even it's about the Lehigh/VMI game.

In the next few weeks, I'm planning to post here the "Spring Roundup" from around the Patriot League, where I talk about all the off-season moves, the Spring Game, and rate the incoming classes. And RichH on the Lehigh Sports Message Board gave a great idea: this year Lehigh will be honoring the 30th anniversary of the 1977 Division II National Champions (at halftime of the Harvard game on September 29th). Why not come up with the team I would pick as my "all-time Lehigh team from the past 30 years", and post it here?

All this before Patriot League Media Day, pre-season workouts, and the two-deep. This ought to be fun.

How The Ivy League Is Able To Break the NCAA's Scholarship Limits and Still Consider Themselves FCS

By now you've seen the results. In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago . Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth. Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled. Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season. The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League. W

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season. The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League. In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play. Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ . I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care. Every face was glum. They didn't even seem sad. More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked chan

Fifteen Guys Who Might be Lehigh's Next Football Coach (and Five More)

If you've been following my Twitter account, you might have caught some "possibilities" as Lehigh's next head football coach like Lou Holtz, Brett Favre and Bo Pelini . The chance that any of those three guys actually are offered and accept the Lehigh head coaching position are somewhere between zero and zero. (The full list of my Twitter "possibilities" are all on this thread on the Lehigh Sports Forum .) However the actual Lehigh head football coaching search is well underway, with real names and real possibilities. I've come up with a list of fifteen possible names, some which I've heard whispered as candidates, others which might be good fits at Lehigh for a variety of reasons. UPDATE: I have found five more names of possible head coaches that I am adding to this list below. Who are the twenty people? Here they are, in alphabetical order.

Lehigh Football Nation

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