Lehigh Football Nation

Some quick notes before we enter the preview of the Georgetown game. First of all, here are this week's LFN "Players of the Week": Offensive Hawk: Freshman QB Michael Colvin (career-high 74 yards rushing vs. Harvard, including a 55 yard scamper that set up Lehigh's first TD) Defensive Hawk (tie): Senior LB Al Pierce (10 tackles, 1 sacks, 2 QB hurries) and sophomore DB/LB Colin Newton (10 tackles, 1/2 sack, 2 pass break-ups) Special Teams Hawk: Sophomore P Alex Smith (6 punts, 39.8 yard average) This week, some more bad news came down the pike in a season filled with it: news from the Express-Times that senior DT Phil Winett and senior LB Heath Brickner are officially done for the year with their injuries , and senior LB Troy Taylor is questionable as well. It seems like eons ago that we were worrying whether Lehigh could play all their senior talent at linebacker; now we're wondering which underclassmen will be suiting up on Saturday. With the notable e...

(Photo courtesy Hofstra Athletics) Sometimes it doesn't make any sense. If you had one FCS game to go to this past weekend, you most certainly wouldn't have picked James Madison visiting Hofstra: you'd have gone to Villanova to see the No. 2-ranked Wildcats take on the No. 5-ranked William & Mary Tribe. Trouble is, had you chosen the better game on paper to watch, you would have seen a yawner - the excitement, incredibly, was in Hempstead, Long Island. (No really, was that the first time those words have ever appeared anywhere?) Every year there seems to be that senseless CAA upset - Rhode Island putting everything together to upset UMass, say, or Towson winning against Villanova. This year's first CAA upset came at Hofstra - the yes, the same Hofstra that struggled against Stony Brook and scored a grand total of 10 points against Richmond and FBS Western Michigan - where the Pride didn't fall against James Madison in a shock 24-17 upset . While in retrospec...

(Photo courtesy Kevin Mingora, The Morning Call ) Unsurprisingly, the press this week was not kind to the Mountain Hawks in the write-ups of their 28-14 loss to Harvard . The Morning Call has a photo gallery up from the game, of which this picture to my left featuring freshman QB Michael Colvin is a part. (There have been others this year from the Morning Call as well, but today was the first day I felt enterprising enough to post them.) Look soon for my photos to be posted to the Lehigh Football Nation Facebook page as well. If fans would like me to post them to Webshots as well I will do so, though I have been too bummed to post any so far this year. They're currently on my computer at home, waiting for me to get some time to upload them. Lehigh Athletics: Mountain Hawks Drop 28-14 Decision to Harvard "Obviously we're not happy to be 0-4," Mountain Hawks head coach Andy Coen said afterwards. "I thought sophomore QB Chris Lum did some nice things out the...

At some point this year - I forget exactly when - my thoughts turned to my "Sunday Word" column, and I realized that it could be misinterpreted. Initially modeled after the "Word" from The Colbert Report , it finally got through my thick skull that when you stick the word "Sunday" in front of it it becomes something different - in the right context, it can be religious in tone, as if I'm delivering a sermon. While I never intended it to become sermon-esque, I think, re-reading my "Words" for this year, that they have oddly veered into sermon-like territory. (Heck, last week I pitched a sermon for the Wildcat offense .) It doesn't help that my "Words" tend to be more on the serious side when Lehigh is losing, and at 0-4 the Mountain Hawks are inviting me deeper into the sermonizing aspect of my "Words" and less into whimsical wordplay on, say, weather or weird Swedish words nobody has ever heard of . Normally, I thin...

I'm developing an uncanny knack for taking pictures that, unfortunately, tell the story of Lehigh games in 2009. This one came late in the first quarter, with Lehigh holding a 7-0 lead and - by any measure - had some serious momentum in the early going. Against the heavily-favored Crimson, Lehigh had their first lead of the year, thanks to an opening drive sparked by a 55 yard run from freshman QB Michael Colvin and finished beautifully by an across-the-body touchdown pass by sophomore QB Chris Lum to junior TE Alex Wojdowski . After the defense forced a three-and-out, Lehigh was in a position to really put the screws to Harvard. Out of the wildcat, the ball went to Colvin, flea-flickered back to Lum, and lofted downfield - an attempt to capitalize on the positive momentum that was created. Instead - well, my picture tells the story. Harvard senior SS Ryan Barnes was not fooled, and grabbed the momentum from the Mountain Hawks with what would end up being the key interception...

(Photo courtesy switched.com) I'm sure this won't be appreciated by the latest famous freshman to attend an Ivy League school. No, no, I'm not talking about Brooke Shields, I'm talking about Emma Watson, the actress who is best known for her turn as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies. We always knew there was something, well, different about kids who went to Harvard - a bit of an upturned nose, perhaps, annoying arrogance, or maybe even some Brahmin-ness while we're at it. Turns out, though, that some students were up to something more sinister: stalking Ms. Brown University at the Harvard/Brown game last weekend, as reported by the New York Post : Page Six reported on Tuesday that the "Harry Potter" starlet and Brown University freshman looked "quite shaken" on Saturday as Harvard beat Brown 24-21 in Cambridge. Watson was reportedly flanked by security guards to protect her from gawkers. But her discomfort was actually the result of...

"The game was lost in the first half; we made too many mistakes and didn't make the big play." While this might seem like a quote from last week's postgame press conference, it wasn't: it was coach Coen's comments following a tough 27-24 loss to Harvard last year in Cambridge . Looking back on that game , it sounds eerily similar to last week's loss at Princeton. Like last week, Lehigh dug themselves in a hole early in that game with an interception returned for a touchdown that was a great individual play by a linebacker. Two turnovers directly resulted in points. Those errors - along with key defensive injuries - didn't keep Lehigh down forever, however: the Mountain Hawks came roaring back with some offensive momentum, while the defense made some huge stops. Yet during their final offensive drive, Lehigh simply couldn't make a big play to come away with the victory. It's a script that has played out too many times in the last few years ...