Bring On The Bison

You get the feeling that the Big Guy up there knew this would happen - just like last year.

In 2010, Lehigh did something out of the ordinary on their regular season schedule, playing their opener at Drake University in Iowa.

And when the Mountain Hawks had a road playoff game after qualifying for their first FCS Playoff game since 2004, they were sent out to Iowa again to take on the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

In 2011, it wasn't Lehigh that played out at the FargoDome in North Dakota - that would have been Lafayette, who played their season opener further west then the Leopards had ever played.

It means that Lehigh's trip this week out to the FargoDome won't be something completely unfamiliar to them.  They've all played in a dome before.  They know something about travelling to a Missouri Valley football team. And - if they've checked with Lafayette - they'll know a little about what to expect in their trip to the Roughrider state as well.

Rounding Up the Press on Lehigh vs. Towson

(Photo Credit: Karl Merton Ferron/The Baltimore Sun via the Morning Call)

As Towson entered the field before their playoff game versus Lehigh, and unidentified player came through the large, inflatable tiger head holding a championship belt, not unlike one a prizefighter might wear.

As someone who writes about Lehigh football, it provided an irresistible storyline for the playoff game, with echoes of Ali vs. Frazier.  The Thrila in Manila.  A prizefight.

It makes naming this game the "Towson Thrilla" from here on forward just that much easier.

What did the the Lehigh players think about the move after the game?

"We had no knowledge of it until we saw them run out with it," junior WR Ryan "The Answer" Spadola said to me later.  "It was bad on their part because it just got us more fired up."

As we go over the mountain of great press about this phenomenal game, I'd like to round up the highlights of those articles, as well as empty out my own notebook, before devoting all of my energy to North Dakota State.

Sunday's Word: Big Time (Lehigh vs. Towson)

(Photo Credit: Karl Merton Ferren, the Baltimore Sun courtesy of the Morning Call)

So-called "big-time" collegiate athletics has had an awfully rough year.

When the entire QB Cam Netwon affair - you remember, the father of Auburn's star quarterback getting caught offering his son's services for a six-figure sum of money - feels like it happens a decade ago, you know the overall feeling of college football in those Bowl Subdivision ranks has to be one of nausea rather than school pride.  Between the horrors at Penn State, which are unfolding in slow motion in front of the entire world, and the latest conference realignment madness, where money has made a Boise State to the Big East scenario plausible, "big-time" college football, and perhaps even all of "big-time" college athletics, seems severely broken.

And then, suddenly, amidst all the lunacy, something comes along that makes you remember why you started following college football in the first place.

Many, many people do not consider Football Championship Subdivision, or FCS football, "big-time", if they're even aware of it at all.  But if any person calling themselves a college football fan wants to see what it's really all about, they ought to watch the entire ESPN3 broadcast of what I saw live in person in Towson, Maryland.

You couldn't have been there, listed to the game on the radio, or watched the game on ESPN3, and not felt like this was "big time".

Lehigh 40, Towson 38, Final

It was billed as a shootout between two of the top offenses of FCS.

And it was, indeed, a shootout between the the powerful running game of Towson, and the powerful passing game of Lehigh.

It was billed as a game for supremacy in the East.

It was, indeed, a showcase between the champions of the Patriot League and the champions of the Colonial Athletic Association, or CAA, for Beast of the East.

But with all that was billed and all that was hyped the last two weeks regarding this game, played in front of a sellout, standing-room crowd of 11,196 at Johnny Unitas Stadium, nobody could have anticipated that the outcome of the game, the game-winning play, would come on Lehigh junior DE Tom Bianchi sacking Towson QB Grant Enders in the end zone.

Breaking Down Towson, FCS Playoffs Second Round, 12/3/2011

(Photo Credit: The Baltimore Sun)

My brain says the bye week is a good thing for a football team.  Injuries get an opportunity to heal, there are more hours in the week to break down game film, and the student-athletes get a few days to sit back, relax, and contemplate what they've accomplished this year.

(It also gives another week for senior LB Mike Groome's playoff beard to grow out, to allow "Mike's beard to be big enough for everyone", as senior LB Colin Newton told me this week.)

But it also means that the wait for this weekend, with a full holiday weekend in between Lehigh's last regular season game and this week's "elimination game", has seemed endless.

But the wait is nearly over.

Below the flip, see Towson broken down, as well as my "Keys to the Game" - and, of course, the "Fearless Prediction".

Game Preview: FCS Playoffs Second Round, Lehigh at Towson

(Photo Credit: Doug Kapustin, The Baltimore Sun)

If past performance were indicative of how things are going to go this Saturday, Lehigh would have nothing to worry about.

In eleven meetings with the Tigers, Lehigh   has gone 10-1 against Towson, and lit them up for more than 40 points in five of those meetings.

But nobody at Lehigh has any illusions that this Towson team will resemble those Tiger teams from the 1990s and 2000s.

The Tigers' story is an easy one to admire: from a 1-10 season to a 9-2 record in the SEC of FCS, Towson is easy to like, too recently a member of the FCS "haves" to be hated by anyone.  But even though they're a feel-good story, there's a reason these Tigers are CAA champions.  They are loaded with talent.