Lehigh Football Nation

In between the celebration of my son's birthday and entertaining our Lehigh guests, I watched Lehigh manhandle their first league opponent of the year in 42-14 drubbing. (This game will definitely be in my 1-AA picks recap this weekend, as I predicted Lehigh would win 49-17.) The Mountain Hawks were firing on all cylinders, offensively and defensively. 5 TDs for Borda? 8-for-8 to start the game? Are you kidding me? Adam Bergen had a monster day, with 7 receptions for more than 100 yards and 2 TDs. Who gets Patriot Legaue offensive player of the week, Borda or Bergen? That's the only question for Monday. And let's not forget Marques Thompson's scamper off a screen pass for the TD, and the pretty TD scamper by WR Gerran Walker to end the first half. These guys are getting game balls, guaranteed. The only blight on their record was the interception Borda threw (which I didn't see) returned for a Holy Cross TD. Defensively, with 4 sacks, 2 interceptions...

Press Roundup For a game that was supposed to be one that the press was supposed to fall over themselves to cover, oddly enough there was only one beat story on the game: Express-Times: League opener, former coach get Mountain Hawks stoked The Brown & White, after all their promises of great coverage of the games, didn't even get a preview out of the game - all I can find on their site is Albany post-game analysis. And the Morning Call didn't have squat online. Surprising. (Oh, well. You always went here for Lehigh news, right?) Choice quotes: "New defensive coordinator Shannon Morrison can sense it... His Lehigh University players can feel it... And an old friend who happens to be the opposing head coach this Saturday is certainly aware of it. "The Patriot League season is about to begin for Lehigh. Which only means it's time for the Mountain Hawks to turn it up a notch. "I can see the emotion difference," Morrison said, ...

Preview of the"Benedict Arnold Bowl" When you have an eleven game regular-season, and you have played 4 games, it is fashionable to say that the season is a quarter of the way through, though technically it is 4/11ths though. But after 4 games, Lehigh seems to have tantalizing potential to win the Patriot League and qualify for the 1-AA playoffs after a 2 year absence. With Colgate at 2-2 after losses to UMass and Yale, Lehigh is the highest-ranked Patriot League team at #17 nationally. And with a bunch of borderline teams still clinging to high rankings like Wofford, New Hampshire, Villanova, and Northern Arizona, and other borderline teams that could go down at any minute like Jacksonville St. and Cal Poly, it's not inconceivable to think that should Lehigh keep winning through October, they could be in the top 10 by November. You can feel the expectations growing in Bethlehem. Is the team up to the challenge? But first... DE Tom Alfsen's monster defens...

UCF and rumors When your favorite blogger is not out fighting crime, creating good jobs at good wages in swing states, or listening to his Greenday CDs, he's out there defending Lehigh (and the Patriot League) from the worst sort of rogues - rogue reporters. Yukiama, on the voy.com message boards, posted the following link to an article from columnist Mike Bianchi about the Golden Knights of UCF and the moribund state of their football program after losing to Buffalo of the MAC (a team that Lehigh beat in 2002, I hasten to add): Orlando Sentinel (registration required): Sad But True: UCF May Be Nation's Worst What jumps out is the following crack: "[Coach] O'Leary might as well be building this program from scratch. That's how dark these days are for the [University of Central Florida] Knights. For the past few years, UCF fans have compared the progress of their program to the progress at USF. Forget about that. UCF might not be as good as [1-A] Flo...

Press Roundup The press box was positive about the victory against the Great Danes of Albany - those that showed up. (Where was the Express-Times?) LehighSports.Com: Lehigh Defeats Albany in Convincing Fashion Morning Call: Youth Is Served in Lehigh's Win over Albany Times-Union (upstate NY): Lehigh steamrolls Albany "Thompson, who went in at tailback after Eric Rath suffered a strained knee on Lehigh's first series, ran for 89 yards and one touchdown and scored twice more on receptions as the Hawks impressed in their last tuneup before Patriot League play begins next week at Holy Cross. ''I'm not surprised by Marques' play,'' Lehigh coach Pete Lembo said. ''We felt coming into the year that we had two good backs. But heading into the first game, Marques pulled his hamstring and was not ready to play a whole lot. Fortunately, he got healthy and, with Eric getting banged up against Liberty, we figured that they would go abo...