Skip to main content

A Few More Names To Throw In The Mix

Hope everyone had a happy holiday. As you can tell, I have not been idle in my Christmas "break" from reporting the developments on the Lehigh head coaching search. But some names have been popping up, and I wanted to add these guys to the list of possible coaching candidates. Some names may surprise you.

Issac Collins, defensive coordinator, The Citadel. A former "Higgins Guy" who was a part of the Lehigh family, Collins is a firey defensive coordinator who has been at Holy Cross and Delaware over the past three seasons. Very recently he made it to The Citadel to be reuinted with Higgins, but what if he had an offer too good to refuse to become one of the youngest head coaches in Division I? Collins is flat-out a great defensive coordinator - it's no coincidence that Lehigh had great defensive teams with him coaching the defense. But his bitter separation from Lehigh in 2003 may have burned his bridges.

Steve Spagnulo, linebacker coach, Philadelphia Eagles. A former assistant coach at Lafayette, UConn and UMass, he's been associated the past seven years with the Eagles' rise to defensive dominance in the NFL. With the Eagles' summer NFL camps at Lehigh, he for sure will be no stranger to Lehigh's athletic department. Could this be a great opportunity for him to get his first head coaching gig, at the conclusion of the Eagles' disappointing season? With his history around Lehigh and Lafayette, could he be the type of guy who is a perfect fit for the coaching postition?

Andrew Cohen, defensive line coach, Fordham. A former defensive coordiantor at Stony Brook, Cohen is a talented line coach who may be able to be plucked from the Fordham staff in a time of transtion in Fordham's coaching staff. It remains to be seen how he would do as a head coach, but as a defensive guy who recruits well and knows the Patriot League back and forth, to me he seems like a strong candidate.

Bob Heffner, offensive line coach, Lafayette. From the movie Citizen Kane: "Six years ago, I looked at a picture of the world's greatest newspapermen. I felt like a kid in front of a candy store. Well tonight, six years later, I got my candy." Some feel like Joe Sterrett may make just like Kane and do the unthinkable - hire away Lafayette's incredibly successful offensive line coach and make him ours. Stranger things have happened, and he has managed to recruit and get some very good linemen to Easton. Furthermore, last year he very nearly was hired away to the University of Illinois, so you know he may be looking for a new position.

He may seem an odd fit, as basically a career Lafayette coach(he's been back and forth to and from Lafayette in the past 15 years), but there's no denying the talent and the familiarity with the Patriot League. If there was ever a head coach who could give Lehigh an advantage in the Lehigh/Lafayette game in 2006, Heffner is that guy.

Brian Norwood, defensive backs coach, Penn Sate. A coach at Richmond and Navy, Norwood has been an effective secondary guy for the Nittany Lions and could benefit from a move to South Mountain. Another young coach, his Navy ties may benefit the type of recruiting he would need to perform as Lehigh's head coach. Unproven as a head coach, he's been rising up the assistant coaching ranks and could be an interesting pick.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I do not really see Andrew Cohen getting a look for the HC at Lehigh. Does not seem like a dynamic cadidate. I would expect he will be on the sidelines at Hofstra working underneath his brother in some capacity. One name that would be a potential reach, but may have some intrigue and a shot --- Dave Clawson. I know, he looks very good right now at Richmond with full scholies, but to take on the rich tradition and support that Lehigh receives within the valley and within the DIAA community may have its appeal. It definitely would not be a step down.
1:03 PM
Anonymous said…
anonymous,

Are you insane? Clawson, nor any other coach, is going to leave the world of scholarships for the world of non-scholarship. they are going to hire Cechini, Coen, or someone on staff.
9:20 PM
Anonymous said…
My guess is Jimmy Hofher
11:52 PM
Anonymous said…
A dark-horse: a proven winner as a head coach Dick Maloney from Uchicago. Was a coordinator at Dartmouth + Penn in their 80's glory years, just like Cohen and the others. Also coached in CFL - pro experience. 12 years head coaching experience (unlike the others, except one candidate), with 3 championships at a school that doesn't care about football or athletics. I heard a great Oline coach and his 2005 team defensively was ranked in top 15 (out of 228 teams), vs the rush, pass and points allowed. A real go-getter as a recruiter I am told.
2:13 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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....
42 comments
Read more

Examining A Figure Skating Rivalry: Tonya and Nancy

It must be very hard for a millennial to understand the fuss around the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding figure skating scandal in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics. If you're of a certain age, though - whether you're a figure skating fan or not, and I am decidedly no fan of figure skating - the Shakespearean story of Harding and Kerrigan still engages, and still grabs peoples' attention, twenty years later. Why, though?  Why, twenty years later, in a sport I care little, does the story still grab me?  Why did I spend time out of my life watching dueling NBC and ESPN documentaries on the subject, and Google multiple stories about Jeff Gilooly , idiot "bodyguards", and the whole sordid affair? I think it's because the story, even twenty years later, is like opium. The addictive story, even now, has everything.  Everything.  The woman that fought for everything, perhaps crossing over to the dark side to get her chance at Olypic Gold, vs. the woman who...
1 comment
Read more

#TheRivalry Flashback: November 21st, 1987: Lehigh 17, Lafayette 10

Since becoming an undergrad at Lehigh back in the late 1980s, I first heard about the historic nature of the football team and "The Rivalry" through the stories that fellow students would share. I did not attend the final meeting between Lehigh and Lafayette at Taylor Stadium, which was the final time a football game would be played there. Those that did attend said that was that it was cold. "I remember it being one of the coldest games ever," Mark Redmann recollected, "with strong Northwesterly winds and the temperature hovering around 20.  By the end of the game, the stands were half empty because most of the fans just couldn't take the cold. "Fortunately, several of my fraternity brothers snuck in flasks to help fend off the chill."
7 comments
Read more