Lehigh Football Nation

This is the bye week, as you've problably noticed by the lack of a preview, press roundup, and postings the past couple days. For those that care, here are my picks this week for the games that are going on today. Patriot League: Colgate at Dartmouth. Dartmouth will be better, but Colgate I'm sure will be eager to prove that their win against UMass was no fluke. Colgate 21, Dartmouth 10 . Princeton at #21 Lafayette. I'll be attending this game as part of my duties as I-AA.org diarist. This looks to be a defensive struggle. It seems unlikely that Princeton will sneak up on the Leopards this year, and they are eager to go 3-0. Look for a lot of defense, and a Leopard win. Lafayette 17, Princeton 6. Bucknell at Cornell. The Bison can't seem to get anything right lately (despite a lot of injuries), but it's hard to picture them righting the ship at Cornell. Cornell 31, Bucknell 13. Brown at Georgetown. Georgetown's home opener in their new refurbished ...

More pix from the game, courtesy of GoHens.Net . Hard hit from the Lehigh secondary! "TNT" Rath sweeping right.

New blog poll to your right, there. How optimistic are you about the 2005 Mountain Hawk season? Vote! To those who care about such things, my AGS Top 25 is below, with a handful of explanations: 1. Delaware 2. Montana St 3. Eastern Washington 4. Western Kentucky 5. Harvard 6. William & Mary 7. Montana 8. Northern Iowa 9. James Madison 10. Furman 11. Lafayette 12. Hampton 13. North Dakota St 14. Lehigh 15. Georgia Southern 16. Northwestern St 17. New Hampshire 18. Cal Poly 19. Coastal Car 20. South Carolina St 21. Grambling 22. Penn 23. McNeese St 24. Eastern Kentucky 25. Western Carolina Win of the Week: North Dakota St Loss of the Week: Massachusetts Delaware at #1? I watched that Lehigh game. They deserve the #1 vote the way they came back. They are absolutely the best Atlantic 10 team right now with JMU and UMass losing, and Bill & Mary, New Hampshire, and Hofstra unproven. Why Harvard at #5, ...

No seriously, have you recovered from the game yet? I sure haven't. I still can't get over the fact that we were so close to the win. It's so hard to describe - there's so much potential in this 2005 squad - there were lots of positives coming out of this game - yet the loss still hurts. It feels like Lehigh has moved beyond moral victories. We lost to the eventual I-AA champions by 1 point in 2004, and we lost to one of the toughest teams in I-AA by 1 point last weekend. The players may be able to hold their heads high, but I think we, as fans, get frustrated. It was so close. We feel like Lehigh is not very far from the James Madison's and Delaware's of the world - the very best teams in all of I-AA. Not long ago Lehigh was a team that looked to be respectable against teams the Atlantic 10. In 2005, we are starting to expect victories. It's a natural progression from the success Lehigh and the rest of the Patriot League has had in I-AA. It doesn't ma...

Lehigh left all their blood and spit on the field last night. We were without our starting cornerbacks, a top linebacker not at 100%, and defensive linemen banged up and bruised. Our top receiver was out. Yet we went into one of the toughest places to play in all of I-AA and were Delaware's equal the entire game. It is bitter; it is tough to swallow; but we can't forget that. Someone ought to make a tape of the OT drive that resulted in the Lehigh TD, the one where senior RB Eric "TNT" Rath somehow managed to stretch and convert the 4th-and-2 for the first down, and found the drive to barrel around left and right for the TD - all the while when (I believe) Borda was concussed after receiving that (illegal?) helmet-to-helmet hit. We should play that before every game. That drive, more than any other, should typefy Lehigh football. Yes, "TNT" is Rath's new nickname. Don't remember where I heard it, but it's perfect. You heard it here first. I won...