Lehigh Football Nation

I think it's safe to look ahead to Lafayette now, right? A complete performance. Lafayette will look at this game film and say that Lehigh is playing their best football (when their starters are in). Threatt and Rath with big days on offense, along with great drives against a pretty good defense. 517 yards of total offense - what a great effort! Our "D" may have played their best game of the year, completely manhandling an overmatched Fordham offense. DL Chris Zambrano is a surprising name this week. I don't have the stats, but I believe he has a couple of sacks and has been all over Fordham QBs all day. He's been the linchpin of a smothering defensive effort - 128 total yards only on the day! The defensive line has put immense pressure on Fordham, and was successful in spades. Nothing but gushing praise for the defense. Bode's fumble return for a TD on the last play of the gmae was just the icing on the cake for them. A bit of kicking problems in the special

Hard to imagine a better start for Lehigh, aside from some kicking difficulties. Threatt and Rath are moving the ball seemingly at will, and the "D" is completely shutting down the Fordham offense. If Threatt keeps this up, he may very well earn his nickname this week...

Here's my weekly predictions of other games in the I-AA world this week. Isn't it great that I share with the world how awful I've been in picking I-AA games this year? I've been 66% on the year picking the I-AA Top 25, and even worse if you factor in Patriot League games. It's a good thing I'm not a betting man. (No TV broadcast of today's game. You can listen to the game on AM 1230/1320 in the Lehigh Valley, or listen to the live feed at lehighsports.com - that's my plan.) Patriot League: Davidson at Georgetown. Georgetown is greatly improved, and should make their home finale a win the program should cherish. G'Town 30, Davidson 10. Bucknell at Colgate. Colgate's still very much alive for the Patriot League title, and that alone should be enough to get the win. Colgate 27, Bucknell 7. Lafayette at Holy Cross. Holy Cross had the title to lose against Colgate, and couldn't consummate a come-from-behind win against Colgate. Fordham the

As I finish up a particularly brutal week in my day job, I've finally able to get some time to put together my regular Friday feature in my press mash-up, where I take all the Lehigh press on the pregame and mash it up into the essentials. What's funny is, I'm finally realizing how few I-AA fans (and some I-A fans) have this option to do the press mashup. Fordham has no fewer than six national and local media outlets in New York City - not to mention their student newspaper - and not one of them bothered to write up the Fordham game. If I were a Fordham fan, my press mash-up would consist completely of out-of-town press. And Fordham is by no means alone in this. Another great benefit I have as a Lehigh fan is to watch the Lehigh press conferences on-line . Although I'd love to get some free wings at Starter's Pub on a Wednesday afternoon, I can't be at the press conference live, so the internet broadcast is the next best thing. That allows me to be able

It's another championship/playoff game this week for our beloved Mountain Hawks as we take on Fordham on the brand-new turf at Jack Coffey field. Win, and we keep on the march towards the Patriot League title and I-AA Playoff autobid. Lose, and all those dreams pretty much are over. On the brand-new field turf at Jack Coffey field, Lehigh cannot afford a slip-up or a subpar game. In the Patriot League title chase, Colgate and Lafayette are eagerly waiting in the wings to see us stumble, hoping to snatch the title and a I-AA playoff berth from our hands. In the past five years, I've learned a lot about the Lehigh squads in this game right here: the game before Lehigh/Lafayette. The teams that have been able to put the hammer down in this game usually goes on to beat Lafayette, while the teams who don't usually lose. In 2000: Lehigh 51, Fordham 17; followed by Lehigh 31, Lafayette 17. In 2002, Lehigh 24, Bucknell 0 (who was 2-9 that year); followed by Lafayette 14, Lehigh 7.

Lehigh stays steady in the national polls at #13, despite their win this weekend. Personally I am not a huge fan of either the Sports Network or ESPN/USA Today polls (for instance, exactly how is Coastal Carolina at #9 in both polls?). In the fan-based Any Given Saturday poll, on the other hand, Lehigh is at #11 , which I feel is more accurate. In that poll, we're ranked in front of Coastal Carolina (#15) and Western Kentucky (#14). Before I talk about the playoffs, let me preface everything by saying, yes, yes, I realize that the Mountain Hawks need to concentrate 100% on beating Fordham next week, and then beating "that other Patriot League team" on November 19th before worrying about the playoffs. If you saw the Lehigh Sports Magazine yesterday, you saw coach Lembo say this about Fordham: "The Rams are a real scary team to me... Their record isn't overly impressive, [but] they're real good. They got incredible skill players, some of the best athletes in

This picture, courtesy of the Morning Call, not surprisingly, shows us one of the recipients of this week's game balls. Junior RB Marques Thompson got 127 all-purpose yards and did everything but get into the end zone. With a 40 yard and 30 yard scamper, he was a huge force in the running game this week. On the same note, I'm also going to give a big game ball to - who else - senior RB Eric "TNT" Rath for his 106 all-purpose yards and 1 TD. No pic of "TNT" this week, but he will get a game ball. Congratulations to all! On defense, it was tough choosing players in what I considered a very solid team effort on defense. Ultimately, I felt senior FS Kaloma Cardwell and senior LB Matt Purdy deserved the nod with the big stops on 3rd down that spelled doom for the Hoyas offensively. The stat sheet may not reflect it - 12 tackles combined between the two of them - but when the game was on the line, it was them leading the way to a great defensive day. Congratu

I've been a bit sick and tired of posting pictures of senior RB Eric Rath all the time, so I decided instead to crib this from B. J. Shepard of the Brown & White instead. Some pretty good blocking going on here. Still undecided on the offensive game balls this week - we'll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out who gets them. I was real busy posting my latest I-AA.org diary from this weekend, but I wasn't too busy to sum up the "Quote of the Day" from coach Lembo, courtesy of the Morning Call: ''Other coaches would be thrilled and go out and celebrate with some Buffalo wings tonight. That's not me. I feel good about the win, but not as good as I probably should.'' I love this quote! Dare I give coach Lembo his first nickname of the year? Pete "3rd Street" Lembo? Tune in tomorrow for game balls.