Lehigh Football Nation

You can't put into words what this win should mean to this team. After all the uncertainty early in the year; after losing two straight bad-weather games; after all those bad snaps and fumbles in those two games; this game proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is a different team. Turnovers: 0. Interceptions against Holy Cross: 2. Penalties: 0. (OK, well I don't know that, but it seems like we didn't have many penalties at all.) The fact that this Lehigh team has finally got some redemption for those two bad-weather losses has to be the story of this game. No more critical miscues. No more bad snaps. Lehigh did exactly what they needed to do to exorcise those bad-weather ghosts: they played nearly mistake-free ball and blew the other team away at the line of scrimmage. That spells win. The defense may have given up some yardage, especially at the end, but they came up with two huge stops at the goal line which left the Crusaders with 0 points. Every man on the d...

Lehigh looks like a team possessed with another fantastic quarter of play. Unless the team majorly breaks down, it is looking like Lehigh will be leaving Fitton field with a "W"... and... (brace yourselves)... sole possession of first place in the Patriot League title race after Lafayette beat Colgate for the first time in 10 years, 27-10. Holy Cross' clock-eating drive was stopped by an absolutely fantastic interception by DB Quadir Carter. He made the perfect play to get it, and now Lehigh is driving in Holy Cross territory to start the 4th. Smiling. Big.

Wanted to mention: coach Gilmore looks like he's coaching in the Mississippi river!

A great defensive stop at the end of the half! Great pressure by NT Eric Rakus, great tackling by DB Daynin Blake to prevent a TD! Just a great sequence for our defense. A quick 3:00 halftime (due to the lightning delay).. and off we go! I've got a great feeling about this game. One more defensive stop...

Did you see this? Lafayette 24, Colgate 7? Early 4th? If Lafayette and Lehigh both win, Lehigh would hve sole possession of first place in the Patriot. Conversely, if the Crusaders rally to win, it looks awful unlikely anyone can stop them. I CANNOT believe Maine was shut out by Rhode Island. So much for my great picks for this week. Could they resume this game already? I have stuff to do... hehe.

As Lehigh coverage goes to "paid programming", an interesting turn of events. Holy Cross is driving at the Lehigh 30, and after the delay (presumably) they will play the last 30 seconds, after which it will be... halftime. Two halftimes for the price of one, while the field continues to get worse and worse. As for the game? What a great one for Lehigh so far. McGowan is unstoppable in the red zone. Great job converting 3rd downs. Brannan Thomas did get beat for Holy Cross' TD, but Lehigh is truly coming together out there, getting TDs set up by great special teams plays, big conversions, and (most importantly) no turnovers. With Lafayette 7, Colgate 7 just kicking off the 3rd quarter, this Patriot League title chase is bound to get damned interesting if Lehigh manages to hold on and win this game. With the delay of this game, I've been watching that game and it looks like a messy game with not-go-great execution. Can't say enough about Lehigh's first ha...

Not only has this been a great first quarter for the Mountain Hawks, Lehigh's actually having fun out there. Hard to draw it up any better. A 6 minute drive, capped by RB Matt McGowan barrelling over left guard for the TD, including big plays running and passing. The defense has looked awesome, too. Brannan Thomas seems to really want a game ball - perfect coverage on WR Ryan Maher to force a punt, and then gets a hand on RB Mike Kielt that SS Julian Austin scooped and scored. A 2 TD lead, in this weather? I've got an awfully big smile on my face. The broadcast team is cautioning against overconfidence, saying that the Crusaders, after going down 14-0, came back to win 38-28 against Lafayette last week, but if Holy Cross scores 38 points in this muck... well, I just don't see it. Things looking good. On to the second quarter.

The buzz around the Lehigh/Holy Cross game is damn interesting. Although most of the Holy Cross faithful are confident in their Crusaders taking this game from the Mountain Hawks, most Lehigh fans are more unsure than ever. Which Lehigh team will show up? And how good is Holy Cross, really? Normally I don't talk about the message-board chatter, but with the biggest game in this Patriot League season so far coming up this weekend, I thought it worthwhile to pass on. Lehigh fans are more "show-me", while Holy Cross fans are extremely confident. We'll see how this all shakes out. Did you buy your LFN T-Shirts for Lehigh/Colgate yet? I believe that there's a $5 flat shipping fee deal going on, as well as a Halloween promotion. You'll be sure to need to buy, oh I don't know, dozens of shirts just in time for the biggest games of the year. Remember, huge portions of the proceeds will benefit Lehigh Athletics! Last-Minute Lehigh/Holy Cross Information Columnist...

Holy Cross should not be sneaking up on anyone, but they have the potential to sneak up on everybody in the Patriot League this year despite their impressive 6-2 record. Few in the preseason (myself included) thought that the Crusaders would be finishing anywhere higher than fourth in the Patriot League this year, but head coach Tom Gilmore and the "Purple Army" had other ideas. Lehigh took care of business last week against Bucknell (38-7), meaning that we survived Week 1 of "Patriot Survivor". This week's test has to also be considered a "Survivor" game for Lehigh as well. Although conceivable that Lehigh could make the playoffs with one loss, Holy Cross' win over Lafayette last week means that if they beat us here, we'd be relying on Bucknell (fat chance) or Colgate (more likely) to upend the Crusaders the rest of the way and hope for a 3-way tie for the Patriot title. I don't like those odds at all. As far as I'm concerned, this is ...

The press was kind to the Mountain Hawks this week as we roll towards the most important Lehigh/Holy Cross game since 1991. Normally I don't have recaps from "that school from Easton" included here, but this week I did since they played this week's opponent last week and I thought it was worthwhile to look at a quote or two from that postgame press conference as well. Something for you, the Lehigh fan, to chew on as we head towards next Saturday. This week's game balls will be going to some guys that may be surprising. On offense, rather than go with the new kid Yansane, I'm going to go with the underappreciated senior RB Marques Thompson. I think sometimes folks forget about him whem he "only" gets over 100 yards rushing, 144 all-purpose yards, and 1 TD. He also got key first downs with a lot of these yards, as well as the TD that really put the game in the "W" column for Lehigh. Marques "Barry Sanders" Thompson deserves a game ...

It's the word I can't get out of my head after seeing the Yale game last week and the Bucknell game this week. "Ego". Maybe it's because I was at the Harvard/Princeton this weekend, where I saw a Tiger team win a tough, gritty 31-28 win in what seemed to be ego-less fashion, but it seems like this Lehigh team is also showing signs that they are getting the same lesson as well. The Yale game, we had maybe a little too much "ego" since we were whooping it up, jumping on Yale's "Y" after halftime - even though we were down. That moment really stuck in my craw. What the hell were we thinking? Were getting our butts kicked on the stat sheet - and we're dancing on the "Y"? It made me think that we thought we were better than we were. Enter "Ego". This week, there was a lot to like statistically. More discipline; better line play; +3 on turnovers; better rate on 3rd-down conversions and red zone conversion. Also he...