Lehigh Football Nation

Coach Coen said earlier this week the following quote: "The next two weeks will define who we are as a football team." So we lost 23-7 to one of the best football teams in the nation. So how did this game define Lehigh? In my opinion, we're a team that is defined by: That one drive a game on offense when we can move the ball on anybody (Scoring drive: 8 plays, 58 yards - Sedale 1 yard TD run, 3-3 passing, good mix of run and pass). A defense that will not give up in their punishment. They smacked McLeod all day and did their level best to try to give Yale a pounding. Although McLeod got a lot of yards, it wasn't really due to major mistakes in tackling or anything. He had two touchdowns today: one on a long run, he got the blocks and showed his acceleration, and the other on a shorter run where we put eight in the box and McLeod showed his vision to pop to the outside and accelerate for the TD. A team that cannot convert 3rd downs. 4-for-12 today. A team that can...

I'm trying to get into the other games this week, get into the picks of the other games, but it's not easy. To me, undoubtedly the biggest game this week is Lehigh/Yale. Lafayette/Harvard is not incredibly far off, but Lehigh/Yale seems like a very, very big game not only for the Mountain Hawks, but the Patriot League. And I think part of this is from Yale's actions leading up to the game. I just don't recall ever seeing such a confident opponent before. I mean, the New Haven Register is running probably the most syrupy homer story about junior RB Mike McLeod , calling him "The Complete Package" (ironically stealing the nickname I gave senior QB Sedale Threatt after he led the offense to a 31-28 win over Villanova ). At the end of last week's 50-10 drubbing of Dartmouth, McLeod gave a touchdown to a teammate in a move which just appears to illustrate the confidence of this offense. Now is the confidence actually hubris? We'll see tomorrow. Patr...

It's been quite a while since Yale has had a team like the team we're facing Saturday. Sure, we did play this team last year in a 26-20 defeat at the Yale Bowl comprised of many of the same cast of characters. But that team wasn't favored to win the Ivy League running away like this 2007 version. And that team didn't have the same confidence that they could dominate the line of scrimmage that this team has. This year's version of the Eli are more frightening if you look at the statistics. They average 303 rushing yards per game - which is astounding for a team that doesn't run the option. They're getting +2 turnovers on average per game. They're outscoring teams in the first quarter 46-0 this season. They've built on their Ivy co-championship team from last year - and just gotten more and more confident. The last time Lehigh faced a nationally-ranked Ivy League opponent on the road was at Harvard in 2005, and that Lehigh team cruised to a 49-2...

Senior QB Sedale Threatt is the subject of today's front page on the New York Times sports section in an article called, " Not Much More Than Name Links Threatt, Jr. To Father ". It goes over a lot of the ground that has already been covered by Bill Doherty in his fantastic piece in the Lehigh Alumni magazine , but it gives enough new tidbits to be a good read. (Although I always thought Sedale was a finance major, not a marketing major.) I'd encourage you to grab a copy of the paper today to read it (or log into the New York Times to read it, which you can do if you're a subscriber), but I will highlight the following: Lehigh Coach Andy Coen said that Threatt still struggled with his consistency, but that his athletic ability had prompted interest from scouts. “One scout told me that coming from the [FCS] level, what you have to do is dominate at your position,” said Threatt, who is majoring in marketing. “I can see the field pretty well, but I know they’re go...

I've said enough words about Lehigh's performance in the Fordham game, and I won't be re-hashing it any more here on the blog. This will include no honors for "Players of the Week". The only thing I will say is what coach Coen said on the " Andy Coen Report " this Monday: "The next two weeks will define who we are as a football team." If you want to read the writeups about the game, the links are below: Morning Call: Win Over Lehigh proves Rams For Real Morning Call: Lehigh Looking For Answers Express-Times: Hawks Suffer Rare Loss To Rams I was in the press conference at the Fordham game, and Ram head coach Tom Masella did have high praise for his sophomore QB John Skelton , the big Texan who made very few errors last weekend. "John is a terrific football player. He's turning into a pretty darn good quarterback. As a sophomore, you think you can rattle him, but he's hard to rattle. Whether we're down by 20 or the game'...

Normally by "Sunday's Word" pieces are struggles to find the exact word: but I knew almost instantly after leaving the Bronx that "if" was going to be the Sunday word this weekend. It's been a rough 36 hours for Lehigh fans. Point blank, beating Fordham is something that Mountain Hawks fans expect Lehigh to do every year, having only lost to the Rams one other time in our history. Fordham may be a better team than they have been the past couple years, but this particular loss has shaken the Lehigh fan base to its core. Fordham is a good team; anyone who thinks that the Rams didn't earn this one on the field is truly mistaken. The way Fordham was playing, at no time did I feel like the lead, if we got it back again, would be safe. Their sophomore quarterback, who we'll be seeing again for the next two years, is starting to blossom into a really good QB who gets good production - and if he keeps the turnovers down like he did last week, the rest of...