Lehigh Football Nation

The Yuenglings (finally) taste good in the Valley tonight. With Lafayette losing to Colgate as well, Lehigh and Lafayette are now playing for one game, and one game only: "The Rivalry". And Lehigh's finally got some positive momentum going to that big game three weeks from now with a resounding win. Lehigh found an opponent where they could dominate the line of scrimmage, and the Mountain Hawks were finally able to demonstrate the type of team they can be. Junior RB Matt McGowan , finally back at 100%, got 128 yards rushing and 2 TDs. Equally as important, Lehigh averaged 5.3 yards per rush. Senior QB Sedale Threatt didn't throw a pass rushing 4 times for 37 yards and a TD, and sophomore QB Chris Bokosky didn't have an overwhelming day either, going 5-for-12 - but, importantly, Bokosky got his first TD pass of his career on a nice grab by senior TE Joe Sutherland . Hard to pass any judgment on the "two-headed quarterback" approach since Lehigh was ...

{Photo Courtesy of Andrew Maier, Brown & White) This is late, and it's going to be very, very quick since I have a busy afternoon. I will be watching the Georgetown/Lehigh game on Lehigh Broadcast tomorrow and I will be offering my commentary after the game as always, but this posting will be brief just to get the picks out there and to list the press links. The game will be carried on Service Electric 2 locally, AM 1230 and 1320, and online at LehighSports.com. A quick note on Lehigh/Lafayette: it is sold out once again . It's the 10th straight year it's been sold out in advance, and I can't remember if it's even not been sold out. There are scheduled to be "standing-room only" tickets to possibly still be sold, but those are dependent on the weather (since those fans will be in the grassy horseshoe area). Let's just hope that my prediction of the game today is wrong, and we don't see any more of that team that we saw last weekend. Patriot...

I realized at some point today that I have never had to write a preview like this in the five years that I've been doing this. Since starting this blog up in 2003, every game I've written about or previewed either had as its focus the Patriot League championship or a potential at-large playoff bid. Now it's not even Halloween, and Lehigh is no longer in the title hunt. It's strange, and like me, I think a lot of Lehigh fans are adjusting to the new reality. But even without titles this year, there are still goals that should be attained that will help us close out the year on a successful note. That involves a winning record and a win over "that school in Easton". Closing on a successful note would mean a great deal to this program. Ask Northern Iowa what it meant to them to win their last two home games against Western Kentucky and Illinois State last year to salvage a 7-4 season. Now, they're undefeated and cruising to a Gateway title. That success ...

This Monday, the Lehigh football family lost one of its legendary coaches and athletic directors in "Bill" Leckonby at the age of 90 . You may read the press accounts about his death, but it really doesn't take into account his transformative effect on the Lehigh football program and even the initial visions of the Patriot League. A star tailback at St. Lawrence and on the Brooklyn Dodgers of the AAFL (but as a "triple threat" he could also be considered a quarterback), he would leave pro sports to fight in the Navy during World War II. When he returned in 1946, he would be the youngest head football coach Lehigh has ever had at 28 years old and in four years would lead Lehigh to their first-ever perfect undefeated and untied season (9-0-0) in 1950. The first-ever Lambert Cup would be won by Leckonby's 1957 squad, and in his final year of coaching he would win another in 1961. Overall, he would have 85 coaching wins and six "Middle Three" champi...

I'm really starting to like coach Tom Masella of Fordham. He goes out and coaches a huge win for Fordham by pretty much dominating Lafayette 34-23 , and then he turns around and says, "I'd say we're officially in the mix for a Patriot League championship." Um, coach? If you beat Bucknell, who's winless in the league, and beat Holy Cross at home, you ARE the championship... that, sir, is not "in the mix". That's "in the driver's seat". Sophomore QB Josh Skelton is just getting stronger and stronger, completing his first 11 passes on the day on his way to a 323 yard passing day with 2 touchdowns passing and one running. He says how they kept Lafayette on their back foot: "We knew they'd blitz a lot and I think our first three of four passes were all screen passes and that helped us get them off balance. Then once we were able to figure out their blitz we were able to get it downfield." Here's something e...

The press links are below. Pretty they are not, but there they are if you're interested. A couple thoughts for a Monday night, where I'm still a little stunned. The first is: college sports can never test your loyalties, since no matter what happens you're still always a fan of the school that is your alma mater. If the Eagles lose a heartbreaker to the Bears, I can always throw away my Donovan McNabb jersey and buy a Peyton Manning jersey and pretend I've been a "diehard" fan ever since the moving vans left Baltimore. But you don't throw away your Lehigh hat just because the team lays an egg. You're still Brown and White, and you still play every game in the season. And you always want to - maybe have to - beat Lafayette. The other thought involves my players of the week, for which I'm still a bit stunned. I thought it would be fun to put up players of the week every week and have the fans vote on who should be the player of the week. Who ...

Yeah, it would have been very, very easy to take one of a buffet of different words that describe what should be called from here on out as the "Mountain Meltdown". Take your pick, "Bad?" "Ugly?" "Stink?" "Disarray?" "Humiliate?" Taking one of those words and running with it would be way too easy, and talking through a nightmarish list of everything that happened on Saturday afternoon. But I'm not going to do that. Instead, it's "emotion." I keep going back to the words in the press conference after the Fordham loss from coach Coen, something I've mentioned over and over here. "The next two weeks will define who we are as a football team," he said. This week, with awful clarity, we see what football team this is. A team with no "emotion". Coach Gilmore came out and said in the press conference, "I thought Lehigh was going to be a really emotional team with a league loss a...