Lehigh Football Nation

With exams coming up, this weekend will be featuring the last competition from the Lehigh winter sports teams until the week before Christmas. But there's plenty happening this weekend to whet your appetite for Lehigh sports. For you FCS football fans, you can catch the FCS semifinals tonight at 8:00PM on ESPN2 (Richmond versus Appalachian State) and tomorrow on ESPN at 4:00PM (Delaware at Southern Illinois). My preview of the weekend football slate you can read here . Wrestling (4-5) 12/7 No. 5 PENN STATE (Stabler Arena, 7:00PM) With an encouraging 2-1 record over the last week, the grapplers sure could use a strong showing this weekend against a Nittany Lion squad that should provide a great atmosphere tonight at Stabler in the 96th meeting between these two wrestling rivals. Penn State has dominated us the past four years in duals, and with six nationally-ranked wrestlers for the Lions, it's looking like an awfully daunting challenge for our "David" to slay thei...

I haven't seen Fred Claus yet, but I keep looking at this picture and saying: George Wendt and Santa - separated at birth? (Did I mention I am dying to see Paul Giamatti play Santa?) In any event, this post was written to post an important question for Lehigh football fans: namely, who should be on our wish list this year in terms of recruits? It's this time of year where the Lehigh coaching staff travels far and wide to secure commitments for new athletes to come into the program. And although I think the North Pole is a bit far out, maybe it would be worth at least a letter to Santa in regards to getting that stud player that will be a standout player in the class of 2012. Last year's recruiting class was considered one of the better ones for Lehigh, and we'll need another to keep up with the rest of the league - and especially "that school in Easton". (Hopefully everyone on the Lehigh coaching staff is on the "good" list.) Here's what would...

One thing that the long offseason affords me is the opportunity to look at things like Lehigh's 2006 self-study report and some of the academic numbers in there. And taking a fresh look at them certainly raised my eyebrows. Lehigh's sports teams this year have been struggling more than usual. Men's soccer, a year removed from a magical season including wins in the NCAA tournament, ended this year with a whimper. The men's wrestling team, usually in the Top 25, is unranked. The President's Cup standings put us, amazingly, in sixth behind the service academies. That begs the question, posed by LUFan in one of the forums : "Is it a coincidence that all the sports or struggling, or could it be that the academic standards are going through the roof and all the athletic programs are paying the price?" It's a good question, which prompted me to take a look at the self-study and if this could be the case. Are standards affecting all sports (except, perh...