Lehigh Football Nation

No, Virginia, Rutgers forward Corey Chandler's blank stare right here isn't from Lehigh's huge upset win today. But after Lehigh's 76-71 victory the day before Turkey Day, I sure can picture Chandler's face looking like this after this game. You thought this was a typo? Lehigh men's basketball team beating Rutgers ? Big East Rutgers? The Scarlet "We Last Lost to the Engineers.. In 1967" Knights? It's not a typo. Lehigh did indeed beat a Big East team for the first time since joining the Patriot League . The Mountain Hawks won at Rutgers for the first time since 1962 . John Feinstein, is Lehigh a wrestling school? How on this Good Green Earth did Lehigh do it? Normally, a "smaller" team wins a game over a power conference team by shooting lights-out - but Lehigh only shot just around 40% from the field. Instead, Lehigh won it by matching the bigger Scarlet Knight team rebound for rebound - with junior G Marquis Hall nabbing 15...

The good news keeps pouring in for Lehigh, as the Patriot League announced their all-League team for 2008 , and the list included seven first-team players and two second-team players.   Both the offensive player of the year and defensive player of the year were - for the first time ever -  repeat selections.   Both Holy Cross senior QB Dominic Randolph   and "That school in Easton"'s senior LB Andy Romans (who cheap-shotted sophomore QB J.B. Clark on the final play of the game last Saturday) were player of the year selections in 2007. In addition, Colgate  freshman RB Nate Eachus showed up on the Patriot League first-team and also won freshman of the year honors - the last time that was done was, well, when Colgate senior RB Jordan Scott did the honors in 2004.   Both of these Raiders, of course, haven't finished their season: they're playing at Villanova in the first round of the FCS playoffs, thanks to their 28-27 victory over Holy Cross this weekend.  As fo...

It's two days later and the words are flowing easily. I don't need to check a "thesaurus", but I will anyway. It's blissful. Cheerful. Chipper. Delighted. Ecstatic. Gleeful. Joyous. Merry. Overjoyed. And if I feel this way, imagine how ecstatic the players are. I think the face of senior WR Mike "Cris Carter" Fitzgerald just says in all in this photo from Lehigh Athletics. But what really struck me in the emotion around the Lehigh sideline and with the fans rushing the field was how important this game really felt to those fans. I got razzed by a lot of Lafayette fans when I said to them that "The Rivalry" meant everything to them, and when Lehigh was beating Lehigh on a regular basis in the late '90s that the game largely seemed like an afterthought. But it was undeniably true. Lafayette was talking about demoting the team to D-III and had an aging stadium with wooden bleachers that dated from the Eisenhour administration. L...

They're up in my Webshots gallery now here , but I'd like to share my favorite as well. Check out the TD catch by senior WR Nick Johnson. Oh yeah. I'm baskin'. [UPDATE: There are tons more photos online, too. Check out the gallery from the Easton Express-Times , the gallery from the Allentown Morning Call , and a great selection of shots from the postgame celebration from the official Lehigh Athletics site.]