Skip to main content

Lafayette's Holcomb Moves On, As Does Fred Mariani

As we wait to find out all the total number of names in Lehigh's incoming class of 2013, some more movement in the coaching ranks in the Patriot League these days.

Following the departure of Lafayette offensive coordinator Bob Heffner to Northwestern last week, this week Leopard defensive line coach Al Holcomb recently announced that he accepted a postition with the NFL's New York Giants.

"I think it's a tribute to what we have built here with Lafayette football that members of our coaching staffs are highly sought after by institutions and organizations at the highest levels of football," Tavani said. "I'm confident that we will continue to work with some of the top coaches in the country."

Coach Tavani is right, of course: it's a great tribute that both of these coaches are moving to big-time positions. But it's equally true that as a Lehigh fan, I'm pretty happy to see the back of two coaches that played a big part in giving me nightmares the past seven years about the third weekend in November. Still, we wish them the best in their new positions.

Holy Cross reportedly announced their new schedule for 2009 at their postseason banquet, which includes home dates against Sacred Heart, Harvard and Dartmouth while their two out-of-conference road games are short trips to Brown and Northeastern. A link to the full schedule is here at the Any Given Saturday message board.

Finally, former Lehigh assistant coach Fred Mariani, who was formerly the head football coach at Iona College, had a nasty surprise after this season when the Gaels abruptly announced they were discontinuing football. After by every account going the extra mile to find homes for the players on his former team in other college football programs, coach Mariani got a great reward: he was hired by Rutgers as director of football recruiting operations.

Comments

Anonymous said…
adam scheier to bowling green.... another good lehigh coach departs

Popular posts from this blog

How The Ivy League Is Able To Break the NCAA's Scholarship Limits and Still Consider Themselves FCS

By now you've seen the results.  In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago .  Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth.  Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled.  Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season.  The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League. W

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

 We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season.  The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League.  In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play.  Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ .  I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care.  Every face was glum.  They didn't even seem sad.  More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked chan

Fifteen Guys Who Might be Lehigh's Next Football Coach (and Five More)

If you've been following my Twitter account, you might have caught some "possibilities" as Lehigh's next head football coach like Lou Holtz, Brett Favre and Bo Pelini .  The chance that any of those three guys actually are offered and accept the Lehigh head coaching position are somewhere between zero and zero.  (The full list of my Twitter "possibilities" are all on this thread on the Lehigh Sports Forum .) However the actual Lehigh head football coaching search is well underway, with real names and real possibilities. I've come up with a list of fifteen possible names, some which I've heard whispered as candidates, others which might be good fits at Lehigh for a variety of reasons. UPDATE: I have found five more names of possible head coaches that I am adding to this list below. Who are the twenty people?  Here they are, in alphabetical order.