It's three days until Lehigh's season opener against Central Connecticut State, and before I finish my preview of this weekend's action it's worth detailing the volumes of coverage in the lead-up to the Big Day.First of all, Lehigh Athletics released their broadcast schedule for 2009 - and we see nine out of eleven games broadcast on local and national outlets. Locally, three games will be broadcast on WFMZ Allentown (Villanova, Colgate, Lafayette) while the other six (CCSU, Princeton, Harvard, Georgetown, Yale, Holy Cross) will be broadcast on Service Electric 2. Better yet, many cable subscribers will be able to see the games on Fox College Sports Atlantic either live or on tape-delay (which, happily, I get at home).
Also worthy of mention is that the Lehigh Sports Magazine will also be broadcast on WFMZ Allentown and FCS Atlantic - of which you can see the latest installment online, where (20 minutes or so in coach Coen talks about the 2009 Mountain Hawks and also talks a bit about Central Connecticut State.
Lehigh's athletic department also released their preview for 2009 as well, including a video practice report. It's a comprehensive view of the entire team, starting with the defense and working their way all the way through special teams.
In the press, Keith Groller of the Morning Call released a piece about senior LB Matt Cohen, who came locally from Central Catholic and who - just maybe - might be looking to see if he can get a chance in the NFL.
Finally, speaking of hanging tough through injuries, there's a story about "Rango" - the heroic dog who came back from tearing his ACL to win the Lehigh Valley Hunting and Fishing extravaganza. What's the link to Lehigh football, you ask? Rango's owner is John Kucher, who works statistics at Lehigh games.
Lehigh, which had just hired Andy Coen as its head coach and Donnie Roberts -- Cohen's high school coach at Central -- as a defensive assistant, saw his potential on the tackling side of the ball.
''Even when he was 14 and a freshman at Central, we could see certain things,'' Roberts said. ''We could see he could run. In fact, we had him at wide receiver. But we also saw him on the kickoff team and he wasn't afraid to hit people.
''He played tough through injuries. He had the determination even back them to be a good football player.''
Look out for my preview of the CCSU game tomorrow. I can't wait.
Comments
The only bright spot was Benning, made a lot of tackles.
Hope lehigh learns from this and redoubles their effort