Three Days to Kickoff: The Media Blitz

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.

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.''

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.

Look out for my preview of the CCSU game tomorrow. I can't wait.

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.

Lehigh Football Nation

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