Lehigh Football Nation

I'm sitting here in front of my laptop, struggling to think of what to say. All I can really say is that anyone who sat through this game, online or - Heaven forbid - in person, deserves a medal. There is such a thing as a defensive struggle. And Lehigh's defense certainly battled bravely. But every time Lehigh's defense set the table, the offense and special teams could not score a single friggin' point. That's something that hasn't happened against a Lehigh team since 1986. And Lehigh, before this afternoon, had only been shut out twice since moving from from Division II in 1979, both times by Navy. That means that Lehigh, for the first time ever, was shut out by an FCS team as an FCS team. You could glorify a Lehigh defense that didn't quit - a defense that kept trying to set the table to score anything. But the offense was pure pain to watch failing again and again - and even field goal tries gave this reporter a sinking feeling that they wouldn...

(Photo courtesy the New Haven Register) Forget, for a moment, that Lehigh is 1-3 going into this game. Forget, too, that the Mountain Hawks' only win so far is against Georgetown. Also, forget that 2-2 Yale is very similar to Lehigh in a lot of ways - they've beaten a common opponent (the Hoyas) and struggled against decent Patriot League and Ivy competition. There's a key bit of pride that Lehigh needs to play for. It's something you're probably not even aware of: a trophy. In 2006, the Lehigh/Yale series got a trophy. Called the "Yank Townsend Trophy", named after the only Yankee (i.e., student from Connecticut) who was in the Lehigh class of 1895. After graduating, he would relocate to New Haven to be close to the rest of his family, where he would design many buildings and residences and cement his legacy for generations. Yank's descendants sponsored the trophy to be presented to the winner of this game. It's a cool way to link these two hi...

Some quick notes before we enter the preview of Yale vs. Lehigh. First of all, here are this week's LFN "Players of the Week": Offensive Hawk (tie): Junior RB Jay Campbell (another career high this week with 20 carries and 111 yards rushing vs. Georgetown) and freshman QB Michael Colvin ( Patriot League Freshman of the Week with 45 yards rushing, averaging 7.5 yards per carry) Defensive Hawk: Senior LB Matt Cohen ( Patriot League Player of the week on defense , 6 tackles, 4 tackles for loss including 3 sacks) Special Teams Hawk: Junior DB/RS Jarard "Fearless" Cribbs (71 yards in punt returns including a 34 yard return) You undoubtedly noticed the new nickname above for Jarard. May I propose that the Lehigh special teams unit get a new nickname: the "Fear Factor". With junior DB/RS John "Fear Itself" Kennedy , junior WR Craig "Braveheart" Zurn , there's a lot to fear in Lehigh's special teams units - so why not? Final...

(Photo courtesy the Laconia Citizen/AP) For the second week in a row, the No. 2 team faced the No. 5 team in the in the Sports Network Top 25. Last week, it was Villanova who jumped out in front of William & Mary to coast to the victory, but this weekend would end quite differently for the Wildcats. In Durham, New Hampshire, two top defensive teams slugged it out and it would be No. 5, New Hampshire, that would emerge on top 28-24 . After UNH jumped out to a 22-7 lead midway through the second quarter, Villanova junior WR Matt Szczur showed he is the heart and soul of their offense, scoring two big play touchdowns (one 26 yard reception, and a 58 yard touchdown run) in the next two quarters to give Villanova the 24-22 lead. He would have an eye-popping 283 yards of total offense on the afternoon - more than half of the Wildcats' yards from scrimmage. But it was UNH's defense, led by senior LB Sean Ware (10 tackles) and sophomore S Ryan McGuinness (10 tackles) that hel...

(Photo Courtesy Kevin Mingora, the Morning Call) There you have it: pictorial evidence that sophomore DB/LB Colin Newton was indeed "throwing his body around" in the win against Georgetown. I really enjoy those home picture galleries by the Morning Call from home games - here's a link to those photographs . Here's the press roundup, too. I looked around for a local writeup of the game from the Georgetown side, but I didn't find one from the print media, so I'm linking the one from Hoya Saxa instead. Lehigh Atlhetics: Defense Dominates as Lehigh Blanks Hoyas "Certainly very happy to get this first one under our belt," Lehigh head coach Andy Coen said afterwards. "I thought we had a great plan going in and we executed that plan well today. There were a few offensive lapses in the third quarter but it was nice to see them re-group and punch that last touchdown in down there." He continued, "Overall I thought our defense did a great ...

I can't say I'm the biggest fan of the TV show that, well, has most of the same letters as this "Sunday's Word." But it's a weekend in the Patriot League that begs for some analysis of the "numbers" that have been generated about Patriot League teams - not to mention that it's the halfway point of the FCS college football season. This week the outfit I write for, the College Sporting News , released the Gridiron Power Index, or GPI . The GPI is an index, comprised of three human polls ( Any Given Saturday , The Sports Network , and the Coaches' Poll ), and seven computer polls (including two very well known computer rankings, Massey and Sagarin , amoung others). From these ten inputs the index comes up with what could be considered the most fair rating of all FCS teams around - it's known as a tool that members of the FCS subcommittee can use in order to choose at-large teams for the FCS playoffs. It ranks all FCS teams from 1 to 125...