Lehigh Football Nation

Some years, it's not easy for Patriot League fans to rally behind the league champion as they take on the best teams in the nation in the FCS playoffs. This year was different. With senior QB Dominic Randolph finally breaking the Crusaders' championship drought (1991) and postseason drought (1983), the boys in Purple were a very easy team to root for on Saturday. It took Randolph four years - including a return for a fifth year for his final year of eligibility - to finally get Holy Cross over the hump. After three excruciating November swoons, it was awesome to see Randolph finally get a shot at a national championship. Randolph and the rest of the Crusaders battled hard against a team that is a threat to win the Division I National championship. They gave them a scare, but ultimately Holy Cross added yet another "moral victory" to the Patriot League column as they battled bravely but fell, 38-28, to the CAA champions. It was a script that was very similar to t...

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I know mine was great! I wanted to mention that I'll be twittering about the Holy Cross/Villanova game this weekend, as well as writing a full wrapup of the game on my blog. For my College Sporting News preview of the game, click here . Finally, I couldn't be happier for senior QB Dominic Randolph , head coach Tom Gilmore and the long-suffering Holy Cross football fans. I'll be pulling for you.

Every year, I get to vote on the major FCS awards of the year, including the Walter Payton award (for the best offensive player in FCS), the Buck Buchanan award (defense), and Eddie Robinson award (head coach). I've been voting on these awards for years, but never have I had a Patriot League player on top of the list. The one I submitted this year did, though. I've seen a lot of quarterbacks this year, and Holy Cross senior QB Dom Randolph is, in my opinion, the most deserving. ***** There are players with gaudier stats (like Stephen F. Austin junior QB Jeremy Moses , with 36 TDs), already-legendary players (Appalachian State senior QB Armanti Edwards ) and high-profile FBS transfers (Jacksonville State senior QB Ryan Perriloux ). But no team in FCS meant more to his team than Randolph. Why? Let me count the ways. His 37 TDs - 31 through the air, 6 on the ground - was 77 percent of the Crusaders' touchdowns this year. More than three quarters! As a sophomore, he was not...

Following the most low-key nine-sack, thirteen and a half tackle for loss season in history, senior LB Matt Cohen saw four years of hard work as a Mountain Hawk pay off as he was selected as Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year today. Cohen, a local product from Allentown, was a model of consistency on Lehigh's defense. While he only won Patriot League Defensive Player of the week once (with 6 tackles, and 4 tackles for loss including 3 sacks), in every game he was a disrupting factor, with six games where he had at least one tackle for loss. His 9 sacks and 13.5 tackles for loss led the Patriot League, and his 63 tackles were among the Lehigh leaders on a defense that doesn't favor one tackler. It's great to see the quiet supply management chain major get recognized for his four-year contribution to the Mountain Hawk program. Congratulations to Matt! While we're talking about low-key seniors on the All-Patriot Team, two more seniors got recognized on the ...

As soon as he came in the press conference, he told the media folks there that it was "fitting that we win a football game in this way." It was a quote that was used in many of the local press reports of the game as well. What the rest of the media did not pick up was the pause, and the word "Awesome" right after it. Do I know if coach Coen set out to make "awesome" the word of the week - and the game? I don't know for sure, but I do know that as soon as coach Coen mentioned the word, he mentioned it again a bunch of times in the post-game press conference (and, for good measure, on Lehigh Sports Magazine tonight), I knew it simply had to be the "Word". When many folks think of the word "awesome" they think of the 1980s. Big hair, Whitney Houston records, the (ack) Breakfast Club , you know the drill. But that wasn't what coach Coen was talking about.  He was talking about the true definition, meaning "inspiri...

I can't take credit for all of these photos, but I can take credit for a few of them - notably the first five in this series. One comes courtesy of Joe Gill and the Easton Express-Times , and the last three come courtesy of Lehigh Athletics' photo gallery of the game . More will be showing up on my Facebook page as well. And there will be plenty more opining to come this week - a special "Monday's Word", more opining on where Lehigh goes from here, the playoffs, Holy Cross, and some seismic events that deserve some talk. But today it's still about this amazing Lehigh wins, and the seniors like senior LB Matt Cohen and senior DT B.J. Benning that made it happen. (Gotta love that final picture, carried off the field!) Enjoy!