Lehigh Football Nation

The season couldn't have started out more perfectly for the Mountain Hawks. What wasn't to love about the first quarter?     Junior QB Chris Lum completes his first five passes - and starts the game off orchestrating two amazing drives that justified all the confidence that head coach Andy Coen had in him. On defense in the first half, Lehigh was money.  As a unit, they held the Bulldogs to only 38 yards and one first down - that Drake WR Nick Rosa had to earn severely after senior LB Al Pierce and the rest of the Mountain Hawk defense pounded him good. And yet - this was a game that was dangerously close to being lost.   (more)

For those who are interested - here's my selection of picks for tomorrow's and Sunday's Division I FCS games being played. For the record, I'm a perfect 8-0 in games that I've picked so far - a record that will be broken tomorrow without doubt.   (more)

For those who are interested - here's my selection of picks tomorrow's Patriot League football games being played. You already know my Lehigh/Drake prediction: let's see the rest. (more)

This just in: the Internet is great.  Really. Aside from all the wonderful, informative content it gives us (e.g. cat videos, the latest on Katy Perry 's choice of hair color, policy debates on the gripping issues of the day for example, do Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver think that the Alien movie franchise is scarier than Halloween oeuvre?) it gives college football fans a whole lot more than that. For those of us that aren't in the Lehigh Valley, it gives us a way to see everything online that you would be able to see on TV if your house happened to be a block from the Goosey Gander.  Some of the content is free; some of it isn't.  But the quality of the offerings has improved remarkably, even from just last year.  That's why I think it's well worth a season pass for the Lehigh Stretch Internet package .   (more)

For those who are interested - here's my selection of picks for today's and tomorrow's Division I FCS games being played.   (more)

It came out of the blue like a bolt of lightning from the clouds that hang over Mount Kilimanjaro.  Not content with the pomp and circumstance coming with hosting Lehigh for the first time ever, the Drake Bulldogs - Lehigh's opening day opponent - announced that the are going to play the first-ever football game in Africa . Really.  It's not a joke .  The trip this May will involve building an orphanage, climbing the iconic African mountain, as well as playing a football game.  It will also require a massive fundraising effort - and will, hopefully, end up being a positive life-changing trip for all the kids involved.  It sounds like an awesome idea - one that Drake head coach Chris Creighton deserves full credit for. One fundraising idea for the trip came from the Des Moines Register : from every sack Drake makes this year, or how many points they score. Lehigh's mission?  To make the Bulldogs find another team to raise their money.  Zero sacks...

Yesterday, we took a very close look at the Lehigh offense and what is hoped to be a vastly improved unit from 2009 .  Today we turn our attention to the defense: a squad that has the potential to be one of the best in the nation, if everything works out; and special teams, a squad that has seen agony and ecstasy in the past two years. And yet, the defense loses one of the best defensive linemen in recent memory at Lehigh, DT B.J. Benning , and one of players that head coach Andy Coen considered a "once in a decade" player, LB Matt Cohen .  Replacing them with good players won't be a problem. Having one or more defenders grow into the stars that Cohen and Benning were - that might be the challenge. (more)

Hard to believe while experiencing this scorching heat, but the football season is upon us.  Four days from today, Lehigh will be in Des Moines, Iowa to open the regular season against the Drake Bulldogs. I've been posting a series on "Knowing our 2010 Opponents" this summer, but before going into the regular season we need to know ourselves, too.  What do we have? Who will be starting? And what will the Mountain Hawks' strengths be? Behold, as I introduce this year's 2010 preview of the Lehigh offense, and my take as to who's starting and who's on the two deep. (more)

Six days from today, Lehigh will be in Des Moines, Iowa ushering in the Lum era. It still seems strange to write it - no offense meant, junior QB Chris Lum .  But there's no time to sit and reflect about the past: what was a quarterback battle in preseason camp between Lum, QB J.B. Clark and sophomore QB Michael Colvin .  It's done - and make no mistake, Lum earned his shot the right way.  He worked hard in the offseason, and basically out-worked his competition. Lum took his "lumps", worked through a fierce competition, and earned his place atop the depth chart. (more)

Picture this: you're a Patriot League team that was ranked in the Top 25 most of last year.  You've lost your starting quarterback to graduation - a guy who is playing professionally.  You have questions at quarterback, but you have an incredible receiving corps coming back - so why aren't we picked to finish first in the Patriot League? Thought I was talking about Holy Cross?  Well, I was .  But I was also talking about Lafayette - a team who legitimately could make most of the same claims that the Crusaders have, with QB Rob Curley playing football overseas and a chip on their shoulders because they were picked 3rd. In a way, though, it's much worse for the Leopards. Their last-gasp loss to Lehigh, the 27-21 overtime loss, has had nine months to fester. If you thought the size of the chip on Holy Cross' shoulder pads were big, wait until you see Lafayette's. (more)