Lehigh Football Nation

Say this about Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany - he knows how to get an audience.   Yesterday, Delany put himself front and center once again after picking up a topic that two NCAA commissioners, the late Myles Brand and Mark Emmert , had floated but never pushed - the idea that scholarships to play collegiate sports should include the "full cost of attendance". Currently, the "full cost of attendance" of an athletic scholarship includes tuition, dorms, classroom materials and other expenses. But Delany's endorsement of the proposal to include transportation and a stipend for personal expenses as scholarship money turned a whole lot of heads for a lot of different reasons. (more)

It's never news that Patriot League teams receive awards about their Academic Progress Rate from the NCAA. Since instituting the measure in 2005 to track athletes' progress in reaching graduation, Patriot League schools have consistently, alongside the Ivy League, been honored for the number of teams that have scored a 977 or above. (Broadly, it means that 97.7% of the the team has made academic progress towards their degree.) That Patriot League schools are consistently at the top or near the top of their institutional peers in APR rates is not news. Buried in the numbers, however, are two items that should not be ignored - a subtle change that has robbed the Patriot League of some national recognition, and a case for football scholarships that you might have missed. (more)