Lehigh Football Nation

In the game of football, it's not easy being the placekicker. Frequently, it comes all down to you - the guy with the relatively-clean uniform, who trots in from the sidelines, to attempt to deliver the game-winning points. He's the guy who could come in, at the peak of the offense's big drive, and get "iced", the guy who shanks the kick, who keeps the breath of hop alive for the other team. The kicker is the ultimate finisher - one way or another.. With two seconds lef tof the clock, senior PK Jake Peery , a perfect 4-for-4 on kicks on the afternoon, lined up on the 13 yard line - the exact spot where he nailed a 23 yard field goal midway through the second quarter.  Hero or goat.  There was no third option. It was clear that the soft-spoken Baltimore, Maryland native was at a loss for words in the postseason celebration and the postgame interviews, after he was mobbed by teammates after his 23 yard boot gave Lehigh a last-gasp 34-31 win. It yet ano...

The famous NCAA saying for student-athletes goes "Most of us go pro in something other than sports." For Lehigh athletes, of course, that is true.  But that doesn't mean that, often, the pursuit of sports opens the door for unique opportunities after graduation. This offseason, I caught up with two former Lehigh football players, QB J.B. Clark and LB Colin Newton , whose pursuit of athletics has given them unique experiences internationally.

(Photo Credit: Fordham Athletics) We break down the Fordham game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. It's strange that this is a conference game - yet not a conference game - for Lehigh, which actually makes this a difficult game to analyze. Against, say, Bucknell, a loss would be devastating to Lehigh's Patriot League title chances (and autobid chances).  A loss against Fordham - whom Lehigh has played every year for the last 25 years, most counting in the Patriot League standings - would still be awfully tough to swallow, but not fatally so.  There's more history there than against, say, Liberty, yet a tiny bit less at stake than against, say, Colgate. How dangerous are the Rams, really, in the end?  Let's dive in.

(Photo Credit: WFUV) Everyone knew that Fordham would be a different team from the Rams that went 1-10 in 2011. The only question was: how different? They changed the helmets - a sort-of cross between the crimson, white-lined black letter of Harvard and the numbered helmet of a Holy Cross or Alabama . They changed the uniforms - presumably to make it resemble those of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals , who, in the early going, a a surprising 3-0 with wins against the Patriots and Eagles.  (That might be no accident: former Ram QB John Skelton is on the roster and started opening day, while his brother, TE Steve Skelton , who also went to Fordham, is on their practice squad.) They even changed the head coach - Joe Moorhead took over for Tom Masella to usher in the next phase of Fordham's transition from need-limited aid to academic index-based scholarships. So far, the Rams are different enough from last year, tripling their win total from last year (1) over their ...

While it was a bit disappointing to hear from the Lynchburg News-Advance's Chris Lang that their paper didn't bring a photographer to the Liberty game that evening - the more to take of the eminently less exciting Bowling Green/Virginia Tech blowout, even though former Lehigh assistant coach Dave Clawson was there, coaching the Falcons - it did allow me to make my own pictures of the action.  My two Facebook albums of the tailgating and action, #1 , and #2 , are linked. Below the flip, find my choices for Players of the Week, and a list of the other recaps of the game from around the internet.

My vote for the FCS Top 25 for the week ending 9/22/2012 follows below the flip.

A few years ago, I got to go to my first "rodeo". In our family trip to Yellowstone park, my wife, son, and I took a long side trip to Cody, Wyoming to experience something that everyone ought to experience at least once in their lifetimes. I remember it well - the clowns, team roping, bull riding, the works.  The crowd was encouraged to participate, and you couldn't help yourself after a while: you had to, somehow, show your appreciation for the displays of ability that were going on. I thought back on that "rodeo" a lot when I flew down to Lynchburg, Virginia to take in the Lehigh football game.  It was a lot more packed than the "rodeo" I went to in Cody - there's a lot more money in Liberty University than there is in "rodeos" - but, like the show I saw in Wyoming, it wasn't just a football game, it was a spectacle.