Lehigh Football Nation

It's that time of the week where I share with you your weekly Lehigh fan viewing guide for Week 8 of the college football season.  Why go to website after website when all the information you need is right here? If you are not able to attend the game this weekend at Murray Goodman Stadium you can follow the game from the following sources: TV:   Service Electric 2 (Lehigh Valley) Online Streaming: Patriot League Network (free) Radio:   ESPN Radio 1230 and 1320 Internet:   Lehighsports.com/ESPNLV.com After the game, there are a boatload of important games, most which are available via live streams!

We break down the Georgetown game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. It's frustrating to try to break a team down when, as of Friday at 1PM, Georgetown's game notes for the weekend's games are not available.  On the plus side, though, Georgetown did supply a short preview article that does provide a way forward with some critical injury information.  That, plus last week's game notes, provide something to go on. Something that does leap off the page of that preview is the following fact: "Georgetown has had a combined 15 players from its season-opening two-deep miss 28 games this season due to injury, including four different linebackers missing at least two games apiece. " Certainly injuries have taken a toll on Georgetown's non-conference schedule, including sidelining the preseason Patriot League defensive player of the year at a bare minimum.  But will those injuries affect this weekend's game?  It's hard to say.

This season, as mentioned by legendary Hoya football blogger DFW Hoya , is the 75th anniversary of the beginning of what would become a mini college football dynasty in the late 1930s. Parallel to the emergence of Fordham on the national scene, with Vince Lombardi and their "Seven Blocks of Granite" was the Hoya's undefeated, untied team of 1938, who saw team after team fall to tie or defeat above them and saw them standing alone as Eastern Sectional champions ahead of Villanova and Boston College. Behind the direction of QB Joe McFadden -  an Allen High School grad - the Hoyas would shut out Temple, Bucknell and West Virginia in three consecutive weeks while beating Maryland in College Park 14-7 to conclude their undefeated season.  Since their schedule was considered weak on a national level, they weren't considered for a bowl, but a significant number of the same players would be invited to the Orange Bowl a couple of years later in 1940. Today's Hoya...

(Photo Credit:  Kiera Wood / The Columbia Spectator ) Below the flip, enjoy this week's "LFN Players of the Week" for the Columbia game.

At the halfway point of the FCS college football season, chances are you're mad. You're mad that the human pollsters, who comprise the voters in the Sports Network or Coaches' poll, don't properly value your team, or your team's opponents. You're mad that the folks who program the computers, who either underrate your favorite team or overrate something in another team that you, yourself, don't value in your own rankings. It's just like the picture above: everyone sees the statistics and stories, and part of a football helmet, without really seeing the accurate picture. It begs the question: is there really, honestly, a way to get an accurate picture of how to rank the Top 25 teams in the country? Or will arguments on the relative worth of one football team vs. another always be a part of the fabric of college football, never to be settled - even after the end of the regular season?

My vote for the FCS Top 25 for the week ending 10/7/2013 follows below the flip. But first, check out this great picture from James Madison of QB Michael Birdsong as he's crossing the goal line against Richmond last week  (Photo Credit: Joe Mahoney / The Richmond Times-Dispatch ) The sad thing is, this picture was a great one - but Birdsong's ostrich-like touchdown pose would not count for any points, since it would be called back for holding. James Madsion would go into halftime with a 7-6 lead, but both teams would erupt in the second half, ending in a 38-31 marathon .  Dukes KR Dejor Simmons would take the second-half kickoff for a 100 yard touchdown run, and James Madison wouldn't trail by any more than 5 after that point.

As sports comebacks go, this one was pretty epic. Down 5-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning, Boston OF David Ortiz jumped on the first pitch from Tigers P Joaquin Benoit , a pitch he put over the short right-field bullpen fence in Fenway Park. OF Torii Hunter leaped, and the baseball appeared to bounce off his glove, but he went head-over-heels into the dugout without the ball in hand, and Big Papi had tied the game at "five". Like so many Lehigh football games this season, Boston came from behind, thanks to heady baserunning by OF Johnny Gomes , and ultimately won Game 2 of the ALCS 6-5. It seemed apropos that this game would have that score, and be won in this way, because it seems like that game could also be a microcosm of this Lehigh football regular season, too. Everywhere you look at this season thus far, things are coming up "fives" for Lehigh.