Lehigh Football Nation

It was a very notable fact that there were no long faces at Lehigh's table at Patriot League Media Day. That's not to say everyone was satisfied. It is true that the Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the preseason poll, the lowest they had ever been picked as far as anyone could remember. It is also true that, when the subject of the defeat at the hands of Lafayette in the 150th meeting of the Rivalry came up, visible discomfort crossed the faces of junior QB Nick Shafnisky , junior LB Colton Caslow , and head football coach Andy Coen , as you would expect. But the results of the preseason polls and the outcome of the last game of last season could not dampen the enthusiasm emanating from Lehigh's table today. "Last year, we were picked second, and this year, we're picked fifth," Shafnisky said with his characteristic fast-paced energy .  "and... we'll see how we turn out this year.  I can't wait to see." "We

In the past, the opening comments from the Patriot League Executive director took a good ten to fifteen minutes. But since it was Jennifer Heppel 's second day on the job, her opening comments were short and sweet. "I turned on the computer, retrieved a voicemail, and despite the fact that I was convinced I would lose the battle, I considered it a day well lived," she said. Before addressing the assembled media at the Green Pond Country Club, she had met with all seven Patriot League football coaches and discussed the different rules changes. "I couldn't be more excited to be here honored to be the next leader of the Patriot League," she continued in her brief comments. A few minutes later, Lehigh was picked to finish fifth in the preseason Patriot League football poll.   Sophomore WR Troy Pelletier, junior LB Colton Caslow and senior P Austin Devine were named to the preseason all-League team, and just like that, the media were unleashed to me

Lehigh's relationship with the schools of the Ivy League go all the way back to the 1880s. Yes, really. 1887 was the year that Princeton, one of the first institutions of higher learning that sponsored o football program, first squared off against Lehigh, throttling them 80-0. And it would be 1890 when Yale, another one of the early football powers, first hosted Lehigh, with the Eli ending up as 26-0 winners. These traditional Ivy League football opponents appear on Lehigh's football schedule for 2015 and will be a critical litmus test for this your Mountain Hawk football team after Lehigh hosts Penn. These games, too, will not simply be speed bumps in the schedule, either.  There's a lot more emotion in these games for Lehigh than meets the eye.