Lehigh Football Nation

Normally an event at Murray Goodman Stadium in August would involve Lehigh's football team, either involving pictures for the upcoming season, or perhaps a scrimmage. Not this Wednesday, however. The announcement was largely expected in soccer circles, but yesterday's announcement confirmed that  the ownership team of the Philadelphia Union, they of Major League Soccer, were going to be launching a USL franchise in the Lehigh Valley, to be playing games at none other than Murray Goodman Stadium . It's a great thing for the Lehigh Valley, and a fantastic opportunity for Lehigh Atletics, too.

The spectators at tonight's scrimmage couldn't have missed the emotion coming from the sidelines. Sure, it was a practice, not a game situation, but as Lehigh was practicing its red zone defense, the sidelines - darkened somewhat by the lights, which had gone out briefly as the sun set in the Lehigh Valley - was loud. The defense was behind each other, as a unit, rallying their Brown shirts to deny the offense a chance to punch the ball in the zone. It was more than a passionate tweak at the day's competition, the White-shirted offense.  It seemed like it signified that they were ready to take on all comers. The defense stopped the offense in the Red Zone once again, and it felt good - for both the defense and the fans gathered on a beautiful summer evening, a cool breeze blowing through the Whitehead practice fields.

The past two years have been ones of Ram nightmares for Lehigh fans. Even though it seemed like QB Michael Nebrich was never 100% healthy as a Fordham Ram, he always seemed like he was plenty nimble enough to step up in the pocket and drop forty or fifty points on Lehigh's defense. But now, it's a new year.  Nebrich has graduated, as well as an eye-popping thirty-two other Fordham football seniors, many of whom had key responsibilities on both offense and defense. Head coach Joe Moorhead knows his 2015 Fordham Rams will look different.  But exactly how different? And will the Rams be able to simply reload and win a second straight title and qualify for a third straight FCS playoff appearance? If the preseason polls are any indication, Fordham was picked to win it all for the second consecutive year.

It may not have seemed like much, a bit of news quietly released during the news dumping ground of Friday afternoon by ESPN Stats and Info. "Upgrades sharpen ESPN's college FPI model," the release was titled , a piece which explained some changes that were being made to ESPN's "Football Power Index". One of those changes involve how FCS wins and losses were represented in their model. And it's actually a bigger deal than you think.