Lehigh Football Nation

Short and sweet.  Live video of the game from JMU (including a JMU pregame show) is available here: http://portal.stretchinternet.com/jmu/ Everyone's favorite radio call will be available here from Matt Markus : http://www.espnlv.com/ That's how I'll be enjoying the game.  4PM start! Other games if you're crazy like me and will have a zillion windows open watching as much action as you can: Villanova at Fordham live stream via Campus Insiders, 6:00 PM start: http://campusinsiders.com/network/patriot_league/live/54ed6d2ae4b0c34b48f21b51 Marist at Georgetown live stream via Campus Insiders, 6:00 PM start: http://campusinsiders.com/network/patriot_league/live/552df696e4b0b0ea74082e09 New Hampshire at Colgate live stream via Campus Insiders, 6:00 PM start: http://campusinsiders.com/network/patriot_league/live/football-new-hampshire-at-colgate-2015-08-07 Duquesne at Bucknell live stream via Campus Insiders, 6:00 PM start: http://campusinsiders.com...

We break down the James Madison game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. This will be the Dukes' second game of the season, after last week's shellacking of non-scholarship Morehead State, 56-7. They never really took their foot off the gas. The Dukes racked up a school-record 713 yards against the hapless Eagles, including three position players rushing for over 100 yards.  Morehead State only turned over the ball twice, but the frenetic-pace-of-play Dukes still managed to execute 90 plays on offense and probably could have gotten up to 100 plays had they not relented just a little in the 4th quarter. It's not enough for Lehigh to hold James Madison to less than 713 yards in order to have a chance.  They'll need to do more.

"We told the kids to go in and watch the tape from a year ago," head coach Andy Coen said in this week's preview of the James Madison game from The Morning Call .   "We probably should have won the game. We missed three field goals. That was the difference. We had a great opportunity to beat them." There was a lot of frustration in last years' 3-8 season for the Mountain Hawks, but the 27-24 opening weekend loss was probably the second most frustrating. Let's be blunt; Lehigh had James Madison on the ropes. Whether the Dukes were in the middle of a letdown after their 52-7 loss to Maryland the weekend before, whether their talented team wasn't ready for Lehigh's best shot, whether the Mountain Hawks played the games of their lives, it didn't really matter.  With just about 12 minutes left, Lehigh had the ball at midfield, up by 4 on James Madison and the opportunity of opportunities to put the game away. Two penalties, a punt and ...

One last bit of house-cleaning to finish up before tackling the James Madison preview in earnest: below the flip, check out my FCS Top 25 vote below. It could have been one of the hardest Top 25 votes I've ever done.  For example, which FCS team that upset an FBS team was I going to leave off?  Montana went 1-1 in their two games - where should they be ranked?  Finally - how much was I going to punish some teams (I'm looking at you, Villanova) for losing to FBS squads?

It didn't get a lot of publicity, but the theme of this year's 2015 Mountain Hawk team was voted to be "family" by the members of the squad. And indeed, "family" was how the game felt out in New Britain, Connecticut, where Lehigh took care of business against Central Connecticut State, 20-14. The Blue Devils averaged 3,078 fans per home game in 2014.  With a Friday night opening, the presence of a lot of family members, and a healthy-sized Lehigh contingent, packed Arute Field held more than 5,100 people in the stands. Everywhere you looked at the game there was family.  Including my dad.