LFN's Five Burning Questions Of Preseason Camp

It's almost here - the 2016 football season.

On August 8th, the Lehigh football team finished their offseason testing and officially started in with the incoming freshman class.

Head coach Andy Coen was very impressed with the 20 new faces of the incoming class.

"It's always a huge for the freshmen coming from high school to college but I think that group of kids did a really good job," he told LehighSports.com. "I was really impressed that we didn't have as many mental mistakes, especially the young guys," he continued. "That's always good to see. The guys are keeping their faces in the playbook, learning and trying to get better."

So what will Lehigh Nation be looking at during the 2015 preseason?

Let's jump right in.

1. Defensive crispness. Coach Coen always looks at competition at all positions at preseason camp, but it's on defense where the expectations of turnaround will be highest and the competition fiercest. With senior LB Colton Caslow leading the way, intensity shouldn't be a problem on this defense, but execution and attention to detail will be.

It is Year 3 of defensive coordinator Jor Bottiglieri's 3-3-5 defense, and unfamiliarity won't be an excuse anymore as to improvement on defense. While "crispness" isn't exactly an easily measured stat, but it's the little things that I'll be looking at during the preseason.

2. Defensive pressure. Key to making the 3-3-5 work for Lehigh will be improved pressure from the defensive front, and the improvement of players like junior DE Tyler Cavenas and senior LB Pierce Ripanti this offseason. In the spring, there was barely enough defensive linemen to hold a scrimmage, so it was difficult to judge the improvement of this unit. This August, it will be interesting to see who rotates in on the front and how the pass rush in general will look.

3. Tight-End/H-Back Sets. On offense, much returns, especially senior QB Nick Shafnisky, junior WR Troy Pelletier, and sophomore RB Dominick Bragalone, as well as a slew of other important skill players. One area where there will be new starters is TE, though, with a combination of senior TE Zach Bucklin, junior TE Drew Paulsen, junior TE Mike Baur, and others. One of these guys will start, and the others will find themselves on the field in different situations - but how?

4. Offensive Line Depth. Much of the freshman coming in this season are on the offensive line, and are immediately into the mix in terms of competition for spots on the two-deep and special teams rosters. There are some intriguing options as freshmen, for example, freshman OL Alex Motley. Which freshmen will progress in camp, and which ones will be seeing time vs. Monmouth?

5. Who's Punting? One of the more underreported areas of competition for the Mountain Hawks this fall is with two freshmen and the starting punter spot: freshman P Austin Henning and freshman P/K Oliver Clowes. One of these two guys will be the starting punter for Monmouth - which one will it be?

How The Ivy League Is Able To Break the NCAA's Scholarship Limits and Still Consider Themselves FCS

By now you've seen the results. In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago . Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth. Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled. Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season. The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League. W

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season. The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League. In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play. Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ . I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care. Every face was glum. They didn't even seem sad. More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked chan

Fifteen Guys Who Might be Lehigh's Next Football Coach (and Five More)

If you've been following my Twitter account, you might have caught some "possibilities" as Lehigh's next head football coach like Lou Holtz, Brett Favre and Bo Pelini . The chance that any of those three guys actually are offered and accept the Lehigh head coaching position are somewhere between zero and zero. (The full list of my Twitter "possibilities" are all on this thread on the Lehigh Sports Forum .) However the actual Lehigh head football coaching search is well underway, with real names and real possibilities. I've come up with a list of fifteen possible names, some which I've heard whispered as candidates, others which might be good fits at Lehigh for a variety of reasons. UPDATE: I have found five more names of possible head coaches that I am adding to this list below. Who are the twenty people? Here they are, in alphabetical order.

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