Lehigh Football Nation

At Cooper field in Georgetown, Lehigh jumped to a 14-0 lead and coasted to a 35-3 victory. After senior QB Nick Shafnisky appeared to go over on his ankle funny, sophomore QB Brad Mayes came in, and shortly after running 12 yards for a first down, found junior WR Gatlin Casey for Lehigh's second touchdown on the afternoon.

Not going to DC to watch Lehigh take on Georgetown?  Need to find out how to catch the game online, by a video stream or online radio? Never fear.  LFN's here.

We break down the Georgetown game - and we give our fearless prediction below the flip. Georgetown is a football school, of course.  But you may have heard that they also play basketball at Georgetown, and this Friday is a huge deal on campus: Hoya Madness. "The Georgetown University men’s and women’s basketball programs will hold their annual Hoya Madness celebration, the official on-campus kickoff party of the 2016-17 basketball season, on Friday, October 14 at 8 p.m. in McDonough Arena," the release states .  "This is a free event open to all Georgetown students. Doors are scheduled to open at 7:30 p.m., with the show kicking off at 8 p.m. and running until 9:30 p.m.  The first 1,000 students in attendance will receive a custom ‘Hoya Madness’ Jordan Brand t-shirt." As fun as this sounds, would be even better if the football team were somehow more wrapped up in this event as the basketball team.  One place Georgetown might look is Villanova, where...

Although you see big, bright smiles on the faces of senior CB Brandon Leaks and senior WR Trevor Soccaras  when talking about the performance over the last four football games, their focus has understandably been on Georgetown and guarding against a possible letdown. Such thought is undeniably warranted, especially if they caught the college football scores from yesterday. There was only one college football game being contested Thursday night, which was Monmouth vs. Presbyterian. The Hawks, who already beat Lehigh on opening weekend and also beat Fordham last weekend, had a short week to prepare for their Thursday game.  But few people thought they would struggle against 1-4 Big South leaguemate Presbyterian, who had already lost to a Division II school (Florida Tech). Instead, the classic letdown game happened - a 17-13 loss that almost certainly doomed any chance Monmouth has to not only win the Big South, but also to qualify for any sort of at-large postseason b...

Senior QB Nick Shanfisky called them "motivation games", and it's clear during this four game winning streak motivation hasn't been lacking for this Lehigh football team. Start with Penn, where it was critical for the Mountain Hawks to avoid an 0-3 hole.  Then proceed to Princeton, where the defense gave up 52 points last season in a loss; to the Yale Bowl, where two years ago no less than five players came down with injuries in another loss; and of course Colgate, where last season the Raiders' stop at the goal line preserved their 49-42 victory and snatched a Patriot League title that was within the Mountain Hawks' grasp. At 4-2, and in the drivers' seat, along comes a game for Lehigh at Georgetown, which by any measure doesn't have the same types of motivation that fueled this four game winning streak. Not that there's no motivation, mind you.  Conference games count for more than games against Yale, or Monmouth. But you can't ...

You didn't ask for them, but here's my pick for this week's FCS Top 25. I love picking games correctly involving teams 1-13 because it makes picking the Top 25 very easy - simply cut, and paste. Most of that comes from not overrating teams like Northern Iowa , who dropped out of my top 25 after a bad loss to South Dakota , and properly rating Villanova , who keeps winning and has been a regular in my Top 10 for several weeks now. One of the teams I had been considering for the Top 25 is Dartmouth , but after a stunning 21-13 loss to Yale , I've had to re-evaluate that assessment. Many a transitive property that puts Lehigh in the playoffs or maybe even the FBS National Championship game could start with "Lehigh beat Yale, and Yale beat Dartmouth, and Dartmouth beat New Hampshire..."

It honestly felt like a day from another era out there on Saturday - in a good way. In a world of bitter political debates, supposedly declining college football attendance, alleged tensions between the generations and the ongoing charges increasing collegian apathy, there it was: the official attendance total of the Colgate/Lehigh game of 9,255. There were a multitude of reasons why people wanted to go see the game.  Perhaps it was something good to do with the family on Family Weekend.  Maybe it was a concerted effort to get students into the games, and keep them there, with new policies and new promotions.  Maybe it was a thumb-your-nose effort at the fans who come for cocktails but don't go enjoy the game.  Maybe it was individuals, all as a unit, wanting to come out and see if this high-flying, record-setting Lehigh football team is for real. Or maybe it was all of them; I have no idea, but I know it required a whole lot of planning and a huge amount of ...

At times it felt like the playing field was just the personal playground of WR Gatlin Casey , especially when he broke free for a 93 yard kickoff return for a touchdown.  But it was more than that. At other times, it felt like the defense, with freshman FS Riley O'Neil pouncing on a loose ball after a sophomore SS Sam McCloskey forced fumble. was the critical piece to keeping Colgate from winning this game.  But it was more than that. And at other times, it felt like the offense, under the expert signalcalling of senior QB Nick Shafnisky , kept finding big plays, on many occasions to Casey, that kept the game out of reach for the Raiders. In reality, it was all three phases of the game for Lehigh that finally formed the chemical reaction somewhere in the middle of the first half that erased a 17-7 deficit and transformed the different bits and pieces into an impressive 45-31 victory. For in the first half, down 14-7, the game looked like it might just get away from...