Lehigh Football Nation

More and more, college football is becoming more of a lifestyle than a diversion. The experiences are more immersive; college football days don't just take place on one day a week, it's a three, or sometimes four, day weekend.  It involves tailgates.  Parties.  Maybe a night out. Most importantly, there are games on TV - or, now, the internet - all the time.  There are literally hundreds of matchups available to watch, or stream, every day of the Experience Weekend.  Whether you watch it a home, your butt firmly on the couch, or out with friends, it's becoming an all-encompassing affair. Who will cut through all the channels showing Godspell, or Robinson Crusoe, and point you to where the Week 1 Experience Weekend games are being broadcast? More to the point, where's a Lehigh football fan - old or new - to start? The answer is - of course - you come here.  You've come to the right place. Starting on Thursday, there are plenty of football games...

Unless you've been living under a rock the last five years, you've probably heard about "realignment", or, as I like to call it, "realignmentageddon", in Division I athletics. Led by Nebraska's departure from the Big XII to the Big 10, the dominoes have tumbles all through Division I, directly affecting pretty much every conference's membership with the exception of the Ivy League. Central to "realignmentageddon" is football, whose value to television executives is broadly accepted as the reasons why, say, Rutgers and Maryland abandoned decades-long relationships with their old conferences in order to get larger chunks of TV money. But why is it only individual schools?  Why wouldn't a conference which currently sponsors FCS football just decide, one day, to become an FBS conference? The short answer is: the NCAA rulebook is written than way. But the long answer is that the NCAA rulebook, essentially, forces the current FCS ...

Did I forget to vote?   Of course not.  In a week where everyone should remember to do their civic duty and vote, here's my ballot... for this week's FCS Top 25.

My vote for the FCS Top 25 for the week ending 10/20/2012 follows below the flip.

(Photo Credit: Mustafa al-Ammar, The Daily Pennsylvanian) I'm trying something new in an effort to make my weekly wrapups better: I'm going to attempt to sum up all the scores of the Patriot League for the week and also add to it other scores of interest from the Ivy League, CAA, NEC and others as I see fit. The focus will still be from a Lehigh perspective (meaning: the focus will be on Lehigh's past and upcoming opponents), but I think it's worth taking a peek at football elsewhere in the East as well. At Franklin Field Saturday afternoon, a former Lehigh foe (Villanova) faced off against Penn (Lafayette's foe next week) in a "Big 5" rivalry game. Despite junior QB Antwon Young 's four interceptions, Villanova escaped with a 20-14 overtime victory after senior DE Dave Dellasandro forced a fumble in the overtime that was recovered by Villanova - and after the Wildcats had their extra-point blocked, meaning a touchdown and an extra point would have ...

By now you've heard that Appalachian State upset the #5 team in the nation from probably every single major College Football Announcer on the planet. Well, CSTV picked up the recap I do with Ralph Wallace from the College Sporting News and linked to it right from the main page. I could talk about it here, but why don't you just read the recap from the link, and the other major FCS upsets this weekend, like non-scholarship Drake upsetting Illinois State or Nicholls State upsetting Rice (who went to a bowl game last year)? You can also get tons of great coverage on College Sporting News (including exclusive commentary by Myron Hosea), and be sure to check out this exclusive photo gallery there , which includes a simply amazing shot of the final blocked FG and runback by Appalachian State (courtesy of the amazing Mark Campbell). Next week, we'll return you to your regularly-scheduled Lehigh stuff...