Lehigh Football Nation

Having blamed her, perhaps unfairly, for the death of Kurt Cobain , I never really was able to really enjoy the music of Courtney Love 's band "Hole".  (A fresh listen to "Doll Parts" later, I'm further discovering that I'm still not really enjoying her music today, either, though I'm sure the female angst in her songs really wasn't intended for me, anyway.) As a Lehigh fan this weekend, it also wasn't very enjoyable to see the Mountain Hawks dig themselves into a seven-turnover "hole" either. But a funny thing happened about this weekend's game.  Sure, Lehigh dug themselves in a giant "hole", there's no denying that.  But just like they have every other week, they dug themselves out of it - which, in the end, was the most important thing. The ability to dig yourself out of a hole is not something most teams can do.

The gap between the regular season and the Towson game was very long - a two week gap that seemed like an eternity. The gap in between last weekend's 40-38 win against Towson and this weekend's FCS quarterfinal game against North Dakota State was shorter in terms of time - but, for obvious reasons , has seemed even longer than the two-week layover from the last game. Almost forgot in this extraordinary week is the fact that there's an actual football game to be played in Fargo - a game against the most complete football team that Lehigh will have faced up until this point. Below the flip, see my breakdown of the Bison, keys to the game, and Fearless Prediction.

(Photo Credit: Dave Wallis/The Forum) Let's say you're a Lehigh player right now. Today, you learned that your star receiver, junior WR Ryan Spadola , was suspended by the NCAA by making an offensive tweet. To call it a distraction would be the understatement of the year . No Lehigh team has ever gone through this.  Heck, no team has ever gone through this.  No player has been suspended by the NCAA for tweeting something. So the question is to you: how do you respond?

You get the feeling that the Big Guy up there knew this would happen - just like last year. In 2010, Lehigh did something out of the ordinary on their regular season schedule, playing their opener at Drake University in Iowa. And when the Mountain Hawks had a road playoff game after qualifying for their first FCS Playoff game since 2004, they were sent out to Iowa again to take on the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. In 2011, it wasn't Lehigh that played out at the FargoDome in North Dakota - that would have been Lafayette, who played their season opener further west then the Leopards had ever played. It means that Lehigh's trip this week out to the FargoDome won't be something completely unfamiliar to them.  They've all played in a dome before.  They know something about travelling to a Missouri Valley football team. And - if they've checked with Lafayette - they'll know a little about what to expect in their trip to the Roughrider state as...