Lehigh Football Nation

While Lehigh was making their run in the FCS playoffs this year, there were a host of interesting head coaching moves that directly involved three of Lehigh's opponents in 2011. From the Mountain Hawk perspective, the most interesting such move was that of sort-of Patriot League member Fordham, who was relieved of his head coaching duties at the conclusion of a dismal 1-10 season where the Rams lost by double digits in their last eight games. The Rams' hiring of head coach Joe Moorhead from the staff at UConn is but one of the interesting FCS offseason coaching moves.

On Saturday, it was a head-scratching lead-in on head coach Andy Coen's press conference on Lehigh's historic 40-38 win over Towson in the playoffs. The consensus from the folks I talked to coming out of the room was: why would you lead the press conference with that question?  It seemed like much ado over nothing - though none of us, it must be said, read the tweet in question, either. Five days later, it broke that the NCAA would be suspending  junior WR Ryan Spadola,  and he would not play in Lehigh's FCS quarterfinal game against North Dakota State.

(Graph Credit: Chronicle of Higher Ed) It's amazing to me how statistics are so frequently presented to attempt to "shock and awe" the viewer. Today, it's the Chronicle of Higher Ed's turn to mislead using statistics : If you haven’t seen it, you should check out Libby Sander and Andrea Fuller ’s piece this week highlighting the spending patterns in lesser-known Division I programs. The story found that nearly a third of the 125 athletic departments that compete just below the NCAA’s elite level increased their expenditures by more than 40 percent during a recent five-year period. Public universities, many of them grappling with overall financial cuts, had some of the fastest-growing athletic budgets. It sounds shocking - until you analyze the situation for, say, about five minutes.  (more)

No, that wasn't the actual headline from the New York Times on their series on Title IX. The spashy article from Katie Thomas the Times , with the real title " College Teams, Relying on Deception, Undermine Gender Equity ", has this as a teaser: "To produce an appearance of gender equity, colleges have given roster spots to unqualified players, counted male practice players as women and trimmed men’s rosters." And as a corrolary article, the Times also included a piece by Marjorie Connelly , with another splashy headline: " Few Americans Familiar With Title IX, Though Most Approve of It ". As seems to happen way too often, their one-sided series of articles on the gender-equity law seems to - yes - rely on deception, and key omissions, to make its "case". (more)

My last two blog postings, covering the departure of UMass to the MAC and what that means for FCS , paint a pretty grim picture for FCS football in the Northeast going forward. But instead of wallowing in self-pity, let me instead do something else - make a proposal to make things right. Like everything I propose (it seems), it will require out-of-the-box thinking and working together for a solution to make things better for everybody.  But the benefits to football in the Northeast - basically, it's preservation - requires such thinking. (more)

(Graphic Credit: Bleacher Report ) With UMass' departure to the MAC conference in football now basically official , it's time to look at the state of FCS football in its wake. Unsurprisingly, it offers one or more conferences a golden opportunity to establish - or re-establish - a vibrant, cost-containment model for football in the Northeast that is separate from the profits-at-any-cost model that is FBS.  A model that can compete and sometimes beat the Syracuse's, the Pitt's, the Rutgers - all while spending a fraction of the money and competing for a true national championship instead of a crystal trophy in a bogus poll-driven bowl game. That once-in-a-generation opportunity comes with a whole host of uncomfortable questions that need to be answered by the four Northeast football conferences. (more)

(Graphics Credit: College Sports Info ) The announcement didn't come as a particularly great surprise to anyone who had followed the situation, but it looks like UMass, the 1998 I-AA National Champions who squeaked by Lehigh in the second round of the playoffs, will be upgrading to FBS and playing in the MAC football conference in 2012 . Sources say the Minutemen will give the league two associate members (Temple is the other), and will allow the MAC to expand the league to 14 members. As an added bonus, UMass will be required to play two home and two road basketball games with MAC men's and women's teams every season, according to Elton Alexander of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer . It's not an earth-shattering deal in the world of FBS football, for those declining number of people who care about FBS football beyond the BCS conferences that actually have a chance at making money. Where it is an earth-shattering deal, however, is in the world of FCS football, where ...

The power of the Final Four run by the Rams cannot be underestimated for that school, and the Colonial Athletic Association, the conference which is the home of the Rams in all sports. As I've argued previously , at a bare minimum it has to make a wider pool of schools at least mull over the idea of moving their schools to the CAA. But what's extremely interesting to think about is the affect that the Rams' run might have on them sponsoring a football team. What's known is the CAA and Virginia Commonwealth will benefit in a variety of ways by their run - either through NCAA financial shares, based on NCAA Tournament wins, or through increased "exposure" and the donor money that (sometimes) comes through a title run. With the money and "exposure" - and some old-fashioned jealousy - I think the groundwork is in place for Ram football to start CAA play sooner rather than later.   (more)

Though I had figured it out already through various releases, this week Lehigh formally announced their 2011 football schedule , confirming what many had already known: this fall will feature a slate filled with challenging teams. It's a non-conference schedule featuring three great home games: one against a perennial FCS playoff team, another against a perennial FCS Top 25 team, and a game against an Ivy League team that consistently seems to be a challenging, thrilling game. The 2011 football season features a schedule with a lot of close road trips as well - easily allowing fans to catch every game, home or away. (more)

For the first time since 2005, Lehigh had a player in college football's longest-running all-star game. OL Will Rackley 's trip to Orlando, Florida to compete in the Florida Citrus Bowl was the first since  TE Adam Bergen 's, who is currently playing football professionally with the Las Vegas Locomotives of the UFL. While it's an honor to simply be invited to the 85th meeting between the East and West collegiate all-stars, Rackley by all published accounts made a very positive impression in the game. Whispers continue that his name will be called in April in the 2010 NFL draft. I caught up with Will and asked him about his experience. See what he had to say below the flip. (more)

As recently as two decades ago, it seemed ludicrous to think of cheerleading as a sport. Co-ed cheer squads, with the occasional gymnastic move by the girls and loud shouting in the megaphones by the guys, seemed more like a free way to get in to see the game rather than a true "sport" that involved competition. But the evolution of cheerleading into a true competitive sport may be more than a simple academic question these days. Quinnipiac College, a Division I non-football playing school, recently had a lawsuit brought against it by members of its recently-cut volleyball team. The team says that their team was the victim of budget cuts so that that Bobcats could continue to sponsor a "competitive cheerleading squad" . Advocates and foes alike can agree on one thing: if competitive cheerleading will be accepted as an official sport, the decision will have huge ramifications throughout the entire NCAA. (more)