Lehigh Football Nation

(Photo Credit: Steve Hockstein/NJ Advance Media) With this year's early signing period in December, along with traditional signing day in February and additional signing of recruits up until May, it felt like the right time to resurrect the Patriot League Commit Tracker for the class of 2022. This is intended to be a rolling list, updated as we go, as student-athletes going to any Patriot League school sign National Letters of Intent. We don't know the whole story yet behind each school's recruiting class.  But this post is intended to put in one place what we know so far. As I learn more, I will add more names to each list.

(Photo Credit: Washington Post) The term is "Hoya Paranoia", and back in the 1980s it meant the hoops legend of John Thompson, Patrick Ewing and the golden era of Hoya basketball.  There's even a blog dedicated to those teams in that time frame. To Hoya football fans, though, the term Hoya Paranoia has meant something much different. To them, head coach Kevin Kelly has been fighting a losing battle in the Patriot League, despite being one game away from the title in two of the last three years.  They say that the new reality that has football scholarships in the Patriot League is bad, bad news for the Hoyas, and that the inevitable decline of the program is right around the corner as a result. In this reporter's opinion, in past seasons, the argument hasn't held water.  The past three seasons have seen the Hoyas come dastardly close to knocking off the Mountain Hawks, and they've beaten every other team in the Patriot League at least once. But...

With two Patriot League Championships in three years and a 10-1 record last year, Lehigh head coach Andy Coen certainly has high standards to meet every year. It's not nearly enough to have a "year off" recruiting when you're at - or, in Lehigh's case, near - the top.  You lose all-league players like WR Ryan Spadola and DT Sajjad Chagani and you have to recruit all-league players to replace them.  There's never any room for error. Lehigh fans who have been waiting with baited breath to see how scholarships have found their way into Coen's class of 2017 finally have a chance to discover what, if any, impact scholarships have. The Patsy Ratings offer an answer, and it's a surprising one. Scholarships seem to have had a good impact on Lehigh's first scholarship class.  Did it give Lehigh the same type of large Patsy Point class that, apparently, Colgate and Fordham had?  No, it did not.

Every once in a while, a Patsy Point class crosses the desk of the Committee where the Members check the other side of the paper for more names.  "Is that all?"  they ask, with no response forthcoming. Such is the case with Holy Cross head football coach Tom Gilmore 's Patsy Point class this go-around, his first with football scholarships at his disposal. It's a small class, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, necessarily.  But as you'll see below, the Patsy Point rating system was - shall we say - not kind to Holy Cross' incoming class for this season. Everyone knows, and nobody is more aware of this than the Committee members, that the Patsy Ratings are a deeply flawed system.  They are for entertainment purposes only.  Any resemblance to the true worth of an incoming class is purely coincidental. Using the same system used for the rest of the incoming classes, however, Holy Cross did not score well for the class of 2017.  Not well at all...

Fordham knows the ropes when it comes to football scholarships, and so does head coach Joe Moorhead . Coming last season from the coaching staff at UConn, and himself a former Fordham football player, he's seen the academic side, and the scholarship side. One of the great things about the Patsy Ratings is that it treats all schools equally.  Scholarships, grants, it attempts to treat all the teams the same, whether they've been recruiting with football scholarships for one year or four. Fordham has been ineligible for the Patriot League title the past three years, but they're still eligible for the Patsy Point title in 2013.  Let's see how they did.

Another day, another foray into the Patsy Ratings, where Joe Susan's Bucknell Bison now go under the microscope. There are no statistics, of course, which say, definitively, that Bucknell wasn't totally using their grant-in-aid money to effectively scholarship football players last season.  (None, except the fact that Bucknell hasn't won a Patriot League football title since 1997.) But with the prospect of conventional scholarships came the prospect of a different type of recruit becoming attracted to the delights of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.  (Delights which escaped me during my "recruiting" trip there, but I digress.) Did it work?  Is there a significant boost in the type of athletes headed to Bucknell?  And was the net result a Patsy Point haul that reflects this? The answer is: Sorta. Yes, there was a boost.  But it didn't net to a huge boost in Patsy Points from year-to-year.

Next up in the Patsy ratings extravaganza is Colgate, who, as you'll see in a moment, seem to have not only embraced scholarship recruiting with the gusto The Bear attacks chicken wings, but also seem to have crafted an incoming class that seems, strangely, to almost be geared towards scoring Patsy Points. The Committee, after seeing the numbers racked up by Colgate in this area, asked a question.  What is, actually, the highest Patsy Rating ever recorded?  Does this mega-class have what it takes to make it to the pantheon of Patsy Rating heroes? The answer, surprisingly, is no . In the limited number of years the Patsy Ratings have been running, there have been at least six classes with higher ratings than Colgate's fine class this season - and at least two classes that never enjoyed a Patriot League Championship, thus giving the rest of the league some hope. It's no secret that Colgate brought in some good ones - but exactly how good is the class?

My first foray in the world of the Patsy ratings is Lafayette, who, in the past five years running, has been the first to announce their incoming class, was (I believe) the first Patriot League school to recognize National Letters of Intent, and has consistently made the biggest deal of "signing day". The question is on every Lafayette fans' mind, of course: So, now, we have scholarships.  That means those low Patsy ratings for our incoming class are also a thing of the past, right?  Is this the year the big Patsy Points start to roll in? What different types of kids will we get, they say?  Which head-to-head recruiting battles will we win that, in other years, we weren't even in the running? This class gives the first opportunity for the Leopards to see exactly what scholarships have wrought.  It's been what all Patriot League fans have been waiting for.  So, what's the result? The answer, according to the Patsy ratings, is more along the lines of: ...

Below the flip enjoy a gallery of the latest Lehigh football commits for the class of 2017!

High school players across the country right now are making decisions on their college futures, and some are making choices involving Patriot League schools. The news trickles out slowly, from a variety of sources, and finally ends with the official announcement from the schools of the incoming football recruit class. But with a little work (and a lot of help), it's possible to get a list together of verbal commits to the individual Patriot League schools.  Below the flip, get a sneak peek of Georgetown's class of 2017, including links to some highlights, and also embedded video clips - and come back to this page often, as I'm going to be updating it frequently over the next few weeks until the Hoyas officially release their Class of 2017.

High school players across the country right now are making decisions on their college futures, and some are making choices involving Patriot League schools. The news trickles out slowly, from a variety of sources, and finally ends with the official announcement from the schools of the incoming football recruit class. But with a little work (and a lot of help), it's possible to get a list together of verbal commits to the individual Patriot League schools.  Below the flip, get a sneak peek of Lafayette's class of 2017, including links to some highlights, and also embedded video clips - and come back to this page often, as I'm going to be updating it frequently over the next few weeks.

High school players across the country right now are making decisions on their college futures, and some are making choices involving Patriot League schools. The news trickles out slowly, from a variety of sources, and finally ends with the official announcement from the schools of the incoming football recruit class. But with a little work (and a lot of help), it's possible to get a list together of verbal commits to the individual Patriot League schools.  Below the flip, get a sneak peek of Holy Cross's class of 2017, including links to some highlights, and also embedded video clips - and come back to this page often, as I'm going to be updating it frequently over the next few weeks.

If it's late January, that can only mean one thing for Lehigh football fans: the steady stream of commitments coming from high school seniors. In past years, I have posted one humongous posting of all the Patriot League teams whom I've confirmed are headed to Patriot League schools. This year, though, I've decided to break out my posted commitments by school. Below the flip, get a sneak peek of Forhdam's class of 2017 - and come back to this page often, as I'm going to be updating it frequently over the next few weeks.

If it's late January, that can only mean one thing for Lehigh football fans: the steady stream of commitments coming from high school seniors. In past years, I have posted one humongous posting of all the Patriot League teams whom I've confirmed are headed to Patriot League schools. This year, though, I've decided to break out my posted commitments by school. Below the flip, get a sneak peek of Colgate's class of 2017 - and come back to this page often, as I'm going to be updating it frequently over the next few weeks.

If it's late January, that can only mean one thing for Lehigh football fans: the steady stream of commitments coming from high school seniors. In past years, I have posted one humongous posting of all the Patriot League teams whom I've confirmed are headed to Patriot League schools. This year, though, I've decided to break out my posted commitments by school. Below the flip, get a sneak peek of Bucknell's class of 2017 - and come back to this page often, as I'm going to be updating it frequently over the next few weeks.

(Photo Credit: Matt Smith/The Express-Times) Yes, it's that time of year once again! What has become an annual rite for Lehigh Football Nation readers is the yearly posting where I assemble all the known recruiting information for the incoming freshman football class. For the last five years I've been competing with the legendary poster RichH to determine the incoming class. Below the flip, get a sneak peek of Lehigh's class of 2017 - and come back to this page often, as I'm going to be updating it frequently over the next few weeks until Lehigh officially announces their incoming class.

(Photo Credit: The Madison Patch ) Last week, I posted a large write-up on Lehigh's incoming class.  Once that was done, I realized I had more key bits of information on the incoming class that deserved its own blog post - stuff I've written already, of course, but also some new articles I was able to dig up (like one on QB/ATH Matt McHale , pictured to my left). Just in case you weren't jacked up already, below the flip enjoy more tidbits of information on the incoming class.  There was a lot I got the first time - but plenty, plenty more that I was able to compile once Lehigh announced their class of 2015 last week. Enjoy!   (more)

I remember, early on in my blogging career, when I thought I would be able to spend the many weeks of the so-called college football "offseason" just leaving the blog for months at a time, without updating. But the truth is, there is never really an "offseason."  Once the season is done, there's always something to talk about, even if there's no more football being played until spring practice. For the months following Lehigh's season-ending defeat to FCS Championship finalist Delaware in the playoffs, the focus has been recruiting, and the class of 2015.  And yesterday, we learned from Lehighsports.com the composition of the latest incoming class, too . So exactly, who did we get?  And what does everyone think?  You'll find out the answer to that - and more - below the flip. (more)

(Photo Credit: The Long Island Herald) On ESPN, there were only passing mentions to Punxutawney Phil , groundhogs, and the ice storm last week. In the world of hypercharged, BCS-fueled sports media, analysts waited with baited breath about Nick Saban's or Steve Spurrier's latest recruits, not the icy weather in the Northeast that would cancel or delay the many signing-day ceremonies that would constitute most collegiate-bound athletes in this area. But Phil's inability to see his shadow, coupled with the ice storm, meant for incoming Lehigh football recruits it was more of a week of a gradual trickle of letters being signed instead of one large fanfare of signings.  Not that it takes away from the quality of the incoming class that we know so far - far from it.  But it was a much more subdued affair than in years past. Let's summarize what we know about the incoming class of 2015. (more)

It's time again for one of my most popular blog postings of the year: the 2011 Patriot League Commit tracker, where I announce the incoming Patriot League classes, compiled from press reports from all over the nation, on what has unofficially become known as "Signing Day".  (This year, Signing Day is on February 2nd, and I'm releasing the first draft of my list six days early.) Below the flip, you'll have all the information I have on firm Patriot League commits that I have. It will have every name, every link, and every reference that I can track down for all seven schools (notably, this includes Fordham, still a member of the Patriot League but ineligible for the league crown due to the fact that they offer scholarships in football). And it will be updated often over the next few months, as soon as I get a link to their announcement from some (reputable) source. So click the link, and enjoy. (more)