Lehigh Football Nation

The Patriot League could very well be in a huge bind assuming the Ivy League goes forward with their college football restart plans. According to Mark Blaudschun of TMG Sports, the Ivy League is considering two plans for their 2020 college football season - neither of which allow for any out of conference games. 13 out-of-conference games involving Patriot League teams would be on the chopping block, and when you add to it the Patriot League presidents' guidance to not fly to games , every single member of the Patriot League is affected.  If you add to that the fact that the opening of the college football season is going to at best start in late September (yes, you read that correctly), the Patriot League would count as one of the most deeply affected by Covid-19-influenced delays and decisions in the entire college football landscape. It is a bind to be sure - but not one that should see the Patriot League cancel the 2020 football season. If we start with the assumption that t...

What a win! Really, it still feels pretty darned good a few days later - a 30-27 overtime win over Fordham that was a tremendous matchup between two very evenly-matched teams.  It was a win that resulted in a bunch of Patriot League Players of the Week awards ( WR Dev Bibbens, RB Zaythan Hill , and LB Keith Woetze l), and only Bucknell super-punter Alex Pechin prevented a clean sweep of the awards. Additionally, for his great statistical performance, Woetzel won national honors with STATS as defensive player of the week.  His 15 tackle, 13 solo stop, 4 sack performance was the first national award for a Lehigh player since RB Dom Bragalone earned one of those honors in 2017.  Woetzel is also the first Lehigh defensive player to win a major national award since STATS took over the award from the Sports Network. Here are three additional takeaways from the game.

One thing has remained remarkably consistent for the last six years - Fordham has had Lehigh's number. It hasn't mattered that Fordham has had Joe Moorhead, Andrew Breiner, or Joe Conlin , or whether Lehigh was gunning for a Patriot League title, or not - during that time, Fordham has done only one thing consistently, and that's beat Lehigh. Granted, during many of those years, Fordham has some all-time teams, with UConn transfer QB Michael Nebrich , current Arizona Cardinal RB Chase Edmonds , and a cast of terrific Patriot League players too numerous to mention.  But then again, during Lehigh's last Patriot League title year of 2017, fourth-string RB D'Angelo Palladino ran for almost 300 yards on the Mountain Hawk defense for a 45-35 win , something the Lehigh seniors remember all too painfully well. In a year of lowlights, last year's 43-14 loss to Fordham for head coach Joe Conlin's first win as Fordham head coach really stood out to ...

Welcome back to the Lehigh Tailgate Report, a free public service from your pals over at Lehigh Football Nation. The idea of the Lehigh Tailgate Report is to provide a fun report on what to expect at the game, or not at the game, for this week's upcoming game. If you're planning to go to the game, great! It's at Jack Coffey Field in the Bronx, NY. Kickoff is at 1PM.  If you can't make it to the game, the game is available to watch or listen in a variety of ways. Lehigh's local radio broadcast, which starts an hour before kickoff and sets the table for the day's game, can be caught on your AM dial on Fox Sports Radio AM 1230 or 1320. (In the Lehigh Valley, you can also catch the game on 94.7 FM).  Matt Kerr , Jim Guzzo and Matt Markus are on the call this Saturday. Through internet radio, the pregame, game, and postgame can be streamed through TuneIn or just simply going to the LVFoxSports.com webpage . Full disclosure: When I'm at home, this ...

It would be easy to hate right now.  It would be tempting to write a screed about unhappy I am about how this season is going so far, to make a report card filled with C's and D's.  It would be tempting to write something in all caps on my displeasure about the outcome of the last three games. Because I am not happy.   I am not happy with the energy level brought by the team.  I am not happy with three huge 60+ yard pass plays that resulted in three Fordham touchdowns.  I am not happy with Fordham, who averaged 1.0 yard per carry, routinely get nine-yard plunges for gains.  I am not happy with a single offensive touchdown while the final score is in doubt.  I'm not happy with unconverted 3rd downs.  And I'm not happy, on a 3rd and 27, calling for a toss right to RB Dominick Bragalone . Instead of hashing all that is wrong and needs to be fixed, however, I'm going to share with you what I think Lehigh is, and where Lehigh football...

It's time to go full nerd and do a full-blown breakdown of the Fordham Rams. The first point of information about the 0-5 Rams you need to know is that they are young, and rebuilding.  Joe Conlin is their first-year head coach, and you had better believe that he and his team would love nothing better than to get Conlin's first head coaching victory against Lehigh, a team that Fordham has beaten in four of the last five meetings between these two programs. But the 2018 Rams are vastly different than the team that suited up QB Kevin Anderson and current Arizona Cardinal RB Chase Edmonds on their roster.  Anderson, who was a transfer from an FBS school (Marshall), had loads of experience and additionally used a redshirt year at Marshall, and Edmonds, as any reader of this blog would know, stepped in immediately as a freshman on Rose Hill and it was abundantly clear he was a generational talent running the ball. For Fordham, this team is adopting a new philos...

The rubber hits the road this weekend at Murray Goodman Stadium as the Mountain Hawks return home to start Patriot League play, and the stretch of games that will determine the course of the season. Lehigh (1-4, 0-0 PL) takes on Fordham (0-5, 0-1 PL) in what is a do-or-die game for the Rams in many ways.  A loss will put them at 0-6, guaranteeing Fordham first-year head coach Joe Conlin a losing season and will most likely also knock them out of a realistic chance at the Patriot League title. If you can't make it to the game, you can catch the contest on TV in the Lehigh Valley on Service Electric 2, with Steve Degler , Mike Yadush and Kristi Fulkerson on the call.  The same broadcast is also available online via Patriot League TV . You can also catch the game on FOX AM 1230 and 1320, with Matt Kerr, Tom Fallon, Matt Markus and Jim Guzzo on the call, with the most excellent Lehigh pregame show starting at 11:30 AM.  You can get it through your regular radio, l...

(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.

You may not be aware that this year the NCAA has not one, but two, signing day periods this year. Coined " Show Your Cards Day " by Arizona director of personnel Matt Dudek , Sports Illustrated calls it this "because programs and recruits now have to make their intentions clear to one another while the programs and the recruits still have time to make other arrangements." Here at LFN, we agree that "Show Your Cards" day is an accurate way of describing the brave new world of football recruiting.  And, like all NCAA rules, this affects the Patriot League as well as the Big 10, Pac 12 or any other Division I conference. For Patriot League programs, what cards are likely to be revealed?  What are the recruiting needs of each school going into early signing day?  Here at LFN, we take a stab at predicting what might be revealed this week.

I got to Jack Coffey Field late. I knew it was going to be close, getting to the Bronx for the 1:00 PM start.  My son was marching in the band for the parade that morning, and nothing was going to keep me from going to that event, completed under a perfect sky and perfect weather shining upon Main Street.  Earlier in the week I made a calculation on whether I could make it to kickoff by leaving as soon as his marching gig was complete. If I left, right as it ended, and didn't make any stops, and the traffic was just right, it was doable. So I decided it was a go.  I'd be headed to the Bronx on a gorgeous Saturday that felt a lot more like September than November.

(Photo Credit: Lehigh Athletics) The ambulance came onto the field for the third time during a Lehigh football game.  On this occasion, it was that senior TE Drew Paulsen was trying to recover an onsides kick for the Mountain Hawks.  Down only a field goal, head coach Andy Coen was trying to get the ball back to take advantage of momentum. But something happened. On the tackle, he had a head or neck injury, necessitating for the third time this year that an ambulance had to come on to the field for a Lehigh game. The extremely-loved senior out of Tampa, Florida was carted out on a gurney, and headed to local Presybterian hospital for observation.  On the TV broadcast, they showed tears from some of the players on the sidelines. Lehigh lost to Fordham, 45-35, in an extremely frustrating game where the Mountain Hawks turned over the ball  four times, twice in the red zone, and twice setting up Fordham in their red zone.  But the injury to Paulsen,...

We break down the Fordham game - and we give our fearless prediction below the flip. A key element to this week's game is the status of Fordham QB Kevin Anderson and RB Chase Edmonds .  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Fordham is a different team with or without one or both of them. Edmonds was held out in the second half of a blowout loss to Colgate, only eight yards short of the Patriot League all-time rushing record, while Anderson left the Lafayette game with an ankle injury, and hasn't returned since. Some speculation exists on the Fordham board that Anderson was suspended for the Georgetown game last week.  If it is true that Anderson was suspended, and not hurt, the interesting part of that aspect is that there is historic precedent. "Eagle-eyed followers of Lehigh Football Nation may have noticed last week that Fordham did not suit up their regular starter, QB Kevin Anderson, versus Georgetown," I wrote in last year's...

This was not how it was supposed to be. Back in March, looking at the schedule, plenty of Lehigh and Fordham fans looked at the schedule and circled October 28th, 2017 as a must-see game. WR Troy Pelletier?  RB Chase Edmonds?   Are you kidding me?  It might be a battle of nationally-ranked teams!  There's an outside chance ESPN College Football Gameday might show up in New York City!  Imagine that! College Football Gameday did indeed come to New York City this season.  But it wasn't for the matchup on October 28th, 2017. Now that the date is very close to being upon us, a very different College Football Gameday-free matchup awaits. Sure, WR Troy Pelletier will be suiting up for Lehigh, and even though he didn't suit up versus Georgetown this week, it's anticipated that RB Chase Edmonds will suit up this weekend as well.  The game, without question, will be a showcase for some athletes that might very well find themselves playing on Sundays...

This week, Lafayette plays Harvard up in Cambridge, where the 2-4 Leopards are expected to lose to the 2-2 Crimson.  I say expected to lose because with one exception since 2000, that's what's happened every time Lafayette has played Harvard: they have lost 12 out of their last 13 to the Johnnies, and have a lifetime record of 3-19 against them. The expectation among Patriot League football fans is that football scholarships were supposed to change all of that.  Simply offer conventional football scholarships, add to that a chance to play in the FCS Playoffs, and suddenly football recruits choosing between Harvard and Lehigh for business would start choosing Lehigh. It hasn't worked out quite that way. Through five games in 2017, the combined record of the Patriot League is a mind-boggling 8-21 outside of Patriot League contests.   And of those eight wins, only one has come against a team from the Ivy League - Colgate's 21-7 win over Cornell.  Collective...

I remembered the time when I ate the linguine at Dominick's. It was back when the Yankees were good.  Before we knew that Alex Rodriguez was Alex Rodriguez, and when Fordham blew away all comers to have one of the best classes of the year. It wasn't a party with a lot of music - just a huge, family style table with a bunch of Committee members and a really nice Chianti. We thought we saw Jeter come in, though we weren't certain.  Maybe it was Kevin Eakin, we weren't sure.  But we were knee-deep in the pasta and four glasses in, so it was really all a sort-of blur.  Jokes about the Jumbo Points we just earned kept everyone laughing. The enjoyment of that meal seemed a bit far away after seeing Fordham's report show up in a manila envelope marked "Fordham".  There seemed to be an effort to have the envelope be neat and crisp, at least.

It's recruiting season.  Every incoming recruit is a Patriot League all-star, everyone is a first team all-American, everyone is undefeated.  It's all good times, a chance for kids to be admitted to some of the best Universities in the world.  In that, it's a win for everyone. While we wait for each of the remaining recruits to be announced as a part of their recruiting classes, I thought I'd comb through all of the incoming classes of the Patriot League and tell you what sticks out to me. This summart isn't a ratings-based system, than folks like 247Sports have in terms of measuring the number of " starred recruits " (they list Holy Cross as the "winner"), or even a hybrid-based system, like LFN's yearly Patsy Ratings (last seasons "winner": Lehigh) or HERO Sports' list of the top overall FCS recruits (which lists Lafayette as the "winner").  It's just one guy, looking at the recruit lists, and giving his ...

By now you probably know that Lehigh is headed to New Hampshire on Saturday to face off against the Wildcats in the first round of the FCS Playoffs. About this, some of you are scratching your heads.   Lehigh is 9-2, you say.  Every single computer rating system has them ranked ahead of New Hampshire, every single human voter poll has them ranked against New Hampshire.  Lehigh won the Patriot League outright; New Hampshire weren't even co-champions of the CAA.  Why is New Hampshire hosting us ? The answer resides in the bidding process and some NCAA rules, both of which explain why it happened. I'll talk about this, and my other thoughts on the bracket, below.

(Photo Credit: Keith Groller/The Morning Call) Lehigh football post-game press conferences don't get much more relaxed than the one that happened last weekend. You can hardly blame head coach Andy Coen, senior QB Nick Shafnisky, junior DE Tyler Cavenas and sophomore RB Dominick Bragalone for feeling that way, after jumping to a 13-0 lead right out of the gates and piling up an incredible 57-9 lead against their opponents last weekend before calling off the dogs. It led to a familiar feeling in the post-game: talk of how the offense is clicking so well, how the defense keeps coming up big.  There were plenty of accolades to go around. But when one media member tried to lightly broach the subject to Lafayette, the always-loquacious Shafnisky quickly steered the conversation back to next week's game. That's because Shafnisky, perhaps more than anybody, feels the importance of next week's game vs. Bucknell. "For us to be in this position, it's all ...

(Photo Credit: Amy Herzog/The Morning Call ) When people think Lehigh football, they rightfully think of a powerful air attack. After all, the Mountain Hawks boast the top two receivers in all of FCS in regards to receiving yards, junior WR Troy Pelletier and junior WR Gatlin Casey . What they don't  necessarily think of is a grinding rushing attack, something more out of a triple-option team or perhaps a run-heavy Wing-T team. Yet in Lehigh's 58-37 statement win over Fordham, the same Ram team with potential future NFL player RB Chase Edmonds , the main headline wasn't the aerial show, though there were a few highlight-reel plays there, too. Instead, the headline became Lehigh's six rushing touchdowns, three from senior QB Nick Shafnisky and three more from sophomore RB Dominick Bragalone , and 349 yards on the ground. I looked through the record books last night, and combed through recaps of a lot of football games, and the last time I found that Lehi...

It was supposed to be RB Chase Edmonds ' day. The questions around Lehigh, as ever, surrounded the defense.  Would they be able to slow down Edmonds?  Would he score two touchdowns, or three?  Would they hold the almost-certain-NFL-player to only 200 yards? In all the talk about Edmonds, people forgot about two pretty good runners on the Lehigh side: senior QB Nick Shafnisky and sophomore RB Dominick Bragalone . Bragalone, for the second straight week, had another amazing game, getting 192 yards rushing, zero negative rushes, and 3 touchdowns.  Shafnisky ran for 112 yards and added 3 touchdowns of his own. It would be a game where Lehigh would not need to punt - the first game since Bucknell in 1999 where that was the case.  That's because they ran over Fordham, 58-37, going up at one point 51-9 before giving up a bunch of late scores. Next week Lehigh will host Bucknell for the right to clinch an FCS playoff shot, and the chance to do no worse than t...