Lehigh Football Nation

This year, I had the good fortune to attend my 23rd  "Rivalry", the most-played  rivalry in college football with 147 meetings. And as a Lehigh fan, I was immensely pleased with the outcome. And yet, I cannot recall a stranger edition of this game in my experience. To the seniors who played in this historic game, it was a shining moment in their football season - something they had wanted to do since they came to Lehigh in the first place. But I don't think anybody thought it would go down like this.

This week's LFN Players of the Week awards go to: Offense:  Junior WR Ryan Spadola  (7 catches, 121 yards, 1 TD) Defense:  Senior LB Mike Groome  (12 tackles, 1 tackle for loss) (tie) Defense:  Senior LB Fred Mihal  (5 tackles, 1 pass break-up, 1 tackle for loss, and one huge forced fumble in the 4th quarter to preserve the victory) Special Teams:  Sophomore PK Tim Divers  (2-2 FGs, 30 yards, 2-2 XP, 8 points scored) (tie) Special Teams: Junior PK Jake Peery (perfectly executed onsides kick, recovered, led to TD) Underclassman:  Sophomore RB Keith Sherman  (154 all-purpose yards, includig 83 yards rushing and a 72 yard TD catch to have Lehigh re-take the lead) Congratulations to the winners!

"I was at Delaware practice the other day,", a message board poster on Any Given Saturday said , "and asked a couple of the seniors how they felt about the one time rival. "Both said the same thing, before my time ." This is absolutely true, by the way.  The last time the Blue Hens and Mountain Hawks played on the gridiron was 2005, so the players do have a point.  If they were Blue Hens at that time, that would have made them redshirt freshmen when a missed extra point in overtime doomed Lehigh to a 34-33 defeat . The talk this week will be of the renewal of a regional rivalry that dates to 1938.  It will involve talk of talkative former Blue Hen head coach Tubby Raymond , whose games with Lehigh in the 1970s up until the 2000s have gone into "legendary" status.  There will be a lot of rejoicing that the FCS playoffs can - once again - rekindle a regional rivalry that ought to happen a lot more often than it actually does. But for the kids on...

Spring football is going along well, even when the temperature outside seems more like a mid-summers' day than early April.  Viewed in that light, it seems pretty apropos that Lehigh's theme for this year involves the heat - or, as head coach Andy Coen explained to Keith Groller of the Morning Call , 212 degrees: 'That's the boiling point of water,'' Coen said. ''The thought is that you want to heat up and when you get to 212 degrees, you boil and you can do some special things. I think they picked up a good theme because we have been close the last couple of years. We have been playing at 210, 211 degrees in a lot of games. This year we need to get to 212.'' It's been an incredibly busy month for Lehigh athletics - two NCAA tournament appearances, an EIWA and NCAA Wrestling championship, and another appearance on CBS College Sports this weekend - this time for men's lacrosse, where they head up to Hamilton to engage in their own sprin...

It was a perfect day for a lot of things on Saturday: mowing the lawn, sunning yourself outside or simply going to the park. It was also a perfect day for the annual rite of spring for Lehigh football fans: the Brown/White Spring game, the official end to the spring practice season. In pristine 75 degree temperatures with a bit of a Spring wind blowing through Murray Goodman stadium, Lehigh's offense (the White) proved themselves up to the challenge of performing against the much-hyped defense (the Brown) with an impressive 53-20 showing . Compared to last year - when there was an open audition for the role of starting quarterback, and the signalcallers combined for a multitude of turnovers and interceptions - junior QB J.B. Clark and sophomore QB Chris Lum seemed determined to put that performance behind them. And their numbers bear that out: Clark went 15 for 20 for 92 yards and 2 touchdowns, while Lum went 12 of 16 for 155 yards and 2 touchdowns. Add to that the stats of j...