Lehigh Football Nation

Lehigh's great playoff ride has come to an end in the ThuderDome, where a loud, partisan North Dakota State crowd listened to an AC/DC song with the title of this "Sunday Word", "Thunderstruck", and struck down Lehigh's offense, shutting out the Mountain Hawks 24-0. It was a disappointing ending to an otherwise wonderful, historic season for Lehigh - one that will go in the record books as one of the best ever. Yet it's impossible to look at this game at some level and wonder, "What if?" What if senior QB Chris Lum 's favorite receiver were not suspended in an unprecedented move by Montana athletic director Jim O'Day , representing the NCAA's FCS subcommittee? In other words, what might have happened had junior WR Ryan Spadola not been "thunderstruck" by O'Day and the NCAA?

(Photo Credit: Kurt Wilson of the Missoulian) You can get plenty of hits on Google if you combine the two words "WAC" and "trouble". But probably not as many as there would have been even just a few weeks ago. That's because the WAC - who has two teams currently ranked in the Top 25 in Boise State and Nevada - has announced in the next 30 to 60 days that it will be offering bids to four, and perhaps five, potential members . If you came back from Mars and read these statements, you'd probably think that the future for the WAC is rosy.  Unfortunately for the WAC, however, Boise State and Nevada will be bolting for the Mountain West conference starting in 2011 - and while the WAC might attempt to reload with a combination of basketball-only schools and FCS football-playing schools, make no mistake about it: the WAC is still in a real struggle for its survival. It's in this atmosphere that Montana athletic director Jim O'Day sent an email to a...