Lehigh Football Nation

After the Bucknell victory, senior OL Zach Duffy said something that cut through the entire 2017 Lehigh football season. "We have 14 days to stay locked in and do whatever it takes to win another championship," he said to the team. And it's true.  It really doesn't matter what happened Week One, Week Five, or even last week.  When this Mountain Hawk team goes to bed, and wakes up again during the next six days, they are in the Patriot League Championship race.  If they win, and stay locked in for the next fourteen days and win two football games, they will win the Patriot League. It will require being locked in for fourteen days.

We break down the Bucknell game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. In my preview, I spent a lot of time talking about Lehigh, but let's take a minute to try to get inside the heads of this Bucknell team this weekend. The Bison, along with every other team in the Patriot League, are still mathematically alive for at least a share of the Patriot League title.  But considering that mathematical window closes the second Colgate beats Georgetown (or, barring that, Lafayette), it's more realistic to say that the Bison are playing for pride, and the future, this Saturday. Not that that's going to make things any easier this weekend - Fordham, in similar circumstances, beat Lehigh 45-35 last weekend. And something that has to be remembered is that for every team on the schedule, beating Lehigh is a huge goal.  Along with Colgate, Lehigh's perennial success makes opponents just that much more focused during Lehigh week to take them down, and all the...

We break down the Bucknell game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. In case you have been living under a rock - or maybe just new at this - there's a game going on this Saturday that's, um, pretty important to Lehigh's Patriot League title hopes. To just go over the scenarios one more time, just so we're all on the same page, Lehigh is in the driver's seat this weekend. If they beat Bucknell tomorrow, they are Patriot League champions - no worst than co-champions - and they will clinch the FCS autobid, being the first Division I football program in the nation to clinch a postseason berth. If Bucknell wins, it opens the door for other possible not-so-good Mountain Hawk outcomes where Lehigh are co-champions without playoffs, or (if they lose to Bucknell and then to Lafayette), neither champions or playoff contenders. Certainly a Lehigh win would allow all Mountain Hawk fans to know that, even after the 152nd meeting of The Rival...

Anyone at all worried that it's just a wee bit too quiet from Lewisburg?  I am. The narratives coming out of Bethlehem this week - emphatically, me included - are ones of possible Patriot League championships and how the offense is "clicking" and has been very, very good. That's not usually a very good recipe for a big game for the home side, especially since word out of the Bucknell camp is very, very quiet, even though the Bison still are very much alive in the conversation of winning the Patriot League title and making Lehigh sit at home Thanksgiving weekend. Last week, Bucknell traveled to the No. 9 team in the country, Charleston Southern , and proceeded to put up a very good fight in a game that didn't affect Bucknell's title chances one way or another.   Though the final tally was 49-28, Bucs, the Bison didn't go away quietly against Charleston Southern's triple-option attack, staying within a touchdown most of the way until the home tea...

Let's take a look at all the training camps around the Patriot League and see what's up. Last week, I talked about the first week of Lehigh's training camp and you can read about that here .

Today's "Know Your 2016 Opponents" series continues with the team that is predicted by College Sports Journal to finish 5th in the Patriot League : Bucknell. Bucknell was picked to finish 5th in the Patriot League, but does that mean Lehigh fans should look past the Bison?  Hardly. By a wide margin, the Bison had the best defense in the Patriot League last season, and just two years ago, walloped Lehigh 45-24  and didn't even need two injured starters at QB and RB to do it. Someone has to be picked 5th in the Patriot League, and according to the College Sports Journal, that team is Bucknell.  But they could certainly win it all.

"Pass me some more Buffalo wings," one Committee member said to another. "You're going to get wing sauce all over these folders," another said.  "Buffalo wings and Patsy point calculation don't exactly go together." "Don't judge me," the member said, a bit more sourly this time.  "I just work differently than you.  I need protein when I compute the Patsies.  Just because you're a Vegan don't tell me how to do things." "I'm not judging," the Vegan member said, munching on her kale chips.  "I'm simply saying not everyone likes to smell Buffalo wing sauce permeating the folders.  That's something I think we all can agree on. "Mmmph," was all the other red-eyed Committee member could muster, his mouth full of Buffalo wings, blue cheese sauce, and celery. The Vegan looked quzzically, until she saw a third member holding up a half-empty bottle of "Third Street C...

The first surprise was Lehigh's uniforms. Heading out of the locker room, the Mountain Hawks did not come out in their usual gold helmets, whie jerseys and brown pants. Instead they came out with the white helmets unveiled in the Bronx - white helmets with "Lehigh" in brown on the sides.  They matched the rest of the uniform extremely well - not the pinstripes that were worn in Yankee stadium, but all-white jerseys and all-white pants with brown numerals.  White socks and white shoes completed it. It seemed to have been unveiled today by coach Andy Coen to usher in a new team, and  a new, fresh start. But the best part of the afternoon was that, whatever the reason, the new uniforms worked. After an early touchdown, the Lehigh defense would only allow a field goal the rest of the way to the Bucknell offense - without two of its top playmakers.  When preserving a two-score lead, the Lehigh offense grinded the Bison defense into so much burger meat with a ...

We break down the Bucknell game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. The rivalry between Lehigh and Bucknell could not be more strange. The Mountain Hawks hold a 44-31-3 advantage in the series and have played each other on-and-off for the last 127 years.  But Lehigh, relatively speaking, has dominated since the NCAA established Divisions in 1978. Since both Bucknell and Lehigh were reclassified as Division I in 1978 and started competing in Division I-AA together, Lehigh holds a 27-9-1 advantage. But any good Lehigh fan will point out, though, the last two years have see two of those nine losses. And both weren't just losses - they were butt-whoopings I don't need to go over again, a humbling 48-10 loss to Bucknell in 2013 and a bad 45-24 loss last season .  Then again, Bucknell is 16-5 in their last 21 games , so it's not like they only has success against Lehigh. One more interesting fact is that this weekend's Lehigh/Bucknell g...

These ain't your mothers' Bison anymore. For years football games against Bucknell didn't register on the radar screens of all Lehigh fans, thanks to a fifteen-game winning streak against the Bison. They do now, though. After that long winning streak, it may, perhaps, have been forgivable for Mountain Hawk fans to think Bucknell's homecoming win at Christy Mathewson Stadium two years ago might have been a bit of a fluke. Any thoughts of a fluke were put to bed after last year's double-digit spanking at the hands of the Bison, though. At a school known around the league as a hoops-first, football-somewhere-down-the-priority-list type of place, Bucknell was a hair away from being in the drivers' seat for the Patriot League championship, taking eventual league champs Fordham to overtime before falling in extra time. Head coach Joe Susan 's goal this year is to have Bucknell take their new culture of winning and take it to the final, logical step: ...

The businesswoman who looked suspiciously like Nicki Minaj broke out the pink champale, something that made Art very angry. "What the eff... are you doing?" he angrily asked. "Aren't we done?" she said, almost levitating off the ground. "NO!" Art said.  "There are two teams left to do.  I know these have been a grind - and it's taken us an unnaturally long time to do these - but there's really only two left." Art looked at the spreadsheets again, his eyes uncomfortably glancing at the bottom drawer where he knew the Corvousier was kept. "Two more," he said as much to himself as he did the businesswoman with the champale.  "Two more, then we can get to our summer plans." The businesswoman sighed.   "Bucknell," she said. "Yes, Bucknell," Art said.  "The surprise of 2014, the team that was one play away from knocking off the eventual champions.  While they won't be an...

Fifteen minutes before the game was about to start, ESPN Radio announcer Matt Kerr told the radio-listening public that 4-1 Bucknell would not only be missing their starter quarterback, QB R.J. Nitti , but would also be without the services of their star running back, RB C.J. Williams . You might be forgiven if that made you think that Lehigh's chances of getting their first win, and avenging last season's loss to Bucknell in Lewisburg, would be much greater. It didn't turn out that way, however, as backup QB Trey Lauletta stepped right up into the void and had the game of a lifetime against Lehigh's beleaguered defense. After Lehigh scored the game's first touchdown, Lauletta and the Bucknell offense helped create the the next 31 points for the Bison, and when Lehigh finally settled down and cut the deficit to one score, Lauletta would find WR Will Carter for a back-breaking touchdown to win the game for the Bison. "Embarassing" is what Lehig...

We break down Bucknell after the flip. One thing that is worthy of mention about last year's game, and may have gotten lost in all the talk of "revenge", was the element of surprise. Head coach Joe Susan , facing off against a then-Top 25 team, had just re-introduced QB Brandon Wesley to the staring lineup the prior week, and also unveiled a brand-new offensive attack against Lehigh as well, meaning that the game film head coach Andy Coen saw from the prior week against Dartmouth was essentially worthless. Surprise doesn't excuse the outcome, from a Lehigh perspective - not at all - but it's worthy of mention that Bucknell's pistol formation and offense shouldn't be taking anyone by surprise this week.  It also means that nobody should be reading too much into Bucknell's loss at Bryant last week, either.

It didn't really need to be mentioned by head coach Andy Coen and the coaching staff, because everyone already knew. They all remembered last year's beatdown by Bucknell at Lewisburg, 48-10 . Many of them, even the sophomores, remember the pain of that day. 300 yards rushing by the Bison.   QB Brandon Bialkowski 's broken collarbone.  Five turnovers.  130 yards receiving for Bison sophomore WR Will Carter . They also remember the humiliating exclamation point: sophomore RB C.J. Williams ' hurdle over Lehigh's secondary, getting an emphatic touchdown to put the icing on the cake. Sometimes the pain of losses of games gone by can seem distant, unconnectable, by the playing members of a football team.  There is no way for these players to imagine how it felt in 1997 for the Mountain Hawks to lose to the Bison, for example, the last time a Lehigh team had lost to Bucknell in football before last season. But last year's loss was so raw, so emphatic, ...

You might have been forgiven for overlooking them last year. After all, Lehigh always beat Bucknell.  It was what they did. The last time the Bison beat the Mountain Hawks anywhere, RB Rich Lemon was their star back, and Monica Lewinsky was still welcome in the Bill Clinton White House. But for a fifteen year stretch, the Bison couldn't beat Lehigh with a ten-point head start. So you might have been forgiven for not making the trip to Lewisburg fully anticipating No. 16. Except that, on October 26th, 2013, Bucknell changed the narrative. Bucknell didn't just beat heavily-favored, nationally-ranked Lehigh in their own house.  They put on the type of beating that left Lehigh fans absolutely stunned, a 48-10 stampeding that will not soon be forgotten by either side. Bucknell used to be another name on the Patriot League schedule for Lehigh to beat.  Now?  Their name is circled, a critical game in early October that will be a pivotal game for both side...

(Photo Credit: Bucknell Athletics) 16 years is a long time to wait for Bucknell to get a league victory over Lehigh. And on Saturday, the Bison took out 15 years of frustrations on a Lehigh team which was on the back foot from the opening kickoff and never really got back on the right foot. There's really no other way to describe it: it was a nightmare for the Brown and White. Freshman RB C.J. Williams stampeded the Lehigh defense for 154 yards, and the Bison would rack up 309 total rushing yards, in a stunning 48-10 win over the Mountain Hawks.

We break down the Bucknell game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. When most people think of Bucknell, they tend to think of basketballs, not footballs. Part of that comes from their upset of Kansas in the NCAA Tournament, the, um, SECOND most talked-about Patriot League upset over a legendary hoops program in the NCAA tournament. But that's not to say that the folks down Lewisburg way don't care at all about football. If there is an underrated stadium in the Patriot League it's Christy Matthewson Stadium , named after the hall-of-fame pitcher.  Built in 1924, it was originally named Memorial Stadium to honor all the Bucknellians who had "fought in war", either the Civil War or World War I, and had a "Christy Matthewson Memorial Gateway" in the front to honor the late pitcher, who had recently died from tuberculoisis complications stemming from his time in war. While Lewisburg isn't, shall we say, a metropolis, it...

"After the halftime speech, this team pulled together and had the will to win this game. They overcame their mistakes. They got back down to it, and did what they needed to do to will this game into the win column. Players stepped up and made plays. Others shook off a rough first half and really stepped up in the second to show the nation what they are capable of doing." No, those aren't the words of the Sunbury Daily Item sportswriters after Bucknell's 17-14 win over Dartmouth this weekend. This was a part of my "Sunday Word" after Lehigh, back in 2010,   rallied from a three-score deficit to beat Harvard, 21-19 and - in retrospect, a sentiment shared by myself and head coach Andy Coen, for starters - kicked off the amazing success on the field that the Mountain Hawks have enjoyed ever since. It's too early to say yet if Bucknell's win, where the Bison defense shut down the Big Green and allowed the Orange and Blue offense to score 17 unan...

If there's one word that describes Bucknell head coach Joe Susan , it's "stoic". It's not that he doesn't have a sense of humor; he flashes it, at times, at media days and other interviews.  But when it comes to talk of his football team, a stoicism takes over, a reflection of how he wants his team to be, how he wants his players to approach the game. Going into the 2012 season, many media members saw Bucknell as a team that still needed a lot of work to compete for the Patriot League title, though I did not; I saw some real potential in Susan's stoic leadership, a defense that was best in the league, a potential breakout year after a 6-5 season. But the Bison struggled to a 3-8 record, reversing on offense, struggling to score despite their strong "D".  And while Susan has remained stoic, some of the frustration has started to peek through.

We break down the Bucknell game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. When most people think of Bucknell, they tend to think of basketballs, not footballs. Part of that comes from their upset of Kansas in the NCAA Tournament, the, um, SECOND most talked-about Patriot League upset over a legendary hoops program in the NCAA tournament. Occasionally, when the Bison start out strong, the local parer, the Daily Item , has some good coverage of the team in their backyard.  It sometimes even shares space with Penn State, whose long shadow covers Lewisburg as well. But with a 1-5 start, the local reporters don't file the same reports.  After the Bison's 35-7 drubbing at Harvard, there were many Boston-area reports of progress, but nothing from Bucknell's local paper.