Lehigh Football Nation

(Photo Credit: Fordham Athletics) We break down the Fordham game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. It's strange that this is a conference game - yet not a conference game - for Lehigh, which actually makes this a difficult game to analyze. Against, say, Bucknell, a loss would be devastating to Lehigh's Patriot League title chances (and autobid chances).  A loss against Fordham - whom Lehigh has played every year for the last 25 years, most counting in the Patriot League standings - would still be awfully tough to swallow, but not fatally so.  There's more history there than against, say, Liberty, yet a tiny bit less at stake than against, say, Colgate. How dangerous are the Rams, really, in the end?  Let's dive in.

Technically, it could be considered a non-conference game. While Fordham is a part of the Patriot League, and their players show up in the preseason and postseason league all-America teams, since they started to offer merit-based aid for football players, they continue to be ineligible for the league title, and their wins and losses against teams in the League only serve to break ties. But they're not just a non-conference game. Fordham's players know what this game means for their program in 2012.  Rules might determine that they can't win a Patriot League title, but they know if they sweep the Patriot League they have an excellent chance to make the field as an at-large team. The centerpiece of that argument would be a win over nationally-ranked Lehigh.

If disrespect were money, Fordham fans would be millionaires right now, thanks to a nation of UConn fans. Admittedly, the Rams, under head coach Tom Masella , could have in 2011 their toughest pigskin schedule since Vince Lombardi suited up for the boys of Rose Hill back in the 1930s. And Fordham won't be playing only one team this year that has the potential to qualify for a BCS bowl.  Thanks to the fact that the Rams carry 63 scholarships - a combination of the need-based variety that Patriot League schools may offer, plus merit-based scholarships that more resemble the ones in the rest of FCS - they'll be playing both UConn to open the season and Army later in the year. In Patriot League circles, the question remains: will football scholarships make Fordham into a football program that is unrecognizable to other members of the Patriot League?  But in FBS circles, the Rams evoke more ridicule than respect. (more)