Lehigh Football Nation

(Photo Credit: Monmouth Athletics) Football is a physical game, and it requires a tremendous amount of strength to line up, play after play, to push people around down after down. As a result football games sometimes can evolve into contests where the teams push each other around, and such games can end up where one team gets worn down and the other pulls away for a big victory. That's what happened this weekend at Monmouth. The Hawks started out behind the eight-ball early, falling behind by two scores, and then rallying to take a 27-21 lead relatively early in the third quarter.  But the physical beating, slowly and surely, took its toll, eventually knocking the offense out of kilter and the pushing the defense out of the way for their powerful running game.  In the end, Lehigh only could be punched in the mouth so many times, and fell, 46-27. It was an especially hard loss to take because this isn't how the 2017 season was supposed to happen. "The tougher ...

It pretty much started with RB Pete Guerrerio 's 70 yard kickoff to open the game, and continued throughout a bruising, physical football game. Lehigh would battle back from a 14-0 deficit to take the lead at halftime, but ultimately surrendered the lead as a physical beating took its toll and Monmouth got 4 straight rushing touchdowns, which allowed them to bowl their way to a 46-27 win over the Mountain Hawks. Mayes would eventually find senior WR Troy Pelletier to break Lehigh's all-time receptions record with 238, but it had to be a bitter milestone to reach as the Mountain Hawks were held to 6 points - a touchdown, and a missed extra point - in the second half. "Basically, they were a better football team today," a crestfallen Andy Coen said afterwards.  "They want to run the ball, and chew up the clock, and that was very evident here today, that's why they were the better team.  We did a very poor job of 1st downs, we did a very poor job on 3r...

(Photo Credit: Asbury Park Press) Thanks to Monmouth's game notes and the Asbury Park Press, which is the source of all of this research. One thing you might want to consider bringing with you to the game on Saturday is clothes to donate. "At today's football game against Lehigh and tonight's men's soccer game against UMBC members of the Monmouth athletics community will be collecting clothing to be sent to those affected by Hurricane Harvey," Monmouth's game preview says . It can seem like one is powerless with hurricane destruction in Houston and potential hurricane destruction in Florida, but contributions like this can help make a difference.

It was days later, and head coach Andy Coen was still frustrated with last week's loss. That was the takeaway from the two pieces that came out in the local media this week, one from Lehigh Sports Central, and the other from Keith Groller of The Morning Call . "Still a lot of frustration there," he told Steve Degler.  "You know there are going to be some mistakes in that first game, but veteran guys, new guys, we made too many mistakes, and gave Villanova too many opportunities.  It was very tough to take." In last week's post game press conference, and this week's media meeting, the theme was "cleaning up the mistakes". “We’re really excited and want to put that first ‘W’ in the win column,” junior LB Matt Butler said. “We left a few plays on the field against Villanova; plays we’d like to have back. We had a few mental errors that cost us. We need to clean that up this week.”

Monmouth and Lehigh have a lot more in common than meets the eye. They don't share a conference - the Mountain Hawks are in the Patriot League in all sports, while the Jersey Hawks (my name for Monmouth's mascot) compete in the Big South in football, and the MAAC in all other sports. But athletically, in terms of everything from enrollment, participation to overall athletic department spending, Monmouth and Lehigh are like peas in a pod.  They are both universities; they both have between 4,000 and 5,000 undergrads; and the size of their athletic departments are similar as well. The Mountain Hawks and the Jersey Hawks have also been frequent opponents of the other in football and men's basketball as well.  Since 2010, Lehigh has played Monmouth twice in men's basketball and five times on the gridiron.  (Recently, it was announced that Monmouth's hoop squad and their wacky bench antic s will be headed to Stabler this fall to play Lehigh hoops as well. ) But...

We break down Monnmoth after the flip. Going into the first game of the season there are oodles of storylines on both teams. One important storyline from Monmouth coming from Hawks coach Kevin Callahan is that Monmouth has a brutal eight road games in the 2016 season, thanks to construction being done on their home field, Monmouth Stadium. With all the focus on defense in the run-up to this game, senior OL Zach Duffy also talked a bit about that the offense is raring to go as well. "It's the most productive camp I've been in the past four years I've been here,, he told Keith Groller of The Morning Call .  "We were put in a position to get a lot of good [strength and conditioning] work in.   We have a lot of experience with a lot of guys returning and that's especially important up front where we have three guys returning including myself.   And then we have junior WR Troy Pelletier , Shaf [ senior QB Nick Shafnisky ] and sophomore RB Dom Bragalo...

We break down Monnmoth after the flip. Looking at Monmouth, danger abounds if you're a Lehigh fan.  Jumping right into the preview, you'll see why.

A lot can change in a week. At least that's what Lehigh players and fans are hoping. Frustration abounds in Mountain Hawk Nation in their 0-3 start, and no matter that two teams they've played, New Hampshire and James Madison, have displayed that they are Top 25 caliber teams. It can't be used as an excuse that Lehigh seems to be the opponent circled on every team's schedule, either.  That's part of being at Lehigh: you always have the target on you. Monmouth (2-1), too, will have a very large target on Lehigh's back, after last years' narrow 28-25 loss to the Mountain Hawks  and will undoubtedly have looked at the national defensive rankings at the FCS level and seen Lehigh's squad ranked 120 out of 121 total non-transitioning FCS teams in total defense, beating only Columbia, who has only played in one game this season. But a lot can change in a week.  At least that's what Lehigh players and fans are hoping.

By definition, every team I profile in this "Know Your 2014 Opponents" series is new.  There are new faces, a fresh, new 0-0 record, and a fresh start for the football season. For Monmouth, though, who visits Lehigh on September 27th, there's a whole lot more new stuff. Start with a new football conference.  The Hawks (or Jersey Hawks, as I call them) move to the Big South in football only, where they will be competing against some football powers like Coastal Carolina and Liberty.  Gone is their independent schedule from 2013. Then head to the helmets and uniforms, where it shows off Monmouth's status as an up-and-coming athletics program.  Gone are the gothic interlocking "M" and "U", and in its place a silver helmet, with a classic looking "M", takes its place. Perhaps unfortunately for the Mountain Hawks, though, the players who inhabited the old uniforms last season return to inhabit the new ones, meaning Lehigh will face a...

(Photo Credit: Justin LaFleur /Lehigh Athletics) Below the flip, enjoy this week's "LFN Players of the Week" and a Two Minute drill on the quotes from this Saturday's game. I've decided to break out the sneak peek at Princeton into a different blog post - for reasons that will be come clear.

(Photo Credit: Justin Lafleur /Lehigh Athletics) "I'd never seen it," head coach Andy Coen said, adding a "whew" for good measure. He was referring to a very strange play this Saturday, a play that happened in Lehigh's favor that felt like the decisive play of the game. Down 25-21, and senior P Tim Divers readying to punt, speedy Monmouth CB Tevrin Brandon blocked his punt - the ball deflecting almost straight up, then falling back down to earth behind the line of scrimmage, where alert senior FB Zach Hayden kept calm, grabbed the ball out of the air, and started to go for the first down marker. He did more than get enough yards for the first down.  He rumbled 37 yards, thus turning the momentum of the game completely on its head. Two plays later, senior QB Brandon Bialkowski hit senior WR Lee Kurfis with a 40 yard dagger to make the score 28-25. It would be a death blow from which Monmouth wouldn't recover. “I’ve been coaching and ...

(Photo Credit: Liberty Athletics) We break down the Monmouth game - and we give our fearless prediction below the flip. Monmouth's game notes , happily, were available early in the week, and it reminded me of a couple other notes about Monmouth I forgot to mention. First, the Jersey Hawks' home opener against Lehigh is only one of four home games for Monmouth this season, and their game this weekend is sandwiched between two road trips: reoad games against Montana State and Liberty, then away contests against Holy Cross and Columbis. Second, this is the last time Kessler Field in West Long Branch will have their tiny press box.  As a part of Monmouth's move to 63 scholarships, plans are in the works to modernize their stadium, making it more Big South ready by 2014.  This comes on the heels of Monmouth's complete renovation of their basketball center, the MAC , and was a central reason why the Hawks were invited to join the MAAC in basketball.

(Photo Credit: Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez / The Bozeman Chronicle ) How do you judge an 0-2 team? It's not just an academic question the week for Lehigh fans. It's way too easy to look at the scores in Monmouth's first two games of the season - a 42-24 defeat against one of the top teams in the country, Montana State, and a 45-15 defeat on the road at Liberty, which, as any fan following Lehigh last year knows, is an awfully tough place to play. If there's a message head coach Andy Coen wants to deliver in between the lines, its simply not to necessarily expect Lehigh to score 40 points on the Hawks this week. "This football team we’re playing I think is a better team than the one we just played even though they’re 0-2," he told Mike LoRe of the Express-Times this week .

(Photo Credit: David DiFrancesco /Brown and White via the Express-Times) Here at LFN, I'm always looking for something to keep things fresh, and this year the plan is to keep things fresh by combining the "LFN Players of the Week" with something new: the two-minute drill. In the past, I used to have a "press roundup" with links to all the recaps and interesting articles that would emerge concerning Lehigh football.  In a world without Twitter and Facebook, this type of content curation was great not only for people who liked my blog, but for me, too, when wanting to refer back to a particularly memorable game or moment. But we live in a world of Twitter and Facebook now.  I can post links to the recaps on my Facebook page , my Twitter feed , and they can even be pulled into a type of newspaper delivered to your email called Paper.li .  All are great tools, all feature content that I myself read, and, frankly, are the way people consume news now. But th...

(Photo Credit: Monmouth Athletics) In a way, you really have to feel for the football players of the Monmouth football program. A year ago today, Monmouth was preparing for a season where the Hawks were going to be in competition for the NEC title. A challenging schedule beckoned, with a trip to nationally-ranked Lehigh and Rhode Island of the CAA heading to Kessler field, but there was a battle with teams like Albany, and nearby rival Wagner, for the NEC championship and an autobid to the FCS playoffs. But many had no way of knowing that Realignmentaggeddon would hit the Hawks, having them leave their longtime home, the NEC, and in the process find the Hawks scrambling for a new conference home. It might have even come about thanks to the Patriot League.

According to sportswriter Mark Blaudshun , a 30+ year beat veteran of college football now residing in New Jersey, a key move was made by two schools, Monmouth University and Wagner College, that affects the FCS football landscape next season. "Conference reconfiguration continues on all levels," the short blog post stated.  "According to the sources familiar with the process, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference will add Quinnipiac, Wagner and Monmouth from the Northeast Conference. The announcement will be made on Friday." In and of itself the announcement doesn't directly affect the Patriot League.  But it might. With their move to the MAAC, a conference which does not sponsor football, the Seahawks and Hawks now have to make a decision on their football programs.

(Photo Credit: Donna Fisher /The Morning Call ) The TV broadcast team of Mike Zambelli and Mike Yadush sounded out the alarm early in Saturday's game. After the Mountain Hawks had jumped to a 7-0 lead and smashed the Monmouth offense in the mouth in their first possession of the game, Lehigh resembled in every way a team that deserved to be ranked the No. 11 in the nation. But Yadush, a member of the Lehigh linebacking class of 1993, had seen similar efforts before in the many Lehigh games he's covered and the many football games he's been a part of.  He saw what might happen, and he let the viewers know. "College football games are long games," Yadush said.  "And sometimes things that go right early don't go right as the game goes on.  You take the brand-new starters out there.  And right now, they're thinking, 'Man, this is easy!'  But you have to keep battling every play.  Plays are six seconds.  You have to bring it hard every ...

There's only a couple months until the beginning of the 2012 season, and it's time to get to know Lehigh's first opponent on this year's slate: Monmouth University.  (September 1st, 12:30PM, Murray Goodman Stadium, Bethlehem). What is known, indeed, about the Hawks? They've had one football coach throughout their young history - Kevin Callahan , now in his 19th year at the reins. They've had some true NFL-caliber talent to go through their ranks, most notably Cowboy WR Miles Austin . But what else do we know about this nearby university?

(Photo Credit: Monmouth Examiner) Three days from today, Lehigh will be travelling to Kessler Field in Monmouth, New Jersey to open their 2011 football season. The Hawks and, er, Mountain Hawks have played each other twice in their history: once in 1999, and once in 2005, both times at Murray Goodman stadium.  Both were blowouts; in both games, Lehigh put up more than a 50-spot on Monmouth as well. Lehigh is extremely unlikely to put up a 50-spot on the Hawks this weekend, though.  Since that 54-26 victory in 2005, both Monmouth and their athletic conference, the NEC, have improved immensely.   (more)

When most people think of West Long Branch, New Jersey, you don't necessarily think of Monmouth University. You're more likely to think of reality shows. You might think about the Jersey Shore - and, if not Snooki , perhaps Monmouth alum  Anthony Beltempo , the creator of the mega-hit TV series on MTV . You might even think of fellow Monmouth alums Stephenie LaGrossa or Katie Gallagher , who were runners-up on Survivor: Palau  among other Survivor shows - and further cementing Monmouth University with the unenviable title of Reality Show U. There's another legacy in West Long Branch, however, that's of much more concern to Lehigh football fans. That legacy is Monmouth's growing football program - that lately has been producing a lot more than reality-show entertainment. Their reality show is played on Sundays, and it gets a heck of a lot more viewers than any show on MTV. (more)