Lehigh Football Nation

(Photo Credit: Matt Breitel/The Brown & White) It still is hard to comprehend that the football season is finally, truly, over. In case you're like me, you'll want to go over the final game recaps of Lehigh's fall in the second round of the playoffs. It was a year to remember on a whole lot of fronts. Lehigh's first Ivy league sweep since 2005. The Patriot League's first win in the FCS playoffs since 2003. The Mountain Hawks' first outright Patriot League title since 2001 - and their first playoff victory since that time, too. To top it off, the three teams they lost to - Villanova, New Hampshire, and Delaware of the CAA - are all still alive in the playoffs today, implying that they are three of the top eight (or nine) FCS programs in the nation. But today is a day to recap Lehigh's season-ending loss to Delaware this past Saturday, and below the flip are the recaps of the Mountain Hawks' final game in 2010. (more)

(Photo Credit: Matthew Putney / The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Times-Courier ) There are an awful lot of fantastic photos of the first round of the FCS playoffs at the UNI-Dome, thanks to the folks at the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Times-Courier .  I'd heavily suggest you head over there now to see a great, 28-photo layout of Lehigh's historic playoff win over Northern Iowa. There are a lot of great photos to choose from, but I keep harkening back to that one play by senior FS John Venerio that continues to capture my imagination. The photo of that pass interference call - and, as you can see, a most correct call - seems to have been the huge play of the game, to me, and also makes for a nice visual of Lehigh's gutty, physical victory over the Panthers. That, of course, is not the only article written - or broadcast - this weekend about Lehigh's victory. There's more. A whole lot more. (more)

It's not often that I have to lead my "Last Look" blog posting with a scoreboard shot  from my cell phone, but there were no other real good pictures of the game at Fitton Field this weekend from Holy Cross or Lehigh, so I had to settle for my own Plan B. I've gone away from taking photographs of the games - something I used to do - but I forgot that sometimes, at away games, it's crucial.  I didn't even bring a camera to Fitton this weekend - all I had was my phone that was decidedly not very smart. Fortunately, when it came to print recaps this weekend, the game was much, much better covered by the Morning Call and the Worcester Telegram-Gazette . (more)

(Photo Credit: Kevin Mingora/The Morning Call) This weekend's game between the Mountain Hawks and Raiders saw The Sports Network 's Craig Haley in attendance, adding a national voice to the press voices reporting on Lehigh's 44-14 domination over Colgate: "When senior CB Jarard "Main Man" Cribbs picked off a Steve Rizzo pass at the Colgate 48-yard line, he saw open field to the Raiders' end zone. He then went the distance to highlight Lehigh's surprisingly easy, 44-14 pasting of Colgate, a win which has put the finishing line in sight of the Patriot League leader - a possible first league title since 2006 and a first berth in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs since 2004." As Haley put it , a Patriot League title "in view" means a whole lot of happy recaps of the game on the Lehigh side, including a live blog by Ben Watanabe from the Express-Times. (more)

(Photo Credit: Denise Sanchez/The Morning Call) With the Brown and White , Lehigh's student newspaper, not providing coverage for homecoming, and the local Lewisburg papers' staying away from this 1-6 Bison team this week, coverage was pretty slim pickings this week in terms of the game. You could reread my great coverage of the game , of course, but you can also enjoy the local writeups of the game as well. (That includes a fantastic set of photographs by Denise Sanchez of the Morning Call that show sophomore WR Ryan Spadola's fingertip catch in the end zone in the first quarter. All those links are provided below. (more)

(Photo Credit: Barry Chin/The Boston Globe) In the live blog penned by the Harvard Crimson, from the first sentence describing the Mountain Hawks - "Fashion check: the Crimson's looking sharp in Crimson jerseys and gold pants. Lehigh looks silly dressed in white-on-white" - it's easy to hate Harvard, and by extension, revel in the victory that Lehigh enjoyed this Saturday. It's funny how the live blogger at one point messed up who they were playing - "Mike Colvin in at QB for Lafayette . His pass intended for Spadola falls incomplete" - and it was equally as funny to hear the Harvard broadcast team call Lehigh the "Engineers" time and again on the broadcast, when - how long has Lehigh been the Mountain Hawks? A decade? 15 years? But announcers and live bloggers aside, Lehigh got a strong media writeup this week up in Boston and down here in the Lehigh Valley, rightfully honoring the "boys in white" with the gold helmets for t...

(Photo Credit: Kevin Mingora/The Morning Call) Lehigh's close 21-17 victory over Fordham was well attended by members of the Lehigh Valley press - even if reporters the student newspaper were not there, as they were on pacing break - though no press came, or covered the game, from the Media Capital of the World. For a game that ended in victory, the coverage was surprisingly nuanced, which was partially a reflection of head coach Andy Coen 's assessment that Lehigh's offense missed several opportunities to put the game away. But that didn't totally take away from a crushing defensive performance, which stood up Fordham when it counted, over and over again. (more)

(Photo Credit: Cheryl Senter, AP and the Morning Call) Lehigh's trip to New Hampshire wasn't the most pleasant for sophomore CB Bryan Andrews , head coach Andy Coen and the rest of the Mountain Hawks. In the end, though, Lehigh fans are hoping that the game against New Hampshire and the game a few weeks ago versus Villanova will serve as valuable experience as to what is required to win the Patriot League - and to compete on a national level. At 2-2, Lehigh is about where the rosiest of fans hoped they might be, and the bye week this week comes at the perfect time to allow Lehigh's bumps and injuries to heal before another test on October 9th vs. Fordham. But before we head to the bye week, let's take a final step back and look at the wrapup of the New Hampshire game. (more)

(Photo Credit: Denise Sanchez/The Morning Call) Lehigh's 35-22 win over Princeton got a slew of coverage this weekend, including a (brief) mention by Sports Illustrated , in their "Streaks" section from the Associated Press : "Lehigh snapped a seven-game losing streak against Ivy League with a 35-22 win over Princeton." Locally, however, there were more writeups of Lehigh's hero performance than you can shake a stick at, including another gallery of photos from the Morning Call and even a current student with a few shots of the game as well.  Read on below the flip.   (more)

(Photo Credit: Donna Fisher / The Morning Call) Senior OL Will Rackley didn't look too happy in this picture in the Morning Call, taken during the 35-0 loss to Villanova at home this past Saturday. The consensus was that Villanova looked like a team that were a real chance to repeat as CAA champions and national champions, too.  However, the sting was softened somewhat by the fact that the matchup between Rackley and Villanova OL Ben Ijalana attracted not a few NFL scouts to Murray Goodman this weekend.   (more)

(Photo Credit: Bill Neibergall/The Des Moines Register) On Mondays during the regular season in the past, I've offered up a "Press Roundup" of the week that was in Lehigh football.  I'll continue to do that this year, with just a slight modification: I'll post the wrap-ups with pertinent quotes, as I did before, but I'll also empty out my notebook and add my brain droppings to the mix as well. The reactions to the game were a strange mixture of highs and lows.  Highs with the play of senior RB Jay Campbell and senior LB Al Pierce (who was Defensive Player of the Week in the Patriot League ), but lows in the way that the Mountain Hawks let the Bulldogs back in the game.   (more)