Lehigh Football Nation

Picture this: you're a Patriot League team that was ranked in the Top 25 most of last year.  You've lost your starting quarterback to graduation - a guy who is playing professionally.  You have questions at quarterback, but you have an incredible receiving corps coming back - so why aren't we picked to finish first in the Patriot League? Thought I was talking about Holy Cross?  Well, I was .  But I was also talking about Lafayette - a team who legitimately could make most of the same claims that the Crusaders have, with QB Rob Curley playing football overseas and a chip on their shoulders because they were picked 3rd. In a way, though, it's much worse for the Leopards. Their last-gasp loss to Lehigh, the 27-21 overtime loss, has had nine months to fester. If you thought the size of the chip on Holy Cross' shoulder pads were big, wait until you see Lafayette's. (more)

Patriot League Media Day is supposed to be all about the players and coaches, and the excitement of the upcoming football season. But with the subject of football scholarships sucking out the air in the room to some degree - and the absence of last year's offensive superstars like QB Dominic Randolph - caused some of the emphasis to be, wrongly, diverted from the coaches and student-athletes. Lost in the issues of Craig Haley's controversial report on media day and my observations of the scholarship proceedings was what the media was supposed to be there for: the upcoming 2010 fall season. And this year has no shortage of interesting storylines and compelling personal stories. To net it all out you need to just start with the preseason picks as to who is going to be in contention.  In Part One of the roundup of Patriot League Media Day, we focus on Lafayette, Colgate and Holy Cross.   (more)