Lehigh Football Nation

I grew up in a family where the men didn't easily show their emotions, a character trait that extended itself to sports. It certainly didn't help that one grandfather, a proud military man that stormed the beach in Normandy, had seen and experienced things that were a whole lot bigger than sports, though he enjoyed watching Major League Baseball's "Game of the Week" as well as college football.  It also didn't help that another grandfather, though a loyal corporate employee and Boston Red Sox fan, lived through a period of such baseball and pro football angst that there was little to truly celebrate except the Sox's latest collapse or broken dreams.  (And the Pats were the definition of mediocre.) My father, too, has always been a sports fan but also didn't do things like swear under his breath at the TV, stand up watching the game because "sitting down ruins the luck", or speak in tongues because his favorite team snatched defeat f...

Lehigh's great playoff ride has come to an end in the ThuderDome, where a loud, partisan North Dakota State crowd listened to an AC/DC song with the title of this "Sunday Word", "Thunderstruck", and struck down Lehigh's offense, shutting out the Mountain Hawks 24-0. It was a disappointing ending to an otherwise wonderful, historic season for Lehigh - one that will go in the record books as one of the best ever. Yet it's impossible to look at this game at some level and wonder, "What if?" What if senior QB Chris Lum 's favorite receiver were not suspended in an unprecedented move by Montana athletic director Jim O'Day , representing the NCAA's FCS subcommittee? In other words, what might have happened had junior WR Ryan Spadola not been "thunderstruck" by O'Day and the NCAA?

The gap between the regular season and the Towson game was very long - a two week gap that seemed like an eternity. The gap in between last weekend's 40-38 win against Towson and this weekend's FCS quarterfinal game against North Dakota State was shorter in terms of time - but, for obvious reasons , has seemed even longer than the two-week layover from the last game. Almost forgot in this extraordinary week is the fact that there's an actual football game to be played in Fargo - a game against the most complete football team that Lehigh will have faced up until this point. Below the flip, see my breakdown of the Bison, keys to the game, and Fearless Prediction.