Lehigh Football Nation

Out of 128 seasons of Lehigh football, only ten teams have enjoyed ten victories or more, and the 2012 chapter of Lehigh football was one of those ten rare teams. Most of the ten victories did not come easy, which, combined with the perception of a weak schedule, had to be the reason why Lehigh was the first 10 Division I-win school since the expansion of the playoffs to 20 teams to be denied a playoff bid. That shouldn't take away from the great accomplishment of this 2012 Mountain Hawk team, however. There is plenty to celebrate from 2012, and plenty of good things to write about.  The cardiac 28-26 victory at sold-out Liberty, in front of nearly 20,000 intense fans, before the Flames would end up being Big South co-champions.  The heart-stopping wins against Fordham, Holy Cross and Georgetown, which all came down to the last play.  And, of course, falling behind 21-10 early to Lafayette in the 148th version of "The Rivalry", before roaring to a 38-21 victor...

(Photo Credit: Facebook/Will Rackley)  Down 14-3 and 21-10, early on it looked like Lehigh's playoff hopes, already dimmed by the Mountain Hawks' loss to Colgate, might be done in completely at the hands of their bitter rivals, who were looking for their first win over Lehigh after being unsuccessful in their last four tries. Then Lehigh put together their best half of football of the year. Scoring 28 unanswered points, and shutting out the Leopards in the second half, the Mountain Hawks finished the regular season with a resounding 38-21 victory. Ultimately, it wasn't enough to get to the postseason, even though it would have been for the first time since the playoffs expanded to 20 teams that a team with 10 Division I wins would not qualify for the FCS playoffs. But that shouldn't obscure a fantastic effort by Lehigh's class of 2013 to stay undefeated against "That School in Easton" and their achievement of being only the 10th team in scho...

I have some things to do before the 148th this weekend in Easton - namely, two weeks of players of the week (since I forgot for Holy Cross in my zeal to cover the Colgate game) and some links wrapping up last week's game. Something that has muted the party  this week has been the heartbreaking story of Lafayette QB Zach Zweizig , whose father, 56, tragically died from complications of a stroke earlier this week. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.  I love "The Rivalry", I really do.  But some things transcend it.

After the weatherman promised a mostly sunny day on November 10th, the day of the Patriot League championship game at Murray Goodman stadium, there was instead a gray haze that persisted throughout the football game. Like the weather, the game was also a story of the unexpected.  Few thought the Colgate offense would be held to just 35 points, after creaming Lafayette for 65 points the previous week.  Many also were surprised that Lehigh could only manage 90 rushing yards against the No. 7-ranked rushing defense in the Patriot League. The grey weather didn't affect the outcome.  It didn't affect the passing game, the running game, or the kicking game.  But on a damp, strange, overcast day in November, the magic ran out for Lehigh.  The undefeated Mountain Hawks fell in a war on Saturday, 35-23, busting up a season that almost seemed predestined to be Lehigh's from the outset.

We break down the Colgate game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. Not much more needs to be said about the importance of this game.  Essentially, it's for all the marbles.  It's why both teams practiced in March and April, why they sacrificed their time and energy all fall, why they, essentially, do this. It's worth, though, looking at some detail as to how Colgate won these games. In all four games , Colgate scored a touchdown on their first possession.  No punts, no turnovers, no field goals.  Touchdowns. In three of the four games, Colgate scored a touchdown on their second possession.  Bucknell forced a punt in their game against the Raiders, but Colgate has mostly scored touchdowns there, too. My point is that a big part of Colgate's success has been early success.  If football is a game of momentum, the Raiders have been successful in large part by getting out of the gate early, and then just continuing to roll forw...

"The word is that Dick Biddle 's squad is in "rebuilding" mode with the graduation of RB Nate Eachus ," I confidently wrote back in the preseason of Colgate's chances for the Patriot League title in 2012.  "The Raiders' backs will still get the yards, but the real question is: can their defense get back to the world-beating form of the early noghties?" Picking them to finish fifth, as others had, seemed a no-brainer.  Even though QB Gavin McCarney returned for his junior season, his continued growth, and the development of the offensive system around some new, young guys, couldn't result in a title run for a "rebuilding" squad, especially with a defense that needed to find an identity, could it?  Especially without Eachus, who made the Kansas City Chiefs' roster? With the Patriot League championship and FCS playoff autobid on the line this Saturday, the answer couldn't be clearer.  Yes.  They can. The Raiders...

(Photo Credit: Jerome Gordon /Facebook) The term "Any Given Sunday" comes from the film by Oliver Stone of the same name, but it really comes from Steve Sabol and NFL Films, and the music and sentiment those films provided.  "On any given Sunday..." I can still imagine Mr. Sabol bellowing, with the military-esque soundtrack backing him him... "even a 1-8 team can beat the best team in the land." This Saturday, we almost saw one of those types of moments at Fitton Field in Worcester, Mass. Not looking anything like a one-win team, Holy Cross gave Lehigh every single last thing they could handle, rattling off 21 unanswered points in the 3rd quarter against the No. 1 defense in the Patriot League and putting themselves in position to fire off the game-winning 43 yard kick with 11 seconds to play. The field goal would barely have the distance, but would be just wide right - the margin between winning and losing the game.  Lehigh's 36-35 win wo...

(Photo Credit: Kevin Mingora/The Morning Call) I love the picture of this sack by senior DE Anthony Verderame on Bucknell QB Brandon Wesley - a huge sack during the game. It's a part of the Morning Call's pictorial of the Bucknell game this past weekend by photographer Kevin Mingora , who covers all of Lehigh's home games. It may seem hard to believe, but there was a time once when finding photos of games online was an arduous task.  Now, between Mr. Mingora's gallery, the Brown & White gallery , and the Facebook gallery from Lehigh Athletics , there are tons to choose from every week. It's a pretty good time to be a Lehigh Blogger.  (Oh yeah, and 8-0 is pretty nice, too.)

There are 246 schools that field football teams at the Division I level, encompassing both the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision. Of those 246 teams, there are 13 teams that are undefeated at this stage of the season. Lehigh, who competes in FCS, is in a pool of 122 teams they vie in a subdivision that competes with fewer than the 85 headcount athletes that compete at FBS. Of those 122 teams there are exactly 2 teams that are undefeated at this stage of the season. There are two teams in all of Division I that currently sit with eight wins, and zero losses: The Ohio State University, and the Mountain Hawks. And it's time to acknowledge something. That getting to 8-0 is "hard".

On a perfect homecoming afternoon, the South Mountain skyline something right out of a fall landscape painting, the stage was set for a perfect Lehigh victory - something that Mountain Hawk fans have been looking for all season. They didn't get that. But they still did get a dominating win over Bucknell, 42-19, keeping a perfect 8-0 record for Lehigh and getting the job done against a game Bucknell squad. And, overall, the good outweighed the bad.  Not the perfect game, surely, but plenty for Lehigh to get into the bye week undefeated.

This weekend's tilt against Georgetown was unquestionably the most exciting matchup between the Hoyas and Mountain Hawks in the modern era. You have to go back to 1903 (12-6, Lehigh) and 1910 (6-3, Georgetown) to find two Lehigh/Georgetown games determined by six points or less. You have to believe, though, that neither team turned over the ball seven times. And, happily, there are more pictures of this game than those tilts in 1903 and 1910, thanks to the magic of Facebook and Lehigh Athletics.  Their 82 photo pictorial makes sure that it will be plenty immortalized.

Having blamed her, perhaps unfairly, for the death of Kurt Cobain , I never really was able to really enjoy the music of Courtney Love 's band "Hole".  (A fresh listen to "Doll Parts" later, I'm further discovering that I'm still not really enjoying her music today, either, though I'm sure the female angst in her songs really wasn't intended for me, anyway.) As a Lehigh fan this weekend, it also wasn't very enjoyable to see the Mountain Hawks dig themselves into a seven-turnover "hole" either. But a funny thing happened about this weekend's game.  Sure, Lehigh dug themselves in a giant "hole", there's no denying that.  But just like they have every other week, they dug themselves out of it - which, in the end, was the most important thing. The ability to dig yourself out of a hole is not something most teams can do.

The old saying goes that there's no such thing as a bad win.  "A win's a win", they say.  And it's true.  Lehigh goes to 7-0 on the year after defeating Georgetown 17-14 at Multi-Sport Field in Washington, DC. But Lehigh's offense did their best to test that saying this Saturday. The Mountain Hawks - astoundingly - overcame seven turnovers, including four interceptions from senior QB Michael Colvin , and then hung on to win on after the Hoyas final 37 yard field goal attempt was partially blocked by senior DE Tom Bianchi in the closing seconds. Like so many of Lehigh's wins this season, it wasn't for the faint of heart.  Of the Mountain Hawks' seven wins this year, five have been determined in the last three minutes of regulation.  And including this Saturday's game, three have been determined in the last ten seconds of the game.

Highlight reels can be very misleading. I'm not saying, dear reader, that Lehigh's 35-14 win over Columbia was bad.  Not at all.  The Mountain Hawks went to 6-0 this afternoon at Murray Goodman Stadium, in front of a pacing break crowd of a little over 5,000 fans. But if you simply judged this game by looking at the highlights, you wouldn't get an accurate impression of how this game unfolded. Sure, Lehigh jumped to 14-0 and 21-7 leads, and the Mountain Hawks made some bursts of impressive plays to score touchdowns on Columbia.  But it was critical Lehigh mistakes that led to the Lions' 14 points - which put a bit of a damper on the post-game celebrations for Lehigh head coach Andy Coen .

(Photo Credit: Kevin Mingora/Morning Call ) Sometimes, the most exciting, entertaining games are the ones you least suspect, and this well-recapped Fordham/Lehigh game was one of them. I can't recall a week when it was so abundantly clear that there needed to be three special-teams Players of the Week.  As much as I tried to narrow it down, I couldn't - all three made such huge contributions, I simply had to include them all.

In the game of football, it's not easy being the placekicker. Frequently, it comes all down to you - the guy with the relatively-clean uniform, who trots in from the sidelines, to attempt to deliver the game-winning points. He's the guy who could come in, at the peak of the offense's big drive, and get "iced", the guy who shanks the kick, who keeps the breath of hop alive for the other team. The kicker is the ultimate finisher - one way or another.. With two seconds lef tof the clock, senior PK Jake Peery , a perfect 4-for-4 on kicks on the afternoon, lined up on the 13 yard line - the exact spot where he nailed a 23 yard field goal midway through the second quarter.  Hero or goat.  There was no third option. It was clear that the soft-spoken Baltimore, Maryland native was at a loss for words in the postseason celebration and the postgame interviews, after he was mobbed by teammates after his 23 yard boot gave Lehigh a last-gasp 34-31 win. It yet ano...

While it was a bit disappointing to hear from the Lynchburg News-Advance's Chris Lang that their paper didn't bring a photographer to the Liberty game that evening - the more to take of the eminently less exciting Bowling Green/Virginia Tech blowout, even though former Lehigh assistant coach Dave Clawson was there, coaching the Falcons - it did allow me to make my own pictures of the action.  My two Facebook albums of the tailgating and action, #1 , and #2 , are linked. Below the flip, find my choices for Players of the Week, and a list of the other recaps of the game from around the internet.

Down 20-14, and facing a critical 3rd-and-1 on the Liberty 38, Lehigh needed a big play. And in a big spot, senior QB Michael Colvin delivered. Fading back to pass, Colvin instead accelerated past the hole that senior C Tom Ruley and senior OL Vinny Pelligrini opened up, and saw nothing but green turf and white-shirted blockers in front of him. It didn't seem like a big thing at the time during the pregame when it was announced that Pellegrini and sophomore OL Matt Douglas would be switched on the depth chart as first-team right and left guards.  But in a game that seemed like it was going to turn on one or two big plays, it was one of the big plays for Lehigh, who took the game by the horns in that huge 68 yard TD run, riding the wave to a huge 28-26 win over Liberty in Lynchburg, Virginia.

(Photo Credit: Kevin Mingora / The Morning Call / September 15, 2012) Below the flip, find my choices for Players of the Week, and a list of the recaps of the game from around the internet.

(Photo Credit: Image By Hugo ) It's an old saw, but one of the ancient adages of football is that the difference between winning and losing comes down to one play, one caught pass, one first down made or denied. In football specifically, no matter what the score, no matter when it happens - the opening kickoff, two minutes to halftime, or with the final seconds ticking off the clock - "that moment" can come anytime.  Frequently, it's a moment you don't even know is important even when you're watching it. On Saturday, that time came on a critical 4th down-and-half-a-yard conversion opportunity for the Tigers in the first half, deep in Lehigh territory, which was resoundingly stuffed by senior DT Sajjad Chagani , and the Mountain Hawks took over on downs. It didn't feel like the play of the game at the time - Lehigh up 7-0, with more than a half of football to go.  But after Lehigh cruised to a 17-0 lead, and Princeton held firm in the second half...