Lehigh Football Nation

As much as I sometimes regret to admit, I remember the group Styx, and I also remember the album Paradise Theater . One of the songs on that album, "Borrowed Time" (today's "Sunday Word"), reminded me a lot of how Lehigh is winning football games right now. The song, buried deep in my memory banks, perhaps not gracing my ears for more than two decades, struck me after the Mountain Hawks won their second improbable, impossible, game in a row. "Don't look now, but here come the '80s!" lead singer Dennis DeYoung croons. "Don't look now, but here comes the 2013 season!", the entire Lehigh football team seems to be telling me in the same way, flirting with danger, converting improbable plays into huge momentum swings, twenty-point deficits into touchdowns, losses into wins.

There have been many football offseasons when I've covered the possibility of one, or perhaps two, Patriot League players getting signed as free agents playing at the next level. This offseason, we might see something unprecedented. Four Lehigh football players - QB Mike Colvin, TE Jamel Haggins, LB Billy Boyko , and, of course, WR Ryan Spadola - all have an excellent chance at finding themselves in NFL training camps in the next couple of months. One - Spadola - is a strong candidate for being drafted this Saturday.

(Photo Credit: Express-Times) For their end-of-the-season awards, the Patriot League released their postseason all-Patriot League teams for both academics and athletics , and unsurprisingly, Lehigh athletes put plenty of athletes on both lists. Seven Lehigh athletes made the first team offense and defense: senior WR Ryan Spadola, senior OL Mike Vuono made it on offense, and senior DT Sajjad Chagani, senior DE Tom Bianchi, senior LB Billy Boyko, senior CB Gabe Johnson and senior FS Billy O'Brien cracked the first team. Senior QB Mike Colvin, senior LB Sam Loughery, junior LB Nigel Muhammad and sophomore OL Ned Daryoush all made the Patriot League second team, while Spadola and senior RB Zach Barket made the more important list: the Patriot League All-Academic team. More academic awards and athletic awards await, but congratulations on these awesome Lehigh athletes for what they've accomplished.

(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 have been a lot of movies called "Missing" over the years, but none are as powerful as the Jack Lemmon/Sissy Spacek movie from 1982, still one of the best political dramas brought to the screen. It's not an easy watch from director Costa-Gavras , but it's a gripping political tale, based on a true story about a leftist sympathizer who disappeared in Chile in 1973 in the run-up to Augusto Pinochet's military coup.  Lemmon plays the father who travels to Chile to find out the truth in a place where the truth is hard to sort out. My own version of "missing", involving the Lehigh game this weekend, is a whole lot less dramatic.  It was no modern tragedy. It was not as important.  But from this strange experience of "missing" a Lehigh football game, I learned a lot more about myself that I would have ever imagined.

He's still No. 15, but he won't be just running the Wildcat anymore. Senior QB Michael Colvin , the Morristown, New Jersey native that has waited patiently for his opportunity, finally earned the right to be the full-time starter for the Lehigh Mountain Hawks in 2012. He always had the athleticism.  He always had the arm.  Now, as starter and the triggerman of offensive coordinator Dave Cecchini 's offense, he now has an impressive arsenal, too, to lead Lehigh in the 2012 season.  It's a potential combination that has Lehigh fans excited.

(Photo Credit: Matt Smith/The Express-Times) With the spring season officially in the books - and the 43-43 tie now finally the last public word on the spring football season - I thought I'd empty out my notebook in regards to the spring season and my thoughts going forward.

Without question one of my guilty pleasures is that I still listen to Smashmouth, whose late 1990s "we're -pushing-40-so-we-better-cash-in-now" music has not aged well. Astro Lounge songs still grace my digital music player - including, yes, All Star. For incoming Lehigh football recruits, after graduation and before summer football camp, it's not all American Pie - it's also a time for high school all-star games, including the much-publicized Lehigh Valley All-Star Classic (taking place tonight at Nazareth's Andrew Leh Stadium at 7 pm). While there are high-school all-star games in other states, the Lehigh Valley and the state of Pennsylvania seem to have what some might say is an unhealthy obsession with all-star football in June. Pennsylvania has three big-time ones, the "Big 33" game versus Ohio, the PSFCA East/West game, and multiple (only slightly) smaller all-star games like the LV All-Star classic tonight. And that doesn't even cou...