Lehigh Football Nation

(Photo Credit: Matt Smith /The Express-Times ) When I look back at Lehigh's football program over the last four years, I can't think of a single game that wasn't meaningful. And when you think about this fact, that's a powerful thing to say about this group of seniors that will graduate this season. So many programs have off years, years in between quality starting quarterbacks, years when players who find themselves in NFL training camps graduate, and the number of holes to fill are too great to compete for championships, let alone playoff spots. But that didn't happen for this group of Lehigh athletes in 2013. Despite needing to replace two players who found themselves in NFL training camps, WR Ryan Spadola and LB Billy Boyko , a starting quarterback, QB Michael Colvin , and an all-Patriot League secondary consisting of CB Bryan Andrews and S Billy O'Brien , the expectations on this year's team was great: Win the Patriot League.  Build off a ...

If you went into Murray Goodman Stadium and said you knew exactly what to expect from this Lehigh Mountain Hawks team, you were lying. Everyone involved with the Mountain Hawks football program had seen, or heard about, the loss to Bucknell. If they had sharp eyes, too, they saw the former starting quarterback, Brandon Bialkowski , on the sidelines in a jacket, his arm immobilized so his collarbone can heal. You had to go back a long way to find a Lehigh team with this much uncertainty, with this much at stake, with three games left. And in this environment, this Mountain Hawk team responded. The Mountain Hawks would never trail in this game, though the Crusaders would tie the game twice, at 7-7 and 13-13.  But then, after filling in permanently after what seemed to be a rib injury to junior QB Matt McHale , freshman QB Nick "Shaf" Shafnisky came into the game and guided Lehigh on three touchdown drives in a convincing 38-20 victory.

It is very, very easy to "respect" New Hampshire's football program. Sure, they have earned "respect" nationally for their incredible, sustained success on the field. They're known as the original FBS killers, making it a habit of knocking off teams like Rutgers and Northwestern well before Appalachian State famously knocked off Michigan, James Madison upended Virginia Tech, or, most recently, North Dakota State took it to Kansas State. They're also known perennially as a team in the FCS Top 25, inhabiting the rankings in some way for an incredible 130 weeks.  In 2004, behind a third-string quarterback, QB Ricky Santos and his Wildcats beat Rutgers 35-24 and have been nationally-ranked ever since . FBS nightmares, all those Top 25 appearances, and nine consecutive playoff appearances to go along with that give UNH mad "respect" with the wider FCS community, and also make for a thrilling opponent when they come to to town. But they ...

(Photo Credit: Matt Smith /The Express-Times ) It's pretty remarkable how routine it's all getting. To Lehigh watchers, this come-from-behind 34-27 victory resembled all the others.  They'd seen this movie before. Fall behind early, by double-digits if possible.  Regroup.  Mount a comeback.  Make huge defensive stops.  Win. For the fourth straight game, Lehigh came from behind to win. For the third time this season, Lehigh overcame a double-digit deficit to win. It's as if all of Lehigh Nation simply expects the Mountain Hawks to fall behind in the first half, and recover in time to win.  You could feel it in the crowd of nearly 9,000 people at Murray Goodman Stadium.  Amazingly, down by 16, the game never felt out of reach. But this particular come-from-behind win was different in one very important respect. In beating the 7th-ranked New Hampshire Wildcats this weekend, the Mountain Hawks finally got to silence the critics across th...

Last season, Lehigh's defense was expected to help carry an offense a little as a new offense learns the ropes. This time around, though, it's a completely different situation. Eight starters depart last year's starting squad, including key members of both the defensive line and defensive backfield rotation.  Oh yeah, and LB Billy Boyko , an undrafted free agent signee by the Raiders in the offseason, graduates as well. It's not like the cupboard is bare by any means.  But, man, eight starters? While the expectation is that Lehigh's offense will proceed just fine, the defense just has so many departing seniors that it's worth asking the question: what's the expectation for 2013?

(Photo Credit: Lehigh Athletics) Despite the meetings with the other coaches beforehand, despite the bustling schedule of Media Day, where coaches are shunted around for two straight hours, fielding video spots, and reporter after reporter with digital recorders in hand, by the time I got to Lehigh head coach Andy Coen , any stress from the commotion was not evident anywhere when I talked to him. Perhaps part of that came due to his incredible success over the past three seasons. With a 31-6 record in the past three years, two Patriot League Championships, playoff wins against the CAA and Missouri Valley champs, and last year's 10-1 record, his three last years at Lehigh can be stacked up against anyone's in the country. North Dakota State's Craig Bohl , who downed Lehigh on their way to their first FCS National Championship in 2010, went 37-7 over that time period.  The coach of the team they beat twice for the national championship, Sam Houston State's Willi...

On Wednesday at Patriot League Media Day, I sat down with two senior co-captains, senior RB Keith Sherman and senior LB Nigel Muhammad , and talked to them about the upcoming season. It's a credit to Lehigh that year in and year out the expectations are so high.  This season, Lehigh was picked a very close second , right behind defending champions Colgate. What's sort of odd about that is only Nigel, and senior OL Ned Daryoush , made the first team all-Patriot list , yet they still were picked second. What did Keith and Nigel have to say about that?

54 days until Lehigh suits up against the Blue Devils.  54 days! At 54, we find another team captaion in  senior LB Nigel Muhammad as our highlighted Lehigh football athlete in today's countdown.

(Photo Credit: Stephen Flood/The Express-Times) Below the flip get all the links and wrapups of this weekend's Spring Game. In the meantime, check out rising senior S Rickie Hill about to deliver some punishment to senior WR Sergio Fernandez-Soto !

(Photo Credit: Kevin Mingora/The Morning Call/April 20th, 2013) By any measure the defense probably had more of its share of concern - and attention from coaches and fans alike - in this Spring season. They had heard the issues all Spring long - the fact that only three starters returned on defense, including four new starters in the secondary and three new starters on the defensive line. “The defense needs to get better,” Coen said in the release before the Brown/White game. “They didn’t perform very well in our last scrimmage and our coaches have challenged them." The defensive Brown team, led by new team captains senior LB Nigel Muhammad and senior FS Tyler Ward , responded to the challenge. Using a modified scoring system, the Brown defense scored 14 points off of sacks and 12 points off of turnovers as the defense put up a solid performance in a 46-37 victory.

Last season, there was little drama on the defensive side of the ball going into the spring season. With all-Patriot League names like DT Sajjad Chagani, DE Tom Bianchi, LB Billy Boyko and CB Bryan Andrews on the roster, you knew that the squad was more in a mode to "tweak" rather than to "retool". This season sees not only these three position leaders graduate, but plenty more, making the defense much less experiences, and a much larger area of competition, than last season. “The defense needs to get better,” head coach Andy Coen said in this week's release . “They didn’t perform very well in our last scrimmage and our coaches have challenged them. We haven’t had a lot of live tackling because we’re in a tailback situation. Last week we got more into it, we scrimmaged, and we didn’t tackle very well. We have to improve upon that."

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: 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: 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.)

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.

(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...

Below the flip, find my choices for Players of the Week, and a list of the recaps of the game from around the internet.

There are twenty-one teams in all of FCS that can claim that they are 2-0 right now. Of those twenty-one, only eleven teams can claim that they've beat two Division I teams - and one of those teams are our Lehigh Mountain Hawks. As a result, you'd think Lehigh fans would be in "Nirvana" now after achieving exactly what they should have done in their last two games - namely, register wins against Monmouth and Central Connecticut State. But you'd be wrong. Why is it that some Lehigh fans' instincts are to be just as annoying as Brazilian soccer fans?  Why is 2-0 - to some fans - not "Nirvana"?

(Photo Credit: CCSU Athletics) They had heard it all last week. Why didn't the Lehigh offense put up more points last weekend against Monmouth?  Shouldn't Lehigh have played much less sloppily?  Where was the offense that put up 38 points at Towson last year and swept through Patriot League play? While the Mountain Hawks didn't play the perfect game last Saturday in New Britain, there was enough big plays and ample improvement to demonstrate to the Lehigh faithful that their team more than justifies their placement in the FCS Top 25. After jumping out to a quick 14-0 lead, the Mountain Hawks survived some first-half turnovers to leap out to a 21-0 halftime lead before cruising easily to a 35-14 victory over an outmatched Blue Devil squad. Most encouragingly for Lehigh fans, though, could be the fact that senior QB Michael Colvin recovered from his early turnovers to show, in the second half, why he's the No. 1 quarterback.