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...

Still bummed that Lehigh's Patriot League Championship season is over?  Yeah, me too. That doesn't mean that I've totally tuned out the college football landscape, though. Starting tonight, there's some terrific games on TV and online streaming that I'll be watching, both at the FCS and the FBS level.  Happily, the FCS Round of 16 games are not all going up against each other like last week, so the opportunity is there to catch one or more of those games - and you can bet that I will be. Below the flip, starting with the MAC championship game tonight, are my picks for games to watch, and - why not? - some picks as to who I think will win. (Yes, it includes Penn State.  Stop asking.)

It would be all so easy if football were a video game. If the players were pixels, with easy-to-read sliders with their statistics on them. ESCAPABILITY: 72 TOUGHNESS: 91 Then the FCS playoffs would be easy.  You'd plug in the teams, they'd hit each other virtually on the screen, and there would be a result, quantifying the relative strengths and weaknesses of each team.  A representative score would come out, and there would be one side bursting with victory, and the other in agony in defeat. There would be bitterness, some teeth-gnashing, but at least you'd have figured out that the teams gave it their best shot. But real life is not a video game.  Sometimes, star players go hunting, and come down with an illness.  It keeps them out of practice, and on the day of the big game, they're not 100%, or even 75%.  Sometimes, foot injuries do not heal, as much as you wish that they would. And then a team like Lehigh travels up to New Hampshire, not abl...

Right from the opening drive it didn't feel like it was going to be Lehigh's day. With sophomore QB Brad Mayes in for senior QB Nick Shafnisky , who was unable to start due to an undisclosed illness, a pass that bounced off the hands of senior WR Derek Knott instead bounced into the hands of New Hampshire's first team all-CAA CB Casey DeAndrade . Six plays later, the New Hampshire offense converted that turnover into the very first touchdown of the day for the Wildcats, the first of many on a defense that clearly missed senior LB Colton Caslow , who got hurt in the second half against Lafayette last weekend. Four different New Hampshire players scored a grand total of six rushing touchdowns, two coming from RB Dalton Crossan , two coming from his backup, RB Trevon Bryant , one from the third-string, RB Evan Gray, and one on a scramble from QB Adam Riese . All in all, the Wildcats racked up 364 yards rushing on the Brown and White, rushing to a 36-7 lead on the...

For whatever reason, you didn't make the trip to Durham, New Hampshire.  You've popped your popcorn, iced your Yuenglings, and put the meatballs in the crockpot - and then you panic. How do I watch the game?  What is ESPN3?  Can I watch it on my TV?  Do I need to subscribe to something?  WHAT DO I DO??? Never fear.  LFN's here to help.

We break down the FCS Playoffs Game of the Week below the flip. You heard right. One of my FCS Playoff pet peeves (especially in the first round) is that, for some reason, ESPN (who owns the TV contract for all rounds of the FCS playoffs) and the NCAA do not space out all the games in fixed time slots. If ESPN and the NCAA wanted to generate excitement about the playoffs, it would be fairly easy to space out every game with a kickoff every hour (Noon, 1:00 PM, 2:00 PM, etc.) all the way up to 8:00 PM.  That way, hardcore FCS football fans can watch part of every single game, with at least one game getting to crunch time every hour from about 2:30 PM on.  It would be compelling theater. But ESPN and the NCAA, for some reason, choose not to do this, and indeed this year, ESPN has five FCS playoff games kicking off at 2:00 PM, one kicking off at 3:00 PM, and a couple of stragglers kicking off at 5:00 PM and 7:00 PM, respectively. Why?  There is literally no good ...

In order to understand how UNH will be looking at this weekend's game against Lehigh, you need to go back to the narrative of last week. And then, you need to go back to the narrative from last year. But first, let's start with last week, where the Wildcats were not only battling their Rival Maine in the "Battle for the Brice/Cowell Musket", they were battling to keep their playoff dreams alive. The Wildcats, who had qualified for the FCS playoffs for twelve consecutive years, had fallen behind their bitter Rivals Maine, 14-7 at halftime. With both teams at 6-4. it must have had the feel of a playoff game as well as a Rivalry game.  The winner would likely have a good shot at a playoff game; the loser would likely be out. And the starter, sophomore QB Trevor Knight , was out of the game with a foot injury.  The backup, senior QB Adam Riese , would have to be the trigger guy to rally the Wildcats to the win.

"The Engineer football team once again showed their supremacy over the Yankee Conference leaders by defeating the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Wildcats, 16-3," read the October 26th edition of The Brown and White  in 1979. LB Jim McCormick intercepted a UNH pass early in the game, and returned it to the Wildcat 4, setting up an early touchdown.  After that, the Engineer defense would take over, crushing UNH's offense the rest of the way. That would be the last time Lehigh has won at Cowell Stadium - 1979, a year where Lehigh was one of four teams in the I-AA playoffs and made it to the championship, ultimately falling to Eastern Kentucky in the finals. So much has changed since then.  The I-AA playoffs have been renamed the FCS playoffs, and not have 24 teams instead of 4.  The Yankee Conference essentially was renamed to the Atlantic 10 Football Conference and now the CAA football conference, morphing from a Northeastern-based conference to one whose c...

By now you probably know that Lehigh is headed to New Hampshire on Saturday to face off against the Wildcats in the first round of the FCS Playoffs. About this, some of you are scratching your heads.   Lehigh is 9-2, you say.  Every single computer rating system has them ranked ahead of New Hampshire, every single human voter poll has them ranked against New Hampshire.  Lehigh won the Patriot League outright; New Hampshire weren't even co-champions of the CAA.  Why is New Hampshire hosting us ? The answer resides in the bidding process and some NCAA rules, both of which explain why it happened. I'll talk about this, and my other thoughts on the bracket, below.

Stop me if you've heard this before: As a reward for being the surprise outright winner of the Patriot League football championship, the reward is a trip to New Hampshire, the winner headed to seeded James Madison for a second-round game.  And somewhere, Sam Houston State looms on the horizon. This is the exact situation that Colgate found itself last season, and this year, Lehigh is poised to run through the exact same gauntlet and the exact same teams. Sunday morning, Lehigh found out their opponents for the FCS Playoffs; the New Hampshire Wildcats.  The game will be played at New Hampshire at 2PM EST, and will be available to watch on ESPN3 on your computer and possibly ESPN Gameplan Pay-Per-View on your TV.

Let's just put it this way: After looking at the mock brackets from around FCS Nation, mocking it out myself, trying to go over as many possible scenarios that I possibly can - I still have no idea. That doesn't mean, dear Reader, that I won't try, and I won't try to explain to you what I think could happen.  But it's not easy, and you'll see why. Put simply, I feel like this is the most wide-open playoff field ever, for two reasons.

Lehigh's bowl game comes next weekend, of course, as they take on Lafayette in the 152nd meeting of The Rivarly in Easton.  After that bowl game, though, comes the FCS playoffs, and until the FCS Playoff Bracket is announced on Sunday at 11:00 AM after the Lafayette game, we don't know where, or when, Lehigh will play their playoff game. Don't fret, football fans.  LFN is here with a warm cup of chicken noodle soup, a nice grilled cheese sandwich with the crusts cut off, and a schedule, complete with links, involving the most important FCS games on the schedule that will impact Lehigh's postseason schedule the most. Sit back.  Enjoy your soup.  LFN's here to help you for this Saturday.

For us Patriot League diehards, we know what the FCS playoffs are all about.  We know who's in line for the autobid, we know who the No. 1 teams are, and we have a pretty good idea about who can get in, and why. But you, dear Reader, might not be as dialed into the FCS playoff scene as the rest of us.  You know that Lehigh will be practicing on Thanksgiving, and will be playing a football game after the 152nd meeting on the gridiron between Lehigh and Lafayette. In the span of one blog post, let me tell you, new or old Lehigh fan, what you need to look for in regards to the FCS playoffs.

How will you watch Bucknell at Lehigh this afternoon?  What a ridiculous question.  Like me, you're headed to the stadium for a 12:37 kickoff. Wait - really?  You're not going to Murray Goodman today?  Why not?  Unscheduled dental emergency?  Flying in from Buenos Aires?  Need to find out how to catch the game online, by a video stream or online radio? Never fear.  LFN's here.

To many sportswriters who have followed English Premier League soccer in any capacity, the holy grail is promotion and relegation. United States sports leagues, for a wide variety of reasons, do not allow its teams or franchises the ability to get "promoted" to the top flights of their professional leagues.  That's largely to protect the teams at the bottom, which can stink as much as they'd like, but will still share in the profits of the league. In the EPL, however, the teams that finish in the bottom are "relegated" to the "Championship" division, and the teams that finish on top get "promoted" to the EPL. Many sportswriters have tried, and failed, to devise a promotion/relegation system for a variety of pro sports.  But I think where it could best work is in the worlds of FCS and FBS football. Hear me out.

Like many Division I football programs, Lehigh started their preparations for the upcoming Patriot Football season last Thursday . If you had to list the desires of the football team going into the preseason, chief among them is eradicating the memory of last season, whether it was the 3-8 record or especially the final game of last year . But what I think really gets the Lehigh players going, and in fact what gets most players going at FCS schools, is that they get a shot at something truly special. For Lehigh players, it means they can get a shot at taking down a nationally-ranked team, James Madison, in their own house, a shot at returning a Patriot League Championship trophy to Grace Hall, a shot at turning things around against Lafayette, and a shot at winning a national championship against the best schools of their subdivision. It's a time of optimism for all FCS schools, but it's the shot that truly makes it special. And if there's one thing I fear more...

When you think of FCS playoff success in the 2010s, you have to think of the most successful current program playing FCS football over the last four years: North Dakota State. The Bison's three national championships speak for themselves, and if you count their impressive playoff run in 2010 as well, their four-year record in the playoffs is as impressive as Youngstown State's and Appalachian State's runs in the last thirty years. In 2011, the Lehigh football team saw the Thunder Dome (or, if you prefer, the FargoDome) up close, and saw what home advantage can do in the playoffs.   The 24-0 win wasn't the most impressive performance by the Bison ever in the postseason.  However, the hallmarks of the North Dakota State home-field advantage, in the form of false starts and timeouts for the visiting team, were very evident in Lehigh's gameplay that afternoon. Today I'm taking a look at the process of determining seeds and bids to the FCS playoffs, and I fo...

You may remember the genius of Groucho Marx , the bespectacled Marx Brother with the grease-painted eyebrows and mustache.  One of my all-time favorite films, Horse Feathers , featured Groucho, Harpo, and Chico on the football field (actually the Rose Bowl), representing their "school" in a particularly important game. But it's a particular quote of his that seems to summarize Division I football perfectly, at both the FCS and FBS levels. "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." Division I has never truly been a large tent of equal schools.  It was a division that counted as members Texas (whose athletic budget is as large as some small nations), Mississippi Valley State (whose entire athletics budget is about the size of what the University of Texas pays for socks for its athletes) and Marist (who doesn't even spend any money on athletics scholarships for its football athletes). But 2014 was a year of true soul-sea...

(Photo Credit: Lauren Gordon / The JMU Breeze ) You gotta give credit to head coach Jeff McInerney and the Central Connecticut State Blue Devils - they won't back down from anybody. A week after taking on nationally-ranked James Madison in their home opener last weekend, CCSU turns their bus to Bethlehem to visit Murray Goodman Stadium. The Blue Devils, who struggled to a 2-8 season last year, are hoping that the old football adage is true that you improve the most from Game 1 to Game 2. That's how they hope to break up a three-game losing streak dating from last season.

I really thought I'd have been over it by now, but I'm not. Last year's Lehigh football team, who went 10-1, was denied an at-large spot to the FCS playoffs, becoming the first school with 10 Division I wins to be denied the honor since the playoff field expanded from 16 teams. How did this happen? The most common complaint from some Lehigh fans and many other FCS fans was that Lehigh's "schedule strength" in 2012 simply was not cutting it when comparing them to other at-large candidates like New Hampshire, Wofford, or Illinois State. Is it true that Lehigh scheduled themselves out of a playoff game last season - and will this season's Lehigh schedule make it any easier to qualify as an at-large team should the Mountain Hawks be in that position again?