Lehigh Football Nation

The hurricane that was hyped as the storm to end all storms ultimately wasn't all that, at least at my house. Yes, it was the source of scary moments, especially for my wife and son.  But at least in my part of the state, from my perspective there wasn't much to tell.  On our property, no trees went down.  Our power never went out.  Heck, we never even lost out or demand movies. But there are still many people in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut without power, thanks to the slow-moving tropical storm that seemed to take forever, first passing through the Bahamas and Virginia before gaining strength in the Pennsylvania/Northeast portion of its journey. While the actual storm may not have lived up to its Apocalyptic expectations at our house, the real legacy of Irene in this area comes from the "flooding" that resulting from the gallons of rain that it poured over the entire East Coast. (more)

This weekend, we had some close "friends" and their kids visit our family for some Pennsylvania fun.  It's was a perfect time to have them stay and visit, while school is still out and right before the football season starts, when everything starts to get crazy for us. Their visiting, getting caught up with their lives, and even playing Hearts for the first time in years with them made me think afresh about the meaning of "friendship", a word whose value has clearly been cheapened since the rise of the "social network". And, surprisingly, in the word "friend" there's also a lesson to be learned about college football expansion, too.  While folks go on about revenue, regionality or even interesting football games, sometimes "friendships" are more important. (more)

Few analogies are as overwrought as the consistent characterization of football being a "war".  I do it; Pat Forde does it; everybody does it. But it seems strangely appropriate to use this as my "Sunday Word" this weekend. With Democrats and Republicans making every single tiny appointment and legislative action as an epic struggle between good and evil, anything on the political front these days feels dangerous - whether it means driving the American economy into a ditch, or not. So it goes, too, with all the big issues on the docket in the NCAA this past week. If you thought Congress was the only body that had walkouts, no-shows, financial straitjackets and throwing the least well off under the bus, you should see the "war" happening in the halls of the NCAA. (more)

In effect, this is the final weekend before football season officially begins. Tomorrow, technically, is the first day that Mountain Hawk football players will be reporting to camp, and the 2011 football season ceases to be just a theory. To celebrate the weekend before I self-embark on yet another Lehigh football season, I decided to do something I've never done before. That is "smoke" some beef brisket. (more)

It's been a very strange, "star"-studded offseason for one Lehigh alumna. Whitney Chen , whose tremendous run at becoming the Next Food Network "Star"  fell a tiny bit short last night , had a run through the famous reality show competition that saw her outperform a slew of professional restaurant chefs, writers, caterers, and restauranteurs. And, in a weird sort of way, it eerily seemed to parallel the Lehigh football team's rise through the ranks last year. It's worth telling the entire tale of Ms. Chen's surprise rise to the top of the Food Network reality show hosted by Bobby Flay - and to look back, one last time, at where we left the Lehigh football team at the end of last season. (more)

(Photo Credit: William Bretzger/ The Wilmington News-Journal ) Before the season started, I was hugely skeptical about Delaware QB Pat Devlin . I didn't even have him listed as a top three quarterback in my preseason FCS all-America team. I felt that he had some good statistics last year - playing on a losing football team - but I thought there were better quarterbacks around FCS. Say, Appalachian State QB DeAndre Presley , who is the current signalcaller for the Mountaineers' spread-option attack, or Stephen F. Austin QB Jeremy Moses , who ran the Lumberjacks' pinball, pass-happy offense. But I became quite the believer in the frigid Delaware press box this Saturday. "Devlin" is an appropriate season-ending "Word" for Lehigh for two reasons - reasons that you'll have to see below the flip. (more)

Thanksgiving is a time of family and reflection for most people.  It's also a time for lots and lots of football: of the NFL sort, of course, but also many high-school rivalries, particularly in the Northeast, take place on Thanksgiving day.  (One of those, Easton/Phillipsburg , is in our neck of the woods and have faced off against each other 104 times.) For Lehigh football fans - who also spent this weekend enjoying their first postseason football victory since a home victory over Hofstra in 2001 - it was a time to do something on Thanksgiving that they haven't had to do in a long time - that is, enjoy their football season that is still in progress, and subsequently look forward to surviving another week in the playoffs. Lehigh's got the Patriot League Championship. They got the ticket to the playoffs.  They already shocked the world. What enjoyable surprises are left? Maybe some "gravy"? (more)

So how do you come up with a "Word" that includes the 146th version of "The Rivalry", the state of Lehigh's football program, and an upcoming trip to Cedar Falls, Iowa for the football team - their second trip to the Hawkeye state this year? If you're me, you choose a word that - on the surface, anyway - has nothing to do with football at all. Look into it further, though, and trust me, it will make complete sense. Don't worry, Flyers fans, we won't be talking about Red Wings or (shudder) Blackhawks today. We'll be sticking with football - and how this Lehigh team, and their defensive-minded group, will be travelling to the heart of America to play the champion of the conference that could be considered FCS College Football's "Norris Division". (more)

You'd think on this weekend - one of rings, championships, a restoration of the natural order that all Lehigh fans aspire the Patriot League to be, a huge winning streak - that I'd come up with a different "Sunday Word" this weekend.  "How about 'Glorious'", I hear fictional fans tell me?  "Or 'Rings', something the football team clearly had on their minds going into the game?  (Radio Man Matt Markus reported that one unidentified Mountain Hawk was heckling the Hoyas by pointing at his ring finger during the game.) Strangely, I really struggled to find the right word. Yes, there was a lot of 'glory'. Yes, the 24-7 win over Georgetown does guarantee that this team will get the 'rings' they so desperately wanted. Yes, 'playoffs' would also be a legitimate "Word", too, since now the Mountain Hawks will be playoff-bound for the first time since 2004. And yet - and yet - the regular season is not over...

(Graphic Credit: CollegExperience.Net) It was a fantastic weekend for Lehigh all around, for the players, coaches, fans, and even their "fearless cheerleader", as I was called on the Lehigh Sports Forum this weekend . The 7-2 record looks great. The 3-0 conference record looks even better. The offense is putting up points, the defense shutting down Patriot League opponents. Confidence is there. Parts of the game that had been trouble spots in September are now becoming assets. Things are looking pretty good. But junior QB Chris Lum had a quote in the postgame this weekend that is crucial for Lehigh to remember this coming weekend. Simply, that Lehigh needed to stay "hungry". They absolutely do. (more)

Back in March, when the thoughts of most Lehigh students involved either spending even more time in the library or the NCAA tournament, this years' Lehigh football players, far away from the fall spotlight, chose the theme of their upcoming season. The theme was "212 degrees". "That's the 'boiling' point of water," head coach Andy Coen told Keith Groller of The Morning Call at that time . "The thought is that you want to heat up and when you get to 212 degrees, you boil and you can do some special things. I think they picked up a good theme because we have been close the last couple of years. We have been playing at 210, 211 degrees in a lot of games. This year we need to get to 212." That quote leaped back into my mind after watching a football game where the frustrations of the college careers of a lot of Lehigh players finally seemed to hit 212 degrees. By any objective measure, Lehigh "boiled" this weekend. (more) ...

(Photo Credit: L.A. Times) It seems destined that this weekend's "Sunday Word" would have both a Colgate and a Bay Area tilt.  "Hate" would have to be a close second, considering that  it's going to be "Hate the 'Gate" week once again, but with the Giants besting the Phillies in one of the most excruciating MLB playoff games in history, there's another commonality between the Bay Area Bozos (my nickname for the San Francisco Giants - do I sound bitter?  Really?)  and the word I chose for this Sunday's "Word". Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis has had a slogan that has defined his team for several generations: "Just Win, Baby", an expression that has been softened from its original implications of winning dirty to drilling down the game of football to what's important - it's not the number of first downs you win, passing yards you get, or penalties you suffer, as long as you end up the winner of the scoreboa...

So this morning, my wife and I were taking our son and a couple other children to a birthday party.  The parents dropped their kids off at our house, and left us to pack all the kids in our car. Once inside, I put the key in the ignition and turned. The tiny bit of charge in the battery flickered, and died. It was a seven year old battery, and an attempt to jump the car was unsuccessful. The battery was just old. It needed to be replaced. We unpacked everyone from the dead car, hurriedly packed them into my commuting car, and got to the birthday party late. What I didn't realize was that I would have a tale today that would tail in perfectly with what the Lehigh football team did this Saturday. (more)

So many possibilites for "words" this weekend.  A weekend where the Phillies are poised to sweep the Reds in the NLDS.  A day where the date is 10/10/10, a quirk of the calendar that won't recur until November 11th of next year.  Even the Eagles are in play, after not looking half bad in the beginning of their game against the 49ers. But an intriguing nickname - and a monster performance - leads me to the movie franchise, headlined by the "Gubernator", Arnold Schwarzenneger, and more recently by Christian Bale , as this Sunday's Word. Early in the year, junior LB Mike Groome looked like he would have to bide his time to get serious playing time, sitting behind senior LB Troy Taylor on the depth chart. But once Taylor pulled up injured before the Drake game, the player his friends and family call the "Groominator" stepped into the starting role and made sure that the Lehigh defense didn't miss a beat next to senior LB Al Pierce in the mi...

It was a tough call as to what this weekend's "Sunday Word" would be. With Colgate's emphatic win over Georgetown and Holy Cross' thrilling win over Fordham, the word "order" was a strong candidate. With Harvard slamming Lafayette and Cornell defeating Bucknell, perhaps "Ivy" would have been appropriate. But at this moment of time - when it seems like there are earthquakes or aftershocks rocking the college football world every couple of weeks - it's not a weekend to simply discuss the issues that face the Patriot League. It seems like the entire reality of college football is "fragile". It's been an unwritten rule in years' past that talk of conference realignments, schools moving up from Division II to Division I or from FCS to FBS, or even puff pieces about not having football wouldn't see the light of day during the regular season - mostly because the emphasis of coverage was (and should be) on the exploit...

If you've been around a while, you probably know what they say about "assuming". But any "assumption" you made about the Patriot League back in August has probably, by the end of this month, be proven untrue. It was emphatically brought home this weekend with "Assumption" college, who - it was "assumed" by most - would be a homecoming opponent that would be cannon fodder for big, bad Fordham. Now armed with football scholarships, a really good transfer QB to step into the shoes of QB John Skelton , and just a fresh new attitude that nothing could stop this Ram football team.  Right? If you "assumed" that "Assumption" - a Division II school from the Northeast-10 conference - would roll over in front of Fordham, you'd have been made to look like a donkey after the Greyhounds' 30-24 victory . But take heart, folks who picked the Rams. There have been plenty of moments where anybody - and I mean anybody , ...

In the NFL's strike-shortened 1982 season, the Washington Redskins had a major setback in their quest for the Super Bowl title: hall of fame wide receiver WR Art Monk was injured, and would miss their run in the playoffs. His teammates, receivers  WR Virgil Seay , WR Charlie Brown and WR Alvin Garrett , along with  TE Rick Walker and TE Don Warren , wanted to have a tribute to Monk if they scored a touchdown in the playoffs.  In a game against the Detroit Lions which the Redskins would win 31-7, this "Fun" Bunch performed a choreographed high-five in the end zone after their score.  Fans and media would enthusiastically approve - even if the NFL didn't, and would make their infamous ban on "excessive" end zone celebrations in 1984 - and the "Fun" Bunch was born. Today, there are plenty of rules discouraging "excessive" celebrations after touchdowns, even at the college level.  But the chest-bump of senior PR/CB Jarard "Main Ma...

Before I get to the serious, serious business of this Sunday's "Word", I just have to pat myself on the back a little.  I never dreamed that I could possibly link together football, Lehigh, the Patriot League and the end of fashion week all in one "Word", but it appears that I was successful. The sound of me cheering my own cleverness, however, is about the only sound you'll be hearing from fans at Lehigh, Colgate, Holy Cross and Lafayette this Sunday - the four teams picked to be Patriot League title contenders by almost everyone but the most rabid of Bucknell and Georgetown fans. The dismal performance by the Mountain Hawks, Crusaders, Leopards and Raiders shows so clearly a new expanse between the top teams of the Football Championship Subdivision and the Patriot League this year.  A "gap".   (more)

On June 4th, 2010. my wife and I were nerve-wrackingly watching the Flyers play the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup.  Uncle Tony, who was born and raised in Philly, was text messaging us back and forth furiously from his home south of the Mason/Dixon line. Up 4-1, I thought the Flyers were in terrific shape.   They had manhandled the Blackhawks all game, and had a three goal lead.  At home in the Wachovia center.  "They're definitely going to win now," I told my wife, who had followed the Broad Street Bullies in their Stanley Cups of the 1970s, thinking - foolishly - that it would make her smile. Instead, she looked at me as if I had told her I had gone bankrupt. "DON'T SAY THAT!," she said, as if my uttering those words would create an epic meltdown. She and Uncle Tony had a field day with that, as the Blackhawks got two quick goals late in the game to make the game 4-3.  "Can they do anything easy?" Uncle Tony messaged.  "He doesn't...

Six days from today, Lehigh will be in Des Moines, Iowa ushering in the Lum era. It still seems strange to write it - no offense meant, junior QB Chris Lum .  But there's no time to sit and reflect about the past: what was a quarterback battle in preseason camp between Lum, QB J.B. Clark and sophomore QB Michael Colvin .  It's done - and make no mistake, Lum earned his shot the right way.  He worked hard in the offseason, and basically out-worked his competition. Lum took his "lumps", worked through a fierce competition, and earned his place atop the depth chart. (more)