Lehigh Football Nation

By now you've seen the results.  In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago .  Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth.  Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled.  Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season.  The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League....

I know it's not the most mature of responses, but I weeded yesterday. Our garden, so clean and so perfect back in May, was in mid-September form when I went out there Sunday after Lehigh's loss to Yale.  In this case, mid-September form means the grass and weeds were as high as my thighs, and it was time for me to rip them out. I'm well aware that I love Lehigh football too much; that it overly affects my mood, sometimes lingering for days or even weeks after particularly bad losses.  That love allows me to summon a passion for the game that sets me apart from others, I think, but the flipside of that love is a frustration that can sometimes only be vented by pulling up grasses and wild growth from a garden that has been growing there unchecked for months. Yeah; I was frustrated with the loss.  But in the garden, I don't sit there and assign blame to anybody.  I don't grumble about kids, players, attendance numbers, coaches, the weather, the athletic departm...

Stop me if you've read this before. "Lehigh gives up a couple of early touchdowns.  The Mountain Hawks rally, but mistakes doom them - they turn over the ball on offense, give up some big plays on defense, and special teams miscues make it harder to come back, and they get blown away in the second half." It describes the Villanova game, it describes the Monmouth game, and now, unfortunately, it also now describes the Yale game this weekend. On Saturday, the Mountain Hawks gave up a couple of early touchdowns.  Undeterred, Lehigh would get a couple stops and take advantage of good special teams play, and rally to make it a one point game.  Then, a pass interference call would resurrect a Yale touchdown drive, then a Yale sack and fumble recovery would set up another Yale score at the end of the half for a 28-13 edge at halftime. At the beginning of the second half, Lehigh would score a quick-strike touchdown, but would give up a touchdown in response, getting out...

In front of about 5,000 fans, Lehigh fell into a too familiar game script. After falling behind by two touchdowns, Lehigh clawed to get back into the game but ultimately gave up touchdown after touchdown, falling 56-28 in what felt like a role reversal from the Mountain Hawks' big win against the Elis in the Yale Bowl last season. The Bulldogs racked up 566 yards against the Mountain Hawks, 258 on the ground, and 308 through the air.   QB Kurt Rawlings threw for 4 touchdowns, 2 which went to WR Melvin Rouse en route to a 4 catch, 84 yard day. Yale RB Zach Dudek had a monster day against Lehigh, running 9 times for 135 yards and 2 TDs, including an absolute backbreaker, a 29 yard run with 8 minutes left in the 4th quarter. Lehigh's offense ended with 375 yards, but were stopped in key situations and frequently were stuck in 3rd-and-long.   Senior WR Gatlin Casey had 4 receptions, 2 for touchdowns, but couldn't hang on to a critical 4th down catch that might hav...

Not going to the game today? First of all, what's wrong with you?  The weather is perfect! OK.  So your Vespa is in the shop, it's the Karate Kid semifinals, or some other very good reason has arisen where you can't make it to Murray Goodman for the game. Never fear.  LFN's here.

We break down the Yale game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. This week, College Sports Journal picked their order of finish of the Ivy League and the Elis were picked to finish 5th , in contrast to the preseason Ivy League media poll, where they were picked fourth . "Exhale, Elis, you did it," it said.  "For only the second time in a decade, Yale finally beat their most bitter Rival in The Game, 21-14, giving head coach Tony Reno something pleasant to bring into the offseason for a change.  That win, however, somewhat masks a maddeningly inconsistent 2016, where Yale went 3-7, gave up more than 40 points on defense four times, and somehow managed to lose to Cornell 27-13 at Schoellkopf Field.  The win in The Game will provide hope in New Haven and a good feeling in the offseason, but will it translate into a winning season and an Ivy League title run?"

“The past is the past and we aren’t concerned with it. We have learned from our mistakes, and we are ready to move on.” That comes from junior RB Micco Brisker , who was quoted two years ago after the Mountain Hawks came back from a trip to Princeton where Lehigh fought hard, but fell, to the Tigers 52-26. The similarities between that week and this week are something that I cannot shake. Like this week, Lehigh came back home that season to face off against Yale after a tough, physical loss.  Like this week, the Mountain Hawks were coming off a school record being set by  senior WR Troy Pelletier  in a losing effort.  Like this week, Yale started  RB Deshawn Salter , a mild surprise after the expected starter went down to injury.  And like this week, Lehigh came back home after a loss looking to right the ship. In 2015, Lehigh lost the game. In 2015, Brisker and LB Colton Caslow talked a good game about being prepared for that week, fixing mist...

The 2016 Yale Bulldogs might have experienced the biggest swings of any other school in college football. They experienced the low of getting destroyed at home against Lehigh, giving up an amazing 63 points to the Mountain Hawks led that day by QB Brad Mayes in a 28 point defeat. And they were dominated by some of their bigger rivals in Ivy League play, losing 42-7 to Penn and 31-3 to Princeton. Yet of their three wins, they pulled off two enormous upsets - beating Ivy League title contender Dartmouth at home, 21-13, and finally breaking Harvard's nine year hex against them in "The Game", scoring a touchdown with 4 minutes left to secure a tremendous 21-14 win over their bitter Crimson Rivals. The Ivy League starts play on September 16th, where Lehigh will find Yale travelling to Murray Goodman Stadium in the Bulldogs first game of the year. The Mountain Hawks will be playing their third game of the season, and Mayes will be going against the team which he ha...

The timing between college football games I attended at the Yale Bowl was a shade under thirty-nine years. How were both games similar? Well, in both games Yale lost.  Also, both games were played at the Yale Bowl.  In addition, there were fans at both games wanting to have a great college football experience. That's where the similarities end. Many thoughts went through my head during the game this weekend, an incredibly encouraging one for Lehigh as they are surging, on a three game winning streak going into league play after scoring a grand total of 154 points in the last three games, or, if you're scoring at home, an average of over 51 points per game. But not all the thoughts were ones about Lehigh, or Yale, or the game at hand.  Many of the thoughts I had, after staring out at the 2,196 souls that came out on an overcast, but perfectly adequate weather day to watch an extremely entertaining game, involved the fans that did not show up at one of the iconi...

(Photos and Graphic courtesy of Lehigh Athletics) Suppose you put in a copy of NCAA Football '14 into your dusty Playstation 3.  You create a team, "Lehigh", and put in the entire Lehigh roster, and make them 99s across the board. You pick a team to play against - say, Yale - and you pick a place to play, of course, the Yale Bowl.  You put it on the medium setting. Would these stat lines seem out of place if you played that game on that system? Sophomore QB Brad Mayes - 33 of 46 passing, 524 yards, 6 touchdowns, 0 interceptions. Junior WR Troy Pelletier - 13 catches, 213 yards, 3 TDs. Junior WR Gatlin Casey - 6 catches, 169 yards 2 TDs. They look like something out of a video game - yet those are the real stats to come out of the Yale Bowl this weekend in an extraordinary, awesome, ridiculousness of an offensive performance.  These numbers weren't the only great numbers to come out of this record-setting game out of the Yale Bowl, but they stick out...

We break down the Yale game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. Before we get to all the nuts and bolts of the breakdown, Yale's game notes and mascots, though, it's worth highlighting a great piece by Lehigh athletics on senior OL Brandon Short that was just r eleased earlier today by Lehighsports.com . "Regardless, Short's approach to every practice, every game and every opportunity to improve is the same, whether this is his last season or he returns in 2017," the article reads.  "That extra sense of urgency, which seniors often say they feel, has been there for Short ever since returning from a season-ending injury he sustained early in the 2014 season [at Yale]. "'That experience really brought things into perspective,' he said. "We always hear coaches say play every play like it's your last. I started three games as a sophomore, which got taken away in the matter of two plays. It really opened my e...

Maybe it was the choice of senior OL Brandon Short as one of the student-athletes interviewed this Wednesday, or maybe it was the mention from junior DE Harrison Johnson  that this game could be your last. This Lehigh football team clearly remembers September 21st, 2014, the last time the Mountain Hawks went to the Yale Bowl. It is true that it wasn't the last time the Mountain Hawks played Yale.  There's last year, too, that 27-12 dud that Lehigh put up against the Bulldogs, too. But the loss last year to Yale at Murray Goodman isn't the reason why senior QB Nick Shafnisky is calling this another "motivational game".  It's more about the 2014 game, and the lost season for Brandon Short.

For one reason or another, I hadn't been back. Since my undergraduate years, I hadn't gone to see Lehigh play Yale at the Yale Bowl.  It was either too long a trip as an undergraduate to catch the Engineers, a trip to Disney with the family interfered, or maybe I was just saving up my energy for a big conference game the following week. No matter what it really was, it really was a bucket of excuses, with the ultimate result being I hadn't gone back, even though Lehigh had played there so often. It feels almost criminal, even though I have driven past the stadium many times. This weekend, for the first time since a beautiful night for football in October of 1977, I will be heading back to the iconic Yale Bowl. And in contemplating this trip, a flood of memories returned from my first trip there - my first-ever college football game, and thus the very first inspiration for what I would end up doing the rest of my life.

Today's "Know Your 2016 Opponents" series continues with the team that is predicted by College Sports Journal to finish 3th in the Ivy League : Yale. Although it would have been a great narrative coup if Hilary Clinton and Bill Clinton met at the classic 14-12 upset of the Bulldogs by Harvard in 1970 at wind-swept Cambridge, they instead, the world learned this week, met in the spring of 1971 at the law school library. One of the curious things about the Clintons is their lack of association with the "Yale-Harvard Football Game", as it's now known, even though Bill Clinton is a self-admitted sports nut, able to recall times when he congratulated winning teams that visited him in the White House, or times as President or at the Clinton Foundation reminiscing about Montana Grizzlies football.

As we hit the 92 day mark before the 2016 Lehigh football season officially starts, it's time to take a look at the overall schedule - and opponents - the Mountain Hawks will be facing. Every Lehigh football fan knows that their Rival of Rivals, Lafayette, is only 18 miles away from Bethlehem. What fans may not know is that, by drawing a circle around Lehigh on Google Maps, you can surround seven of the Mountain Hawks eleven 2016 opponents.  (The site NCAA Savant has an interactive, zoomable map that shows the schools quite clearly.) The only FCS programs within the circle that Lehigh doesn't play are Delaware, Wagner, and Columbia. Lehigh will be hosting Monmouth, Bucknell, Fordham, and Princeton, all of whose fan bases are within two and a half hour's drive, and will have "road trips" to Penn, Villanova, and Lafayette, which couldn't be easier for Lehigh football fans. However, if you wanted to earn frequent flyer miles supporting Lehigh footba...

Did you think you would get off easy on watching college football simply because it's Lehigh's bye week? First of all, it gives you time to catch up on watching ESPN's College Football Gameday, where you can see the Lehigh flag that frequently makes an appearance on the program.  (Who knows?  Perhaps Gameday will head to Lehigh for the Fordham game next weekend, or maybe perhaps #Rivalry151 in November.) There's also so good opportunities to scout out Lehigh's upcoming opponents in Patriot League action.  Three Patriot League games are taking place at lunchtime, and another is happening at 3:30 PM. If you receive the CBS Sports Network, you can see whether Bucknell will make it a perfect Patriot League sweep over Army-West Point in the 2015 football season.  The Bison face off against the Cadets at noon, and if you don't have it available on TV, it can be seen via subscription from Army's website .  In much of the Lehigh metro area, too, the game c...

It was a game that was pretty much the opposite of what Lehigh football fans would have wanted from homecoming. People want games in Murray Goodman Stadium that are sunny and 70 degrees, with perhaps just a hint of wind.  Instead, despite the fact that a threatened hurricane never arrived, temperatures dipped into the 50s to go with some cold, gusty winds, which caused not a few people to get runny noses. Homecoming is supposed to be a happy time, but the dark, overcast skies didn't make the game feel like a warm, welcoming place.  Though the Marching 97 tried their best, as did the Alumni band, the dreariness hung over the stadium like an unwelcome guest. Home fans always want a win on homecoming, hopefully with exciting, crisp, vibrant execution from the guys in the brown jerseys, but again, that too would end up being the opposite of what Lehigh fans were hoping for on this afternoon. Yale would turn over the ball three times, be penalized 11 times for 94 yards, a...

If you're not able to catch the Yale game in person - really?  You can't? -  you can stream the game here from the Patriot League Digital Network.  It's a 12:30 start and will be the same broadcast that's available over the air on SE2 in the Lehigh Valley, with Mike Zambelli and Mike Yadush on the call. Patriot League Digital Network If you're in the car and you have a phone, don't tear through your data plan - listen to  Matt Kerr and  Tom Fallon on the call, with Matt Markus  reporting the pregame and sideline.  It's a simulcast of what's local in the Lehigh Valley on AM 1230 and AM 1320: http://www.espnlv.com/ Last night saw three games of interest to Lehigh fans: Princeton remained undefeated by outlasting Columbia in a Nor'Easter, 10-5, Colgate nearly blew a 14 point lead but held on to beat Cornell 28-21, and Georgetown got trounced by Harvard 45-0. Played at the same time today as Lehigh/Yale is Albany/Holy Cross (1:00 PM), whi...

We break down the Yale game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. All week everyone's been tracking the progress of a potential superstorm, hurricane Joaquin.  While the main concern, of course, is the safety of everyone in the hurricane's path, people are also wondering whether the storm will be affecting the game this weekend in the form of wind or rains. It turns out, if the tracking goes the way the majority models are indicating, that Lehigh's 12:30 game at Murray Goodman might not only escape the rain, but there might not be any showers to speak of. In the latest hour by hour at Weather.com , the forecast actually only has modest showers in the morning, ending by 11:00 AM (just in time for tailgating), and remaining partly cloudy all the way until 4:00 PM on Saturday, an absolute perfect window for the football game and Goodman stadium homecoming activities. In short, it's increasingly looking like the storm will either move very slo...

“The past is the past and we aren’t concerned with it. We have learned from our mistakes, and we are ready to move on.” That was freshman RB Micco Brisker , who told this to The Brown and White this week in regards to last week's game versus Princeton. It's a good attitude to have going into this weekend's game versus Yale. It would be easy to complain about injuries, or the officials, or unlucky bounces of the football last week.  But to this team's credit, that wasn't what the discussion points were about in the weekday media sessions.  It was about owning those mistakes, and moving on. “We need to cut out mental mistakes like penalties and missed assignments on the field, as well as win the turnover margin by forcing more turnovers defensively and preventing them from happening offensively,” said junior LB Colton Caslow this week. This weekend Lehigh will be looking to move on, actually, from two different games, one from last weekend, where ...