Lehigh Football Nation

Yep, that's right, Lehigh officially kicked off their spring football practice yesterday. Looking at the press release on LehighSports.com, it covers the official line on who will be featured next year on offense and defense. It's in these coming weeks where the 2006 Mountain Hawks will start to take shape. After reading the release and pouring over the spring prospectus, here are the things to watch in Spring Practice over the next 3 weeks: Replacing Adam Bergen . Anytime you lose a special player (and probable second-day NFL draftee) like TE Adam Bergen, there are huge shoes to fill. Battling for the starting TE position in 2005 are juniors Landon Maggs and Pete Morelli. Morelli was banged up for large portions of last year, while Maggs saw action as the second TE and also caught some passes. It's my impression that Maggs is more of a big blocker, while Morelli is more of a pass-catching type. It will be interesting to see who the starter will end up being - I ...

You heard it here first that Higgins was interviewing there, and now it's official - former Lehigh head coach Kevin Higgins will be taking over the head coaching duties at the Citadel. First of all, congratulations on Kevin Higgins getting this great opportunity at the Citadel to bring their football program back up to the standards of Furman, Georgia Southern, Appalachian St., and Wofford. I have little doubt that the Citadel will have exactly zero regrets about this hiring down the road. There will be a lot of folks up at South Mountain, too, who will be following with interest and rooting for that football program to succeed. To Citadel fans, you have got a great coach - one who had a transformative effect on the Lehigh program. Here's hoping that he can do the same for the Citadel as well. For Lehigh, this couldn't be a better opportunity for the Engineers (or other Patriot League schools) to schedule some games with a member of the SoCon. Here's hoping that i...

Former Lehigh head coach coach Kevin Higgins, recently let go by the Detroit Lions as quarterbacks coach, is reportedly being interviewed for another I-AA head coaching position at the Citadel. CSTV has the whole scoop here: Robinson to interview 4 in Charlotte Citadel athletic director Les Robinson will not just be watching basketball at the NCAA Tournament in Charlotte this weekend. Robinson said Friday that he will interview up to four candidates for the job of the Bulldogs' head football coach while he's in Charlotte. He declined to name those candidates, but two of them could be Rice offensive coordinator Scott Wachenheim and former Lehigh head coach Kevin Higgins, according to sources at The Citadel. Neither coach could be reached for comment Friday. ... Higgins, 49, had a 56-25-1 record in seven seasons as head coach at Lehigh from 1994-2000, including teams that won or shared four Patriot League titles. His last three teams at Lehigh posted records of 12...

Although Wisconsin had to rally to beat Bucknell on Sunday, and St. Joe's was battling with Holy Cross to the very end on Monday, there are no shortage of smiles coming from athletic directors all around the Patriot League. In the span of a week, the Patriot League went from "Why are these guys in the tournament?" to "Why shouldn't there have been 2 Patriot League teams in the NCAA tournament?" What a turn of events! Congratulations to Bucknell and Hoy Cross, who may just have ushered in a new era of Patriot League basketball! Permit me to go on about basketball for another moment longer.. What will happen because of this?Bucknell will without a doubt be in a "Bracket Buster" game on ESPN during the regular season... guaranteed. Next year will feature 5 teams (Holy Cross, Bucknell, American, Lehigh, Colgate) who all have a chance to compete for the PL title -- with 3 teams returning 5 starters, in Lehigh, Bucknell, and Holy Cross. I'm esp...

Late Friday night I saw what I've been waiting for 20 years to see - a Patriot League basketball team advancing to the second round! Finally! Of course I wish it was Lehigh, but I'm very happy to see the Bison have the privilege of playing Wisconsin in the next round! If you log onto the Sportsline homepage , you can get the main highights of the game (for the time being anyway). Not only will you see highlights of the best Patriot League basketball win ever, you'll also get to hear a borrowed band playing..... Lehigh's fight song! According to the AP story , many of the members of Bucknell's band were unavailable to come to the game, so Northern Iowa's band filled in. Obviously as some sort of practical joke, an alert member of the Marching 97 must have faxed the band the familiar bars of Lehigh's "Touchdown Song". Great job! That's not the only Patriot League basketball team to be making some noise. Holy Cross has already upset heavily...

Yep. It's dead now. From the Morning Call , Lehigh folks were cautiously optimistic, but also realistic about the chances, but now it's officially dead. The AP and Richmond Times-Dispatch have called it. All 12 A-10 institutions will now be called the CAA in 2007. For the stability of I-AA, this is probably a good thing. For the stability of autobids during the playoffs, this also will be a good thing. For keeping Fordham in the Patriot League fold, this is an outstanding thing. However, the Patriot League seemed to miss out on an opportunity to grow the league with a very good small private institition, even if it seemed like an afterthought by an indecisive Richmond school. Time will tell if Richmond and Villanova will come courting the Patriot in the future. In the meantime, Eastern I-AA football seems to (for the near future, anyway) be stable for the time being.

A lot of words have been spilled about this over the past 24 hours, with upset Richmond players, fans, and alumni (if you beleive the Richmond boards) having mobilized thousands of signatures to talk to the trustees on whether Richmond should join the Patriot instead of the CAA in 2007. Updating the press, the following showed up in the Richmond Times-Dispatch today: Move won't pay? In the article are half-truths about the Patriot League and Richmond's eligibility in the Patriot that should be debunked here: If UR chooses to join the Patriot League in 2007, the Spiders would find themselves in an uncomfortable state of flux for several seasons. Richmond would remain an A-10 member in 2005 and 2006 with teams that could be affected in many ways by the change of the school's football philosophy. Misleading. Many PL schools issue grant-in-aid which has the effect of being like scholarships. This implication that Richmond will all of a sudden have Siena-like recruiting classe...