Lehigh Football Nation

I've recently added code to the blog to display a map at the bottom of the page. Can you see it? Are you having problems? I am getting reports of problems from readers out there. Right now the map seems to be working OK in IE6 and Firefox 1.0.4. If you are having issues, please leave a comment and let me know 2 things: 1) what browser you are running 2) what exactly happens when you load the website I'll do my best to fix whatever problems you're having!

Lots of love has been going into this project.. I've added: * Team Icons on the map - now instead of pinpoints, they're the team logos! * Added all the Patriot, Ivy, Atlantic 10, and MAAC Teams. I also added Monmouth of the NEC as that's the next conference I will tackle. That means I will have 10 of Lehigh's 11 opponents in the map already! * When you click a Team Icon, you'll get the full team name, logo and league graphics, where they're located, stadium name, and capacity. * If you switch to "satellite view", and zoom in all the way, you can really see (most) stadiums! It shouldn't be hard to add more teams. Adding more functionality may be difficult, but I'm always looking for more interesting stuff. I encourage you to use it and to give me feedback through the comments section!

When you're writing or blogging about I-AA football in this dead time of year, the temptation is great to start new threads that normally wouldn't see the light of day the rest of the year. For example, starting a lively discussion about the speculation that Fordham is going to jump to the Colonial Athletic Association football conference to help form a 16-team super league. Or perhaps, speculating on Richmond's chances of jumping to I-A competition. Instead, I actually was working on doing something for my site that is fun and useful. Playing with the Google Map API, I designed an interactive map of all the Patriot League schools. There's a marker for all 7 of the football-playing schools in the league. Click on the marker, and you'll get some information on each school and their stadium. You can zoom in and out using the + and - buttons on the map. By clicking and moving your mouse, you can scroll around on the map as well. Here's another cool trick: ...

Another shot of Bergen at camp 

Former Lehigh TE Adam Bergen in Cardinals Camp 

This is some pretty stale news (thanks to the fact that I've been writing a Patriot League Preview piece in the I-AA.org fall preview magazine), but I wanted to announce here that the Mountain Hawk defensive staff has been completed. Most of this is contained in the following press release: Official Release Defensive line coach Gerard Wilcher has been promoted from "secondary coach" to "secondary coach and defensive coordinator". From the press release: “When we hired Gerard as our secondary coach last January, we felt that he possessed the skills to develop into the defensive coordinator's role,” Lembo points out. “Our defensive backfield play exceeded my expectations last year, as we had four all-league performers and gave up very few big plays over the course of the season. Our players respect Coach Wilcher and will be highly motivated to continue to perform at a high level." I agree. CB Neal Boozer-Gallman, CB Andrew Nelson, FS Kaloma Cardwell and ...

I was going to wait for tomorrow to post this, but I got excited about the 2005 season and decided to print my ballot for the Any Given Saturday Top 25. Here it is: 1. James Madison 2. Eastern Washington 3. Furman 4. Northwestern St 5. Western Kentucky 6. Harvard 7. Delaware 8. Georgia Southern 9. Northern Iowa 10. New Hampshire 11. Lafayette 12. Montana 13. Lehigh 14. William & Mary 15. Southern Illinois 16. Cal Poly 17. Montana St 18. Hampton 19. Penn 20. Eastern Kentucky 21. Sam Houston St 22. Alabama St 23. Appalachian St 24. North Dakota St 25. Bucknell There you have it - in its 4 A-10, 3 Patriot League, 2 Ivy League-team glory. I tried to be very fair, including ranking Lafayette in front of Lehigh. OK, I just heard all of Lehigh Football Nation choking in their Monday morning coffee. Look, Lafayette returns basically their entire defense next year, their sophomore QB, and they boast some pretty damn good receivers. And the RB replacing McCourt is also pretty damn good. ...