Lehigh Football Nation

No, really. The subject of this blog posting is dizziness . Could it be from the 24-hour stomach flu that caused me to sleep about 17 hours of a 24 hour day yesterday? For sure. Could it be the final push to help get the College Sporting News magazine out the door? Definitely. Could it be the amount of references to "Lehigh Nation" in the latest Alumni Bulletin? Definite maybe. Could it be the amount of brand-new features available in the run-up to September 8th, when Lehigh takes on Villanova? Most definitely. Could it be the new poll I need to make for "Goodman's 20th", and the shirt design out in time for September 8th? And the breakdown of position battles for preseason camp? Dizziness. The Alumni Bulletin does seem like the logical place to start. Lest you think I sit around and simply count the references to "Lehigh Nation" in the magazine every month (note: two of which were mentioned in President Alice Gast's "From the P...

Three really quick hits: first of all (and I hope this is a regular thing) Lehighsports.com posted today a report on their first preseason practice . “I’m very pleased with the excitement of our guys and the effort they have put forth up to this point,” second year head coach Andy Coen said afterwards. “With so much information given to the freshmen at once, I think they have picked it up well. I’m excited about this freshmen class and what lies ahead for them.” Yeah, I know, it's not a lot of meat. But throw a starving man a bone... it gets you thinking. "He's excited about the freshman class.. who could be pushing for starting nods? Who's going to be that backup left guard? How many hours until 1PM on September 8th?" It's probably the superfan in me more than anything else. Still, I realy hope they will keep this up. Second of all, a word on polls. It looks like the winner of the T-Shirt poll was "Westbrook Can't Help You Now", which I have to...

Most of the time, we think of the fall as a "time of renewal". For Lehigh, as we finally kick off preseason camp for the Mountain Hawks it looks like (to go along with less-than-seasonal cool weather) this year, it's coming a month early. Start with the news we've been waiting for since late November: the Philadelphia Eagles are graciously breaking camp at Lehigh and 2007 Mountain Hawks have finally started spring practice . Look for an analysis a little later this week about positional battles, but you'll see from the mash-up of the press reports that coach Coen couldn't be more excited about getting started again for the 2007 season. Also of note: coach Coen said the following: “We have lots of jobs open as we enter into it and I think that will make for a great deal of competition.” This could mean it will be an interesting preseason to see what happens. We may even see some freshmen move into important roles - we'll see. The other "renewal...

Who the heck are these guys? Well, the short answer is that they're members of the Wofford Terriers out of the Southern Conference, and a more complete answer is that Wofford could be the best team you've never heard of right now. On College Sporting News I mention three of these member on my All-Anonymous team , which includes the son of Lafayette head coach Frank Tavani (senior SS Dan Tavani). The idea was to point out some players that didn't make the pre-season all-American teams but could very well be names you hear about by the end of 2007. You may recognize some Patriot League names on this team as well: senior T Jesse Padilla from the Leopards, and senior FB Josh DeStefano from Bucknell. Oh yeah, there's also a kid you may recognize whose last name rhymes with... Treat? Feat? Also appearing on College Sporting News is a quick post on this year's Summer of Woe . It attempts to deal with many of the problems that have faced FCS schools this past offsea...

Think you'd get this at Ohio State? In a busy week for Lehigh athletics, yesterday marked a first: a season ticket pickup event where holders could chat with coach Coen, assistant coaches, and the captains of the 2007 squad: senior QB Sedale Threatt, senior DB Ernest Moore, senior C John Reese , and senior DB Brannan Thomas . It took place at the Lehigh Athletics Hall of Fame (at Taylor Gymnasium in the middle of campus) and sounded like a fun event - I'd love for stuff like this to be an annual thing which emphasizes the personal and familial nature of Lehigh football. What better way to get folks excited than to talk to the players and coaches? (You can still buy season tickets if you click here .) In other big news, our men's basketball coach Billy Taylor was hired away by Ball State this week, leaving the Lehigh basketball program in (what seemed to me) some disarray. The Morning Call report made it sound like Lehigh was somewhat caught flat-footed by the departure, w...

During the football season I frequently do a mash-up of the press releases regarding Lehigh's games and give my own commentary. At this time of year in the Lehigh Valley, though, sometimes the coverage gets lost in the spectacle of Musikfest and the day-to-day goings on at Eagles Training Camp at Lehigh . (Both of which are free admission, by the way - my wife, son and I went to both on Sunday and had a fantastic time.) As I wait for the full text of Sedale's media day speech to become available somewhere, I offer a mash-up of the media day events and the big league news that came out of there. One of the issues I have was that too many local papers didn't even have a proper write up of the event. (The Utica Observer-Dispatch has to take the cake for the smallest-ever press release on the event - and that's more than New York City, Washington, DC, the Worcester Telegram-Gazette, and Daily Item, Bucknell's local paper, had!) It's a real shame - and they ac...

On Wednesday, as a part of my new job as preview columnist of the College Sporting News , I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Patriot League Media Day and interview players, coaches, and the commissioner of the Patriot League, Ms. Carolyn Schlie Femovich. My full report on the goings-on at Media Day were detailed on College Sporting News, including this exclusive interview with the commissioner about all the topics surrounding the future of the league. In attendance from Lehigh were head coach Andy Coen, senior QB Sedale Threatt and senior FS Ernest Moore . I took time to sit down with Ernest and talk to him a little about the upcoming season. CB: Last time I saw you play was in the spring, when you delivered that big hit... Fans in the stands heard that loud crushing sound of pads! EM: I wouldn't say it was a monster hit, but I appreciate you saying that. I try to do what I can do. CB: As captain, you're the true leader of this defense now. What have you done in t...