Lehigh Football Nation

The Lehigh athletic department just released a spring update , and it's quite an interesting read. Four practices to go, with the annual Brown/White scrimmage taking place on April 18th at Goodman Stadium (free admission) - and interesting information has come to light: Call it the revenge of the "super Sophomores", as there were a multitude of members of the sophomore class that were singled out: Coen says he’s been pleased with the progress of that group overall. “ Sophomore RB Matt Fitz has been impressive; he’s competed well and really improved from last year. Sophomore WR De’Vaughn Gordon and sophomore WR Jake Drwal have done some nice things, and on defense sophomore LB Fred Mihal at linebacker and sophomore CB Colin Newton have both had very strong springs. They have shown good signs of progress from when the season ended in November.” Coen also pointed to sophomore P Alex Smith who has put together a consistent spring. The emergence of Fitz at running ba...

Never one to refrain from crowing about Lehigh's successes over "that school in Easton", the Rivalry has gone into brand-new territory: engineering research. The David Freed Undergraduate Research symposium, which took place on April 1st in Packard Lab (making it a "home game"), billed itself as an extension of the Lehigh/Lafayette rivalry in their write-up on the Lehigh website . The Lehigh and Lafayette football teams have played each other 144 times since 1884, more than any other two college football teams in America. On Wednesday, April 1, top undergraduate engineering researchers from the two schools faced off for the first time in Lehigh’s Packard Laboratory. The occasion was the annual David and Lorraine Freed Undergraduate Research Symposium, which is endowed by Andrew D. Freed ’83 in honor of his parents. Freed, a member of the RCEAS advisory board, is president and CEO of Medical Device Investment Holdings Corp. in Malvern, Pa. The research symposium ...

This time of year for me, blog-wise, is more of a "Spring Cleaning" than anything: it's the time when I think about a blog redesign (simplify, simplify, simplify), when I dress up my LFN Twitter page , when I try to figure how LFN looks on an iPhone, whein I clean up my LFN page on Facebook (and uploading all those videos and photos I've been meaning to upload to Facebook since, oh, December of last year) and basically do all the things that I've been meaning to do, but haven't. But spring football season is also in full swing, and recently two reports were filed on the goings-on at practice. One was of the print variety, as Keith Groller of the Morning Call mentions that Lehigh is marching into this season with new momentum . Overall, coach Coen seems very please with how the team has progressed this offseason, partually buoyed by the successful season-ending win against "that school in Easton": ''We've had a great off-season,'...

If you blinked, you might have missed it: a tiny blurb at the end of a Morning Call article about " Kutztown boots soccer, sinks swimming teams ". But the harsh realities of the credit crunch and Depression 2.0 finally hit home at Lehigh athletics in a measurable way: Other area college officials contacted by The Morning Call said they know of no plans to cut sports teams. Lehigh University, however, is trimming its athletic budget, spokeswoman Linda Harbrecht said. ''In response to the current economic climate, Lehigh is making reductions in total spending -- including the budgets that support the sports program -- in an effort to ensure that sufficient financial aid resources are available for current and future students,'' she said. Pretty big news - that the budgets supporting the sports program are having cost reductions. Not the sort of thing you'd announce with fireworks, to be sure. But it's still a huge announcement that makes one wonder ab...

Lehigh released their spring prospectus today , and anyone still asking the question "Where's the beef?" from that 1980s Wendy's commercial don't need to bother asking it any longer: they just need to look at the offensive linemen on Lehigh's roster. While the 2009 schedule is detailed in the prospectus, and the incoming class has some new tidbits of information as well that are included, but I'll talk here about my initial reactions about what Lehigh Nation might expect in 2009. 1. Beef. Count 'em: five offensive linemen, junior OL Ricky Clerge, sophomore OL Vinny Pellegrini, junior OL Alex Rowe, junior OL Keith Schauder and junior OL William Rackley all tip the scale at over 300 lbs. That could be the first time that's ever happened at Lehigh - and not a senior among them. Add to that junior NG David Brown , tipping the scales at 315 lbs on the defensive side, and you have a team that is going to be huge in the trenches without question. ...

With all the talk of Fordham's actions in regards to Patriot League scholarships, it's sometimes hard to keep your eye on the ball in terms of what's going on closer to home. And quietly Lehigh has added two more names to the incoming class, bringing the total number of incoming recruits to 28 - and also giving Lehigh even more speed on both sides of the ball. WR Brendan Kelly , originally from the Maryland area, spent a year at the Hill school in Pottstown, PA and recently formally announced that he's coming to Lehigh . At St. Mary's in Maryland he also played running back and was a first-team all-county punter. He also set a school record in the 55-meter dash - something that must have offensive coordinator Trey Brown pretty pleased. The other new name is a 6'0 defensive back, DB Bari-Boloka Nenbee out of Georgia (Miller Grove HS). On Lehigh's release, they say he was a Electrical Engineering Player of the Year in high school. Nenbee's high sch...

In a weird sort of way, it's like a Twilight Zone episode for followers of the Patriot League. Fordham has laid down the gauntlet , threatening to leave the Patriot League in football and become an FCS independent starting with the 2010 season - or not. There's a fierce internal debate on the matter - or there isn't. The Patriot League athletic directors are planning to say "bye" to Fordham - or not. There's a decisive up-or-down vote on the matter tomorrow - or there isn't. Welcome to the world of Patriot League football - where the discussions are behind closed doors and the fans that live and die by the crumbs of information thrown on the internet message boards are busy tearing each other apart. It's incredibly odd. It seems like something out of the Marx Brother's classic movie Horse Feathers . Why? Because aside from one secondhand comment by Fordham's head football coach and one specific comment from the Patriot League offices, t...