Lehigh Football Nation

Folks looking at whether Lehigh should offer athletic scholarship ought to look at the story of the 6th round draft pick of the Cleveland Browns, Norfolk State CB Don Carey . Why? According to this report , he almost was a Mountain Hawk: “Coming out of high school I really wasn’t highly recruited as far as football. I had a lot of academic scholarships. I had financial aid to Yale, financial aid to Michigan, financial aid to Colgate, Lehigh, all kinds of schools, Patriot and Ivy League schools. I only had one football scholarship and that was Norfolk State. I really couldn’t afford to go to Yale. I’m honored that I received that acceptance letter and whatnot, but Norfolk State gave me the best chance to get a college education and still play football.” Carey was a four-year starter for the Spartans and is planning to major in building construction technology (with a minor in architectural drafting) in May. He was Norfolk State's recipient of the Army Strong Award in 2007, given ...

With all the Spring football reports, coverage of FCS Players in the NFL Draft and free agency , maintenance on the Facebook page , and a general blog spring cleaning in progress (do I really need to have the 2006 schedule still up on there?), I almost missed a very important announcement made by Lehigh's athletics department in the days after the Spring game. It's the announcement of the Lehigh Football Partnership , an extension of the existing Lehigh Sports partnership: “This is just a first step, and an exciting one, in a series of steps we have planned to build sport-specific partnerships for each of our varsity sports,” said Bill Griffin, Associate Director of Athletics. “The mission of the Athletics Partnership is to provide a framework and support system that will enable our former student-athletes to remain connected to their Lehigh sports program, and all who participated in it, in a manner that’s fun and impactful for the sport they played.” Pete DeLuca ’79, a membe...

(Photo Credit: Colgate Athletics) As expected, this weekend's NFL draft came and went without a single Patriot League name getting announced. Overall, only 15 football players from Football Championship Subdivision got drafted, making it a relatively light year for FCS draftees in general - and like the Patriot League, the Ivy League was completely shut out as well. In terms of Eastern FCS schools, four players from FCS schools that faced Patriot League competition were drafted: Richmond DE Lawrence Sidbury (4th Round), Furman CB William Middleton (5th round), and Liberty RB Rashad Jennings (7th Round). (Lehigh didn't line up against any of these teams, though "That school in Easton lined up against - and beat - Rashad Jennings and Liberty.) Other Eastern FCS schools that had players drafted were William & Mary CB Derek Cox (3rd Round) and Monmouth (NJ) TE John Nalbone (5th Round). Here's the list of NFL free agent signings of Patriot League players: Colgat...

(Photo courtesy of Kevin Mingora, The Morning Call) Junior QB J.B. Clark and junior WR Craig Zurn seem pretty excited about something in this picture - could it be all the press coverage of Lehigh's Sprng game? The press reports are in from the Brown & White game - including a photo gallery from the Morning Call (and one from yours truly - coming soon when I get a spare moment!) There are no fewer than three press release articles and three blog postings (including the one from yours truly), making this arguably the best-covered spring game in all of FCS. The consensus was that it things seem pretty hopeful on South Mountain after Saturday's final contact until August. The Morning Call: QBs Shine in Lehigh Spring Game ‘’We’re definitely headed in the right direction,'’ [Coen] said. ‘’This is the best I’ve ever felt at this time of year during my tenure here. I don’t know what that means, but I like the attitude of our guys and we’ve got a good recruiting class comin...

It was a perfect day for a lot of things on Saturday: mowing the lawn, sunning yourself outside or simply going to the park. It was also a perfect day for the annual rite of spring for Lehigh football fans: the Brown/White Spring game, the official end to the spring practice season. In pristine 75 degree temperatures with a bit of a Spring wind blowing through Murray Goodman stadium, Lehigh's offense (the White) proved themselves up to the challenge of performing against the much-hyped defense (the Brown) with an impressive 53-20 showing . Compared to last year - when there was an open audition for the role of starting quarterback, and the signalcallers combined for a multitude of turnovers and interceptions - junior QB J.B. Clark and sophomore QB Chris Lum seemed determined to put that performance behind them. And their numbers bear that out: Clark went 15 for 20 for 92 yards and 2 touchdowns, while Lum went 12 of 16 for 155 yards and 2 touchdowns. Add to that the stats of j...

Some of you out there might perhaps be browsing over here for the first time, looking for information about tomorrow's Brown/White Spring Game. For those folks - and my regular readers, too- don't fret, a full-blown analysis awaits. But I thought I'd do things a bit differently this year. In years past I wrote a quick "players/position battles to watch" as well as some general observations. But during the season I post full game previews of each Lehigh game here at Lehigh Football Nation, complete with game notes, a weather report, "drink of the week", and a complete breakdown of the opposition. I thought I'd approach the Brown/White Game the same way this year. Obviously, this is a "mirror match", to take a page from Mortal Combat - the Lehigh offense knows its opposition this week, and it's the Lehigh defense. It should be spirited competition - with any sort of luck, free of any injuries. But that doesn't mean that there sh...

While Saturday's Brown/White game will tell us important information about how Lehigh's football team will look in 2009, it's this Sunday - at Grace Hall on the Lehigh campus, from 12:30 PM to 3:30 PM - which could potentially provide life-saving information to someone with leukemia or another life-threatening disease. The Lehigh football program is joining up with twenty-nine college football programs (including Villanova, Penn, Temple, UMass, and Lafayette, to name a few) across the nation in a bone marrow testing drive to add to the national registry of blood marrow donors. It's important to note that all potential donors would be doing on Sunday is a cotton swab DNA test on Sunday - an easy process: Lehigh assistant football coach Donnie Roberts has been heavily involved in the upcoming event, and is looking forward to a strong turnout on Sunday. “The idea is to get your name on the national registry as a potential donor. What the test is looking for are healthy ...