Lehigh Football Nation

It started out innocently enough as an article from New York Newsday 's Steven Marcus - a brief, 201-word report, quite frankly, not reporting on much. The headline read: Hofstra explores parting ways with the CAA , and mostly offered the writer's opinion, a cryptic official comment, and an unquoted anonymous source. Hofstra will explore moving its intercollegiate athletic program out of the southern-based Colonial Athletic Association, persons familiar with the athletic program said Thursday. Hofstra did not say what has prompted its exploration, but it appears the university would prefer to have more of a northeast profile. The Atlantic-10 is Hofstra's first choice, those close to the situation said, but no openings currently exist in that New England-based group. ... Hofstra apparently has no interest in returning to the America East. ``We have not had any conversations with representatives from the America East Conference regarding conference affiliation,'' Hofs...

Summer blockbuster season is already here, and it's a time for sequels like the new Star Trek and Night at the Museum movies. But here at LFN there's also a sequel about something no college sports fan wants to contemplate: the credit crunch around the Patriot League, which I talked about quite a bit last month . In that blog posting, I had mentioned that Lafayette "seemed to be doing fine" from all outward appearances. But nothing could have been further from the truth, as reported by Michael Duck and Genevieve Marshall of the Morning Call : Lafayette College, Easton's biggest employer, will slash budgets, freeze salaries and cut back on building projects over the next four years because of the economic downturn and a dwindling endowment, college officials announced this week. ''Over the next four fiscal years, the college plans to decrease its operating budget by roughly 10 percent, or approximately $11 million,'' college President Daniel Wei...

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...