Lehigh Football Nation

Can it be that Patriot League media day is just around the corner, with Lehigh's season opener just a little over a month and a half away? Just to whet your appetite about the upcoming Lehigh football season comes the announcement that senior LB Matt Cohen was listed as a Phil Steele preseason first team All-American and was the only Patriot Leaguer on the first team (something that will most likely be noticed by Holy Cross senior QB Dominic Randolph , who could have made a great case for inclusion). This goes with his earlier inclusion in the Consensus Draft Services' All-American list as an honorable mention . ( Junior DB Jarard Cribbs also was a CDS preseason all-American, as well as Randolph, Bucknell senior S Akhiel White , Holy Cross senior CB Michael Wright , and senior LB Mark Leggerio from 'that school in Easton'.) Also releasing their preseason all-American team was The Sports Network , where junior OL Will Rackley got third-team honors. (Randolph got ...

Without question one of my guilty pleasures is that I still listen to Smashmouth, whose late 1990s "we're -pushing-40-so-we-better-cash-in-now" music has not aged well. Astro Lounge songs still grace my digital music player - including, yes, All Star. For incoming Lehigh football recruits, after graduation and before summer football camp, it's not all American Pie - it's also a time for high school all-star games, including the much-publicized Lehigh Valley All-Star Classic (taking place tonight at Nazareth's Andrew Leh Stadium at 7 pm). While there are high-school all-star games in other states, the Lehigh Valley and the state of Pennsylvania seem to have what some might say is an unhealthy obsession with all-star football in June. Pennsylvania has three big-time ones, the "Big 33" game versus Ohio, the PSFCA East/West game, and multiple (only slightly) smaller all-star games like the LV All-Star classic tonight. And that doesn't even cou...

It figures that I was getting caught in a freak rainstorm last Saturday afternoon just when the first-ever conference on sports blogging started in New York City. Called with characteristic subtlety " Blogs with Balls 1.0", they managed to capture with state of "sports blogging" in one saying. (But really, did they have to add the 1.0 at the end of it to completely marry the idea to the dotcom bust? It makes it sound like sports blogging is soon going to go the way of the Rubik's Cube.) Like anything, there are outsiders that try to get the whole blogging thing, but just manage to make themselves look bad. Witness GQ's pathetic summation on their own "blog" : Part networking, part discussion, the all-day conference was a live platform for big hitters like ESPN, Real Clear Sports, and Deadspin to share their words of wisdom with newbie bloggers and argue over a few pints of Guinness about the rise of new media and which athletes are ‘roid raging...

In the "Lehigh Football Alumni in the News" department, word of of Corpus Christi, Texas has former Lehigh QB Sedale Threatt '08 not only getting assigned a place at with Arena Football 2's Corpus Christi team, apparently he made such an impression that he was anointed the starter for the 2-8 Sharks this weekend : In a joint announcement from Vice President/General Manager Larry Linde and Head Coach Michael Trigg the Sharks have decided to go in a new direction at Quarterback. The team announced that they have released QB Gary Cooper and decided to go with Lehigh Rookie Sedale Threatt. “We have to start playing better and start taking care of the football”, said Trigg. “We have an obligation to our fans and sponsors to put players on the field that take responsibility for their actions, and that have a team concept. At this point Sedale represents that player”, Trigg added. New Sharks QB Threatt during Sharks Overtime, which airs on ESPN 1230, had this to say about t...

No word if this unidentified person actually is associated in any way with Fordham University, but I wouldn't be surprised if she had this same reaction going through all the press reports about Fordham's Friday announcement that they are going to start offering merit-based aid in football starting in 2010 . While Fordham football frequently has to battle for any coverage of their football team in New York City (where they have as competition two pro baseball teams, three pro hockey teams, and two pro football teams, despite the fact that half of them play in New Jersey), the June announcement did admittedly get their school in the paper. But with coverage like this, who needs coverage? Start with the AP report : Fordham will award football scholarships next year for the first time since 1954, hoping to compete with the top schools in its division. Fordham is a member of the Patriot League, which does not offer football scholarships. The AP, whose report was reprinted...

It's been an interesting Patriot League offseason - mainly because of statements made by Fordham head coach Tom Masella that the Rams were planning to start offering full scholarships starting in 2010 . This morning, Fordham and the Patriot League made the official announcement: the Rams will be in contention for the Patriot League football title in 2009, but in 2010 will not be eligible for the league title: Fordham has notified the Patriot League that it will begin awarding athletic scholarships to its football class entering in the fall of 2010. As a result, the Patriot League Football Presidents have endorsed an agreement with Fordham wherein the Rams will continue their association with the League but will be ineligible for the Patriot League title and automatic playoff berth beginning that season, announced Patriot League Executive Director Carolyn Schlie Femovich on Friday. Fordham will remain as an associate member in the Patriot League, and will continue to be eligible f...

As Lehigh's recruiting class has shaken out, the Mountain Hawks has lost one of our California recruits but gained another from a state where we've had lots of success in the past - Georgia. LB/TE Jordan Jefferson was nabbed by Yale as the Eli announced their recruiting class for 2013 . Losing the 6'3 230 lb ATH (as listed on Yale's announcement) was bit a disappointment for sure - of course, with Yale being one of the richest universities in the country and with the Eli surely offering him a generous financial aid package (Yale offers arguably the best financial aid package in the country), it's perhaps not all that surprising. Schools like Lehigh are squeezed by the Patriot League - generally speaking, if they're good enough academically to get into Lehigh, they're also good enough to get into Yale. While it will be interesting to see how Jefferson does at Yale, Lehigh fans will surely be more interested in their new WR/DB Bryan Andrews , who had an off...