Lehigh Football Nation

It was the moment every opponent of Villanova was waiting for this offseason.  Draft day was approaching. But this professional draft isn't the one you're thinking it is. Wildcat senior WR Matt Szczur , who was last year's CAA player of the year and voted Most Outstanding Player of the FCS Championship game, was about to find out if he was going to be drafted in the Major League Baseball draft. With legions of Delaware, Temple, Lehigh, Richmond and James Madison fans cheering him on, the word came out: he was drafted in the fifth round by the Chicago Cubs. Undoubtedly, cheers rang out. That is, until Villanova issued a press release mentioning that part of his Cubs contract would stipulate that he would return for his final year of football eligibility. What that means to Villanova opponents is: one more year of Number Four. (Cue the groans.) (more)

Football programs coming from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (or HBCU's for short) have a large, rich history that has made I-AA/FCS football an awesome sport to cover over the years.  They bring not only great athletes and football games to the subdivision, but also bring (though I hate using this word) halftime pageantry to football games that can be sorely lacking elsewhere in FCS. But there's also a bit of soul-searching going on in the world of HBCU's as well. The two HBCU conferences in FCS football, the MEAC and SWAC, have decided on different approaches to life in Division I football - one which chooses to host a championship game, the other which chooses to compete in the FCS playoffs with schools like Villanova, Holy Cross and Montana. Now, a radical proposal promises to further separate the worlds of the playoff-playing teams and the rest of the HBCU community - and may even cause a conference to pull apart. (more)

Is it really just about 50 days until Lehigh travels to Des Moines, Iowa to kick off their 2010 season? Does that mean that the time is finally right to start taking early looks at the matchups on next year's schedule, and see what sort of players and teams the Mountain Hawks will be up against? It does to me, at least. Especially when one of the players on the Drake team we'll be facing - senior DE Dain Taylor - has been getting NFL scouts and plenty of pre-season accolades going into the season. Drake is a lot more than Taylor, of course. But Taylor's statistics should put to rest any idea that Drake of the Pioneer Football League will be a pushover fifty days from now. (more)

Remember when there weren't any preseason teams for the Patriot League, and there was a dearth of coverage of I-AA and FCS football? It seems hard to fathom now, with the Sports Network issuing a flurry of different columns on everything from the top FCS players at all positions (of which senior OL Will Rackley is listed ) to a piece on the best matchups during the 2010 season (in which "The Rivalry" features, and a reminder that Lehigh won last year 27-21 in overtime).  Add to that Phil Steele's 2010 All-Patriot League team , and you have plenty to chew on before the start of the football season. Last year, I published my own All-Patriot League team for the first time - as I saw that the Patriot League themselves did not issue one. I decided to make it a yearly thing - so, below the flip, please enjoy my picks for the preseason all-Patriot League team, first and second team. (more)

As recently as two decades ago, it seemed ludicrous to think of cheerleading as a sport. Co-ed cheer squads, with the occasional gymnastic move by the girls and loud shouting in the megaphones by the guys, seemed more like a free way to get in to see the game rather than a true "sport" that involved competition. But the evolution of cheerleading into a true competitive sport may be more than a simple academic question these days. Quinnipiac College, a Division I non-football playing school, recently had a lawsuit brought against it by members of its recently-cut volleyball team. The team says that their team was the victim of budget cuts so that that Bobcats could continue to sponsor a "competitive cheerleading squad" . Advocates and foes alike can agree on one thing: if competitive cheerleading will be accepted as an official sport, the decision will have huge ramifications throughout the entire NCAA. (more)

(Photo Credit: The Providence Journal) Two days ago, I blogged about Rhode Island's thoughts on leaving the CAA in order to join the NEC . Yesterday, I talked about the impacts on that move on the CAA and NEC .  Today, I'll talk about whether the Patriot League is affected at all by this move by Rhode Island - because as things stand right now with the league and their stance on offering largely need-based aid, it doesn't appear to be. The problems are neatly summed up by a member of the Providence Journal 's URI Forum , a meeting place for fans of the URI program.  Reaction to the Rams' football move to the NEC have been mixed there, and some members were motivated to ask the Rams' athletic director, Thorr Bjorn , about his thought process.  He was specifically asked, "why the NEC?  Wouldn't the Patriot League be a better option for URI, with games versus A-10 leaguemate Fordham and nearby Holy Cross?" "I would have preferred URI going...

(Photo courtesy the South County Independent) Yesterday, I blogged about Rhode Island's thoughts on leaving the CAA in order to join the NEC .  Today, I'm blogging about the effects of their move on the rest of Northeast football - including the Patriot League. Interestingly,  Northeastern's discontinuation of football was certainly bad news, and Hofstra's president pulling a "Sonny Corleone in the tollbooth" on football a week later was also a seismic event concerning football in this area. But URI's decision could have an even greater impact in the long run for all three Northeastern FCS football conferences. It could have an impact that affects directly or indirectly all three conferences: the NEC, CAA, and Patriot League. (more)