Lehigh Football Nation

Picture this: it's November 22nd, 2014, the day when Lehigh and Lafayette face off for a historic 150th time on the gridiron. But instead of heading over to Fisher Field in Easton or Murray Goodman stadium in Bethlehem - you're going somewhere else. You're taking your mimosas and fried turkeys and heading to Citizens Bank Park - home of the Phillies - for a fantastic, full day of tailgating, events - and, obviously, bitter hatred of the Leopards or Mountain Hawks. The idea of bringing "The Rivalry" to a neutral location is still in its infancy, but is still a very intriguing prospect that could bring with it a lot of new fans, TV exposure... and fun. (more)

(Note: This blog posting has been cross-posted at Technorati , and can also be found in its entirety there .) In January, the University of Delaware issued a press release that has unfortunately, been all too common at smaller schools all over the country. They announced they were cutting a non-revenue men's athletics program - in this case, men's cross country and track and field - due to fiscal and Title IX compliance concerns. What was different this time was that the co-captain of the hundred year-old team, Corey Wall, decided to file a complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights. It cited reverse gender discrimination , and suggested that the enforcement of Title IX was, in reality, taking them away from men "against the spirit of Title IX." Truer words have never been spoken. (more)

(Photo Credit: Dave Burbank/The Ithaca Journal ) When it comes to Ivy League double standards, you can't do much better than comparing football and lacrosse. In football, there is a ban on playing postseason football in the FCS playoffs. Aside from language in the original Ivy Agreement intimating a ban on postseason play, "interference with final exams" is one of many popular rationales for maintaining the ban that has been repeated over the years. Such restrictions might be fine - if they were applied consistently to all Ivy League sports. But they're not. And all you need to do is look at the sport of Lacrosse to see why the Ivy League holds true to ideology... unless it benefits the bottom line. (more)

Last week, I wrote a piece detailing a series of articles about Title IX by Katie Thomas of the New York Times . It is a series of pieces with "revelations" - some new, some old - that Division I schools play games in order to satisfy the proportionality prong of Title IX compliance. The debate about over Title IX enforcement rages on, and will continue to do so as long as activists on both sides of the issue continue to feel passionately about it. But the debate on Title IX compliance - if you look hard enough - is also at the core of the Patriot League presidents' vote on football scholarships, too. (more)

(Photo Credit: The Morning Call ) OL Will Rackley is now a Jacksonville Jaguar. At about 9:30 PM eastern time, the Jaguars traded up for the second time in this NFL draft to get a player they wanted. On Thursday, it was Missouri QB Blaine Gabbert , who was still on the board with the 10th overall pick, as they made a swap with the Redkins to get the speedy spread QB from the Tigers. On Friday, they saw another player of great value still on the board early in the third round - a certain bookend tackle who played at a Patriot League school for four years. So general manger Gene Smith got on the phone with the San Francisco 49ers and got the deal done to get the interior lineman he wanted. “Obviously, when I’m moving up for a player this early, we feel like he’s an eventual starter,” Smith told the Associated Press . “We like his position versatility. We did a lot of work on him. ... We felt very good about this.” (more)

(Photo Credit: Bruce Winter/The Express-Times ) "If you believe sites like NFL Draft Scout, OL Will Rackley - Lehigh's massive tackle out of Riverdale, Georgia - could be picked in QB John Skelton territory in the NFL draft," I crowed back in August . Nine months and a 2010 football season later, the future has changed for the best offensive lineman in Patriot League history. It's changed, um, a whole lot. From the junior blind side tackle who played hurt most of the season to the dominant senior lineman who earned the respect of everyone he faced - including Delaware head coach K.C. Keeler - Rackley is going to be heading to Radio City Music Hall on the first round of draft day. (more)

(Photo Credit: Andrew Meier/The Brown & White ) " OL Will Rackley didn’t have any shoe boxes full of letters from Georgia or Georgia Tech," an article from Will's hometown paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution , said. "There was one scholarship offer and another major opportunity," referring to a general offer from Tulane and a walk-on opportunity at Georgia Tech. Ask his mother, Wanda Rackley , though, and you'll get a different viewpoint as to which schools were important or not. "I went with him on two official visits," she told me. "The first visit was to Lafayette. He didn't have a good feeling there and he thought the football field was too small. "The next visit was to the school was Lehigh. He loved it right off, and I loved it too." (more)