Lehigh Football Nation

In the news last week came, essentially, four new claims of abuse that happened at the hands of Gerald Sandusky while he employed as a linebackers coach at Penn State. All are, at a bare minimum, troubling, and they invite the question "who knew what, and when" in terms of these allegations. Three of the allegations, however, are worthy of further examination because they could demonstrate that the administrators at the time, which would include former athletic directors Ed Czekaj and Jim Tarman , violated the law. It also could eventually - though nothing has surfaced yet - implicate Joe Paterno . With the very important caveat being we don't know everything, we do seem to have enough to bring some context to the goings-on inside Penn State's athletic department during the last 40 years.  The only clear fact was that child sex allegations weren't handled with the respect they deserved.

The crimes committed by Gerald Sandusky continue to be a band-aid that is re-applied, and continuously ripped off, the arms of those of love Penn State. Already convicted by a court of law, Sandusky has what is effectively a life sentence, while others who were in power at Penn State during the 1998 period where sex crimes were reported internally, Graham Spanier, Gary Schulz and Tim Curley , have still not faced any sort of trial and are still at-large today . Last week, with an interesting sentence appearing deep in an insurance lawsuit involving a Sandusky victim settlement, the band-aid was once again ripped off. The details of the lawsuit claim that Joe Paterno  chose not to act in 1976 when one victim reported abuse by Sandusky, while Sarah Ganim , the hero reporter who broke the Sandusky story wide-open five years ago, added a second story of abuse in the 1970s where Paterno pressured one of Sandusky's victims over the phone in the 1971 to not press charges agai...

Recently, I wrote an entire article about how the way the NCAA allows schools to become FBS is broken. It turns out I had no idea exactly how broken until I was guided towards the Idaho Vandals Football Consultant report, helpfully posted in full on the University of Idaho's website . In that report, one of the possible avenues that Idaho was mulling over was to join the WAC. I was confused - the WAC had stopped sponsoring FBS football long ago, a couple of years after then-commissioner Karl Benson finished his uncanny impersonation of Baghdad Bob in regards to saving FBS football for that conference - only to leave his job to take over at the Sun Belt Conference. But it turns out, after a fresh read of the NCAA rulebook, it is indeed true. Like a bad horror movie, the zombified WAC football conference could indeed resurrect itself - and, in the process, shows how royally screwed up this system of FCS and FBS movement really is.

People rightfully can paint me as an FCS football fan.  I love Football Championship Subdivision, the section of Division I where Lehigh and the rest of the Patriot League competes.  I find the quality of the games tremendous, and the emphasis on football and competition as the exact right balance. From that fact, some might also think I'm performing cartwheels around my office now that the University of Idaho, after they were unceremoniously cast out of the Sun Belt as football-only members, have decided that their only choice to retain football is to join the rest of the Big Sky in sponsoring football at the FCS level, starting in 2018. You'd be wrong about that. What Idaho's decision really should be telling us is that the process for switching subdivisions is a senseless, conference-driven exercise that forces schools into making tough decisions that they shouldn't be forced to make.

(Photo Credit: Gaby Morera/B&W Staff Photographer) Before we close the book on spring ball, I wanted to pass on my thoughts and observations about the spring session and the prospects for the 2016 season. But before I do, I also need to share one of the great traditions of the Lehigh spring game - the announcement of the recipient of the Jim Gum scholarship. Presented by the non-profit Jim Gum Foiundation , the scholarship award is presented in the name of Jim Gum, a three-year starter for Lehigh in the 1980s and Penn Argyl standout.  He died due to complications from ALS in 2006. Senior RB Kenny Crawford was the recipient of this year's award in what is always a heartwarming yet humbling ceremony on the field.

You might have thought that Lehigh's Brown defense, fresh off a strong performance in the spring game, might have let themselves let up a little once it was deemed that the morning practice was complete. Instead, in front of a swarm of fans who watched Saturday's scrimmage on a picture-perfect April day at Murray Goodman stadium, the defense were doing running drills. As junior DE Tyler Cavenas explained, this was no accident. "That's our new thing now," an out-of-breath Cavenas told the assembled media.  "If we're not running to the ball after every single play, it counts as a lack of effort and we need to run after practice." The surprise of the running drills aside, the defensive effort that resulted in eight sacks while only yielding one late touchdown, could have been the most striking aspect of the Brown and White game on Saturday,

This Saturday, Lehigh football fans will finally get a chance to get a free sneak peek at the 2016 Mountain Hawks at Murray Goodman stadium. Scheduled to start at 11:00AM, it will be a bit of a different spring game than usual, due to the fact that it will be a no-tackling practice , unlike the one I happened to catch that was partial tackling. "We never had a full practice that was all tackling," head coach Andy Coen told Lehighsports.com.  "I picked about three practices where he had at times, full contact. We never put ourselves in a situation where we were doing too much. I do believe if you want to get good at these things, you have to practice them. We've been using a lot of the techniques that the Seattle Seahawks have utilized over the last couple of years, and those techniques have been very productive for us.  We're getting a lot better with our technique and are coaches are doing a great job of staying on top of our kids regarding technique....