Lehigh Football Nation

It's time to go full nerd and do a full-blown breakdown of the Princeton Tigers. Princeton released their game notes earlier in the week and today added to their preview pack an interview previewing the Lehigh game from head coach Bob Surace . Surace did make an observation about Lehigh that was worth mentioning, after philosophic about the abilities of RB Dominick Bragalone . "You wanted to play them when Penn played them," he said.  "After playing a Top 4 type team in Villanova, and against a Navy team that plays in a bowl game every year, you wanted to play them then, not after a bye.  Those change the outlook of everything you're doing." As Lehigh fans, we do tend to forget that Lehigh has arguably played the most challenging schedule they've had in a decade.  Not that that's any sort of excuse, but the truth is that in order to be considered a top team in FCS, the Mountain Hawks need to be able to compete in games like this against ...

After a long, long weekend without Lehigh football, the Mountain Hawks this Saturday head to Princeton, New Jersey for a 1:00 PM date to play the Princeton Tigers. If you can't make it to the game, the game is available in two ways. If through your cable service you subscribe to NBC Sports Philadelphia, you can watch the game live on that station.  Additionally, you can stream the game through the NBC Sports Live App. If you don't subscribe to NBC Sports Philadelphia, the game will also be streamed though the pay streaming service ESPN+. ESPN+ requires a monthly subscription of $4.99/month also carries a lot of college football games during the course of the season (including all the Ivy League home games), so it might be worth your while. With a subscription, if you have a Roku box in your home, you can stream ESPN+ directly to your TV from there.  If you have the ESPN App on your phone and Chromecast, you can bring it up on your phone and push the "Cast...

By now you've seen the results.  In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago .  Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth.  Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled.  Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season.  The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League....

Can you tell that I haven't really wanted to finish this report card for last week's game? Like a teacher a hour before pacing break, I didn't want to go through the film, the grades, and the play-by-play of the Penn game, but eventually, I did, even though it wasn't exactly pretty. The true hope with this report card, more than usual weeks, is that it's seen as a springboard to getting to the season that all folks associated with Lehigh will want.  With nationally-ranked Princeton looming ahead this week, it takes on added importance.

Are you like me - not all that sure of what to do this weekend now that there's no Lehigh football to watch? Fortunately, there's loads of college football game to watch - there are games on Friday and Saturday to enjoy to scout out Lehigh's upcoming opponents - and they don't even impinge on College Football Gameday at Happy Valley, either.

(Photo Credit: Philadelphia Inquirer) It's time to go full nerd and do a full-blown breakdown of the Penn Quakers. Penn's  game notes were out in good time, and The Philadelphia Inquirer , thankfully, still does a pretty good job in covering the Quakers in an independent way.  Both were invaluable for my analysis. Unusually, Lehigh faces Penn this time around in a game that is not the Quakers' season opener.  In prior years that made it tricky for the Mountain Hawks to sometimes get a full sense of what head coach Ray Priore might be doing, because there would be no true game film to study, only practice film and, if they're lucky, an accurate two-deep. This year, though, Penn has already had their first game, playing Bucknell in a game which they won 34-17 .  It was a strange contest, basically won in the first five minutes thanks to 17 points donated to the Quakers via two Bison turnovers and a blocked punt.  Both teams would only put up 17 poin...

This week, Lehigh makes the short trip down to Franklin Field in Pennsylvania to take on the Quakers of Penn. Kickoff time is at 3:00 PM and if you can't make it to the game, the game is available though a pay service called ESPN+.  This isn't the exact same thing as ESPN the station.  It works basically the way ESPN3 does, except that it requires a monthly subscription of $4.99 per month (though last I heard there was the availability of a free trial subscription available).  ESPN+ also carries a lot of college football games during the course of the season (including all the Ivy League home games), so it might be worth your while.  (Replays of the game I believe are available on ESPN3 for free later.) With a subscription, if you have a Roku box in your home, you can stream ESPN+ directly to your TV from there.  If you have the ESPN App on your phone and Chromecast, you can bring it up on your phone and push the "Cast" button to have it stream dir...