Lehigh Football Nation

Lehigh and Colgate is always a big game, whether both teams are going in undefeated or, as in this case, an 2-7 team is squaring off against a 8-0 team. In a testimony to how evenly matched both of these teams have been over the years,  no team has won more than 3 straight against the other since the inception of the Patriot League. Colgate and Lehigh have faced off 55 times, and the overall record has been, fittingly, close, with Colgate holding a slender 29-24-2 advantage.  The last tie came in 1980, a 17-17 tie at Taylor Stadium in which Lehigh's John Whitehead and Colgate's Fred Dunlap faced off as head coach.  In a way, that hotly-contested tie sort-of epitomizes the competitiveness of this rivalry today.

There aren't any Patriot League title considerations at play this weekend at Murray Goodman Stadium, but there's a whole lot to play for in this intense Patriot League rivalry. Lehigh (2-7, 1-3 PL) takes on Colgate (8-0, 5-0 PL) this week in what seems to be annually the grudge match of the Patriot League. If you can't make it to the game, you can catch the contest on TV on Service Electric 2 in the Lehigh Valley, with Steve Degler, Doug Heater and Kristi Fulkerson on the call.  That Service Electric 2 broadcast is also streamed online for free via the Patriot League Network . You can also catch the game on FOX AM 1230 and 1320, with  Matt Kerr, Andy Phillips, and Steve Lomangino on the call, with the most excellent Lehigh pregame show starting at 11:30 AM.  You can get it through your regular radio, listen to the broadcast  streamed through TuneIn , or just simply going to the  LVFoxSports.com  webpage and listening that way.

There aren't any books detailing the 4-7 2009 Lehigh football season, nor is it likely that the exploits of that season will be etched in stone at the base of a statue for head football coach Andy Coen . Yet it's a time and place which I return to often when I think back on Lehigh seasons past, and it's where I find myself today as well. The 2009 season felt like an inflection point for Coen's coaching tenure.  His first three seasons, 6-5, 5-6 and 5-6, boasted one Patriot League co-championship, but had fallen short of the lofty expectations that had been set during the Kevin Higgins and Pete Lembo eras of undefeated seasons, playoff wins, and basically scaring the pants off of Lehigh football opponents up and down the East Coast. And when the Mountain Hawks limped to a 1-5 start, the fifth being an awful 7-0 loss to Yale whose only points resulted from a fake punt, it felt like Andy's time at Lehigh was nearing an end.  Nobody actually said  officially ...

We break down the Bucknell game - and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip. Like Lehigh, the Bison are 1-7, but unlike Lehigh, the Bison have played a whole lot of close games. Two weeks ago, Bucknell came a two-point conversion away from tying Lafayette but fell just short in a 29-27 loss to the Leopards, and had the ball with a chance to win the game late in the fourth quarter. They also played William and Mary close to start the season, falling 14-7, and their lone win of the season came against Holy Cross, the same Crusader team that walloped Lehigh last weekend 56-0.  When the Bison played them, two Bucknell touchdowns and two Bucknell field goals were enough to carry the Bison through in a 19-16 win. Like many Lehigh opponents, Bucknell always enjoys extracting their pound of Mountain Hawk flesh if they are able.  The Mountain Hawks have won 17 of their last 19 meetings against the Bison, and they are likely to put their absolute best foot forward ...

At Murray Goodman Stadium this weekend, two Patriot League teams will be looking for their second win and trying to end the 2018 season on a high note.  Lehigh (1-7, 0-3 PL) takes on Bucknell (1-7, 1-2 PL) this week on "Heroes Day", where all first responders (military, fire, EMT, police) can pick up a game ticket free of charge at the Goodman Stadium Ticket Office. If you can't make it to the game, you can catch the contest on TV on the Stadium Network via these over-the-air networks  or watch the feed of that broadcast online through the Patriot League Network .   Matt Martucci, Ross Tucker and Marisa Pilla are the over-the-air broadcast team. You can also catch the game on FOX AM 1230 and 1320, with Matt Kerr, Tom Fallon, Matt Markus and Mike Yadush on the call, with the most excellent Lehigh pregame show starting at 11:30 AM.  You can get it through your regular radio, listen to the broadcast  streamed through TuneIn , or just si...

There really aren't any other words to use.  The season is currently  broken . Anyone who bravely worked their way to the game last weekend in rainy, windy Worcester, Mass had to have come to the same conclusion. The only thing keeping 2-6 Holy Cross from breaking their previous high-water mark of 59 against the Mountain Hawks was mercy.  In the red zone late in the game, the 2018 Holy Cross Crusaders would settle on their largest-ever margin of victory against Lehigh in program history, taking a knee to win the game 56-0 instead of probably winning the game 63-0. Things... looked... broken . "This is an embarrassment," head coach Andy Coen rightfully said on the radio after the game.  "We didn't do anything right." Every stat sheet passed out to the Lehigh players and coach staff ought to be put into a burn cage and set afire. There should be a parental campus-wide internet filter preventing anyone associated with Lehigh from Googling t...

We break down the Holy Cross game - and we give our fearless prediction below the flip. Head coach Bob Chesney is in his first year in Worcester and is working to build up his mark on the program, despite a 1-6 record. He came to Holy Cross from Assumption College, where he compiled a 44-16 record and made the nearby school a solid member of the NE-10 conference. Assumption has been a strong D-II school over the last decade, engineering an upset over Fordham in 2010 (though that was before Chesney's time). When Chesney came to Holy Cross, he brought in an almost entirely new staff from the one that Tom Gilmore had assembled.  Only four positional coaches remain, while Chesney brought in a new offensive and defensive coordinator. Holy Cross also had, by far, the toughest schedule of any school in the Patriot League in September, starting with Colgate, who sits undefeated, Dartmouth, who sits undefeated, and Boston College - yes, that Boston College.  Throwing out t...