Archive For The “Patriot League” Category

Pelletier, Duffy In NFL Training Camps

By |

Pelletier, Duffy In NFL Training Camps

All WR Troy Pelleiter and OL Zach Duffy ever wanted was a shot at the NFL.After the NFL Draft concluded this past Saturday, they learned that they both would be getting a chance.Troy, whose name is plastered all over the Lehigh record books, was invite…

Read more »

Pelletier, Duffy In NFL Training Camps

By |

Pelletier, Duffy In NFL Training Camps

All WR Troy Pelleiter and OL Zach Duffy ever wanted was a shot at the NFL.After the NFL Draft concluded this past Saturday, they learned that they both would be getting a chance.Troy, whose name is plastered all over the Lehigh record books, was invite…

Read more »

Five Questions for Lehigh Entering Spring Football Practice

By |

Five Questions for Lehigh Entering Spring Football Practice

Lehigh’s spring football practice segment officially starts tomorrow, ending an agonizingly long period of football inactivity from the end of the 2017 football season.

Tomorrow, the beginnings of the 2018 football team will take shape – a team that waves goodbye to WR Troy Pelletier and WR Gatlin Casey, but welcomes back rising senior QB Brad Mayes and some changes on the defensive side of the ball.

What sort of questions will be answered by by the end of this spring segment?  Here are five of my questions.
Read more »

Read more »

Five Questions for Lehigh Entering Spring Football Practice

By |

Five Questions for Lehigh Entering Spring Football Practice

Lehigh’s spring football practice segment officially starts tomorrow, ending an agonizingly long period of football inactivity from the end of the 2017 football season.

Tomorrow, the beginnings of the 2018 football team will take shape – a team that waves goodbye to WR Troy Pelletier and WR Gatlin Casey, but welcomes back rising senior QB Brad Mayes and some changes on the defensive side of the ball.

What sort of questions will be answered by by the end of this spring segment?  Here are five of my questions.
Read more »

Read more »

Patriot League Commit Tracker, Class of 2022

By |

Patriot League Commit Tracker, Class of 2022

(Photo Credit: Steve Hockstein/NJ Advance Media)

With this year’s early signing period in December, along with traditional signing day in February and additional signing of recruits up until May, it felt like the right time to resurrect the Patriot League Commit Tracker for the class of 2022.

This is intended to be a rolling list, updated as we go, as student-athletes going to any Patriot League school sign National Letters of Intent.

We don’t know the whole story yet behind each school’s recruiting class.  But this post is intended to put in one place what we know so far.

As I learn more, I will add more names to each list.
Read more »

Read more »

Patriot League Commit Tracker, Class of 2022

By |

Patriot League Commit Tracker, Class of 2022

(Photo Credit: Steve Hockstein/NJ Advance Media)

With this year’s early signing period in December, along with traditional signing day in February and additional signing of recruits up until May, it felt like the right time to resurrect the Patriot League Commit Tracker for the class of 2022.

This is intended to be a rolling list, updated as we go, as student-athletes going to any Patriot League school sign National Letters of Intent.

We don’t know the whole story yet behind each school’s recruiting class.  But this post is intended to put in one place what we know so far.

As I learn more, I will add more names to each list.
Read more »

Read more »

With Early Signing Period Approaching, What Does Each Patriot League Football Program Need?

By |

With Early Signing Period Approaching, What Does Each Patriot League Football Program Need?

You may not be aware that this year the NCAA has not one, but two, signing day periods this year.Coined "Show Your Cards Day" by Arizona director of personnel Matt Dudek, Sports Illustrated calls it this "because programs and recruits no…

Read more »

With Early Signing Period Approaching, What Does Each Patriot League Football Program Need?

By |

With Early Signing Period Approaching, What Does Each Patriot League Football Program Need?

You may not be aware that this year the NCAA has not one, but two, signing day periods this year.Coined "Show Your Cards Day" by Arizona director of personnel Matt Dudek, Sports Illustrated calls it this "because programs and recruits no…

Read more »

Remembering Lehigh’s Battles With The Late Tubby Raymond

By |

Remembering Lehigh’s Battles With The Late Tubby Raymond

(Photo Credits: Delaware Online)

When I heard the news Tubby Raymond, legendary Delaware head football coach, died last week at the age of 92, two immediate memories came rushing back to me.

One occurred on October 16th, 1999, when Tubby had made a complaint to the local paper or radio in the run-up to Kevin Higgins‘ Mountain Hawks beating his Blue Hens on Delaware’s homecoming, 42-35.

I have no idea if the quote even actually happened, but my recollection is that Tubby said that Lehigh had “St. Bartholomew’s” on their schedule, and hadn’t played anybody.  It was a verbal jab that many Delaware fans took with them to the stands to heckle the Mountain Hawk fans that made the short trip to Newark.

Up until that point, I had watched a bunch of Lehigh football games over the years.  I experienced their rise in the 1990s.  I enjoyed wins, and championships, and playoff victories.

But never had I felt a win so viscerally vindicating than the one over Tubby Raymond’s team – a win that might have kept the Blue Hens out of the playoffs that year, and might have allowed Lehigh to squeeze into the playoffs at 10-1 with a precious at-large bid.  (And they did it on homecoming!  Homecoming!  “It was one of the most enjoyable wins I’ve ever had,” Higgins said years afterwards.)

The other memory that came rushing back was the run-up to Delaware’s home I-AA playoff football game a year later.  I remember the visceral excitement that I had that Lehigh was going to have a chance to beat Delaware twice in two years at their place.  And I was looking in the newspaper for what Tubby Raymond had to say about Lehigh.  Nothing.

And Tubby’s 2001 team simply shut up, and hit Lehigh in the mouth repeatedly in a 47-22 rout that wasn’t as close as the final score might indicate.  When RB Antawn Jenkins dove over a Lehigh player into the end zone to punctuate Delaware’s 33rd unanswered point after Lehigh briefly went up 10-7, I felt like I was smashed in the mouth, and I wasn’t even suited up.

After the game, Tubby was hugely respectful to the Mountain Hawks, turning from Disney villain to charmer in a single stroke.  “We ought to play Lehigh every year,” he said, favorably comparing the Mountain Hawks to any team on their Atlantic 10 schedule.  “It’s a great game and a great national rivalry.”

And that was Tubby Raymond, in a nutshell to Lehigh players, coaches and fans – a mixture of competitive verbal needling (that sometimes cut close to the bone), enough so that you wanted to see him beat more than any head football coach in America.  He tended to back up the talk with excellent teams – when Lehigh teams beat Delaware, these were not ordinary wins – they were gems, and when the Mountain Hawks lost to his teams, they were crushing.  And then, when the clock read 0:00, win or lose, Tubby would say something that made it hurt just a little bit less, allow you to regroup, and make you want to circle Delaware on the schedule for next year.

I never had the honor of meeting Tubby Raymond, but he had an awful lot to do with my passion for Lehigh football, and for that I am grateful for him.
Read more »

Read more »

Remembering Lehigh’s Battles With The Late Tubby Raymond

By |

Remembering Lehigh’s Battles With The Late Tubby Raymond

(Photo Credits: Delaware Online)

When I heard the news Tubby Raymond, legendary Delaware head football coach, died last week at the age of 92, two immediate memories came rushing back to me.

One occurred on October 16th, 1999, when Tubby had made a complaint to the local paper or radio in the run-up to Kevin Higgins‘ Mountain Hawks beating his Blue Hens on Delaware’s homecoming, 42-35.

I have no idea if the quote even actually happened, but my recollection is that Tubby said that Lehigh had “St. Bartholomew’s” on their schedule, and hadn’t played anybody.  It was a verbal jab that many Delaware fans took with them to the stands to heckle the Mountain Hawk fans that made the short trip to Newark.

Up until that point, I had watched a bunch of Lehigh football games over the years.  I experienced their rise in the 1990s.  I enjoyed wins, and championships, and playoff victories.

But never had I felt a win so viscerally vindicating than the one over Tubby Raymond’s team – a win that might have kept the Blue Hens out of the playoffs that year, and might have allowed Lehigh to squeeze into the playoffs at 10-1 with a precious at-large bid.  (And they did it on homecoming!  Homecoming!  “It was one of the most enjoyable wins I’ve ever had,” Higgins said years afterwards.)

The other memory that came rushing back was the run-up to Delaware’s home I-AA playoff football game a year later.  I remember the visceral excitement that I had that Lehigh was going to have a chance to beat Delaware twice in two years at their place.  And I was looking in the newspaper for what Tubby Raymond had to say about Lehigh.  Nothing.

And Tubby’s 2001 team simply shut up, and hit Lehigh in the mouth repeatedly in a 47-22 rout that wasn’t as close as the final score might indicate.  When RB Antawn Jenkins dove over a Lehigh player into the end zone to punctuate Delaware’s 33rd unanswered point after Lehigh briefly went up 10-7, I felt like I was smashed in the mouth, and I wasn’t even suited up.

After the game, Tubby was hugely respectful to the Mountain Hawks, turning from Disney villain to charmer in a single stroke.  “We ought to play Lehigh every year,” he said, favorably comparing the Mountain Hawks to any team on their Atlantic 10 schedule.  “It’s a great game and a great national rivalry.”

And that was Tubby Raymond, in a nutshell to Lehigh players, coaches and fans – a mixture of competitive verbal needling (that sometimes cut close to the bone), enough so that you wanted to see him beat more than any head football coach in America.  He tended to back up the talk with excellent teams – when Lehigh teams beat Delaware, these were not ordinary wins – they were gems, and when the Mountain Hawks lost to his teams, they were crushing.  And then, when the clock read 0:00, win or lose, Tubby would say something that made it hurt just a little bit less, allow you to regroup, and make you want to circle Delaware on the schedule for next year.

I never had the honor of meeting Tubby Raymond, but he had an awful lot to do with my passion for Lehigh football, and for that I am grateful for him.
Read more »

Read more »

Skip to toolbar