Reply To: LU vs UNH

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#29733
marco
marco
Participant

I wanted to wait before commenting on the game and the season and on scholarships, because they’re all connected.

Congrats to the team because no one really saw this coming, at least not this year. This offense returns pretty much intact, with an extra year’s experience. They’ll be a handful. Hopefully, the defense with improve. They actually were better versus PL and Ivies, but we saw what happened Saturday.

The game reminded me of a handful of games including the one against Idaho years ago. We had an otherwise good team, but were exposed by a much more talented team. But that was a BCS-type team, New Hampshire, the fourth best team in an FCS league. Disappointing.

Scholarships, or shall I say “Merit” scholarships. Anyone who thought their arrival would by themselves elevate PL football to unimagined heights must now realize that merit scholarships enable us to tap into the vast pool of student athletes from middle (working) class America, and that’s it. As long as there is an academic index, we will be limited to kids who are really students first. There’s an occasional great kid out there who is both a terrific student who somehow can get into our schools, and also be an athlete of the highest caliber, but they get snatched up also. Redshirting can help build depth, so that’s another area where we are at a disadvantage, but the big one is the AI.

So, after thirty years in the Patriot League, one by one, many ideals have fallen. Letting freshman play varsity, check; allowing the teams to compete in playoffs, check; spring practice, check; merit scholarships, check.

As of today and after four full years of scholarships, Lehigh is pretty much where we were before scholarships, and so is Colgate. LU record in four seasons prior to scholies – (2009 -12), 35 – 13 with two PL championships and two playoff road wins. The past four seasons since scholarships, 26 -19, a PL championship and a quick out in the playoffs.

A bigger hickey might be that if Lehigh thoroughly dominated PL AND Ivy play (We beat their co-champs, so that makes us Ivy champs as well!), what does this loss to NH say about the others?

Bottom line, and pretty clear for all who want to know what holds us back from competing with the big boys,it’s the AI and to a lesser extent, red shirts.