Are the next three winnable?

[RichHParticipant]

Nice post MLK, altho it is the coaching this year not the Admin that is hurting us. OC is truly out to lunch. Admire Andy’s loyalty but he must do something with Brown’s play calling. Gast not that bad. She does not appear pro active but she has not opposed athletics either. Dont forget Sterrett and Andy came out on the LU site in favor of merit aid. That would not have happened if Gast had vetoed it.We are far from bottom of PL in football funding. All schools spend approx same $$ cept GU. It would be nice to have somemore $$

[MLKParticipant]

Correct in some regards Rich. However our monies for coach salaries and recruiting are low. Alumni support as opposed to Lafayette, Colgate is low. Just check out the millions invested in Fisher Field and new facilities including a Field House and improvements to Rapolli sites.
Lehigh’s new program for Football Alumni , and Football Athletic Partnership may help. Our biggest donation to football over the years was $ 100,000 not counting Stadium construction. Contrast that to Lafayette . You get what you pay for. Loss of 7000 fans /game means a loss of $75,000 revenue per game.

Administration cannot be neutral. Either support program or be content to lose gate and prestige. If you speak to many in LU faculty and admin they will tell you lack of athletic emphasis has hurt our name recognition vis a vis W & M Richmond, Villanova etc. Alumni support drops and connection to Lehigh wains. This does not even take into account student apathy. We have no Cameron Crazies, only Linderman Loners.

[RichHParticipant]

It would be nice if Gast was like Likins, affirmative support always better. Agree that donations need to improve. We need a family like the Kirby’s for LC who have been very very generous for LC football. 4 years is an eternity on a college campus for students, not coaches. Put some excitement on the field and the kids will come. Ease up a bit on tailgate Nazis would help also.

The Partnership will help. Heck I even put some $$ in but we need much more to make up for cuts and expand recruiting funds and scholarship $, even if we dont go merit itwould be nice to get up to at least 60 equivalencies from the the 54-55 we give now.
Years back as part of my Estate plan, I set up a small Trust for Lehigh, as a % of realized assets. All who can , it is a painless way to give back to Lehigh.

[WizardParticipant]

Like the rest of you, I have not been impressed with the program since Coen’s hiring. His statements about national championships and you’ll like what you see were nothing more than telling people what they wanted to hear. It certainly looks like his hiring was a mistake.

However, I think we are all overlooking one very important factor. We are no longer getting some of players Higgens recruited by the admissions office. And, without scholarships we are not able to get some of the quality players who do get by the admissions office.

The question that needs to be answered is, are we making progress? Today the answer is no.

[NeighborParticipant]

Without a new thread, it’s difficult to know where to place this response but there’s some good insight going on right here. As depressing as it is, we are commenting on a football program that has fallen back to a place several decades ago. I know that period, I’ve been attending games since 1963. Recently, not so much. I once gave to the Athletics Partnership, but no more.

For me, it’s an institutional thing. The players are blameless. Whether it’s Joe Sterrett, Alice Gast, I really don’t care. I DO know, it’s been a wasted opportunity by those who could have prevented it. If I’m going to invest in anything, I need confidence my recipient is doing EVERYTHING possible to maximize ROI. Right now, I don’t see that.

The Lehigh Valley CAN support high-end football, about 700,000 people live here. This is also a football community. To offer a marginal effort in this sport is foolish, there are too many other options for serious fans. Saturday’s attendance is shameful. Isn’t there a message in this?

Make a decision, Lehigh. Do you want to participate fully loaded, or with just one bullet in the chamber. When you figure that out, I’m sure we’ll all adjust. Till then, I’ll read about you in the paper.

[RichHParticipant]

I’ve been trying to isolate the difference between this staff under Coen and those under Small, et al.. These are intelligent and experienced guys for the most part.

I question the OL coaching and OC . Neither seem to produce any improvement. Hell, we are doing things like "going back to camp" one week. What the hell did they do during the actual camp.
Coen , he of "I dont what happened until I look at the tape" is reactive to problems not proactive it appears. He ran the LU O at Lehigh and Penn with great success. An already created system. I guess he thought he could create his OWN signature O ala Woody Hayes. He was wrong. He created a mess. Why not go back to what he did well, Air Lehigh. Someone posted astutely that he hasnt recruited for that O so perhaps cant switch. Disagree their are enuf kids Zurn, Drwal, Flynn, Lum, Colvin ,Jefferson etc that are more than good enuf to run O. Key to that O are QB reads and progressions . Hell , Keating learned on the fly and had a great year. Of course this is not that staff.

The real problem I think is that this staff is reactive not creative. OC seems the worst of the lot. Has zero ability to set O and even less to adapt and call plays during the game even with the asinine " macarena" dance on the sidelines.
Got no issues with D staff, K, Roberts, Wilcher are if not superb good enuf to put a solid D on the field each week.

[BillParticipant]

"RichH" wrote:
I’ve been trying to isolate the difference between this staff under Coen and those under Small, et al.. These are intelligent and experienced guys for the most part.

Rich – obviously, history will ultimately show whether or not this staff has the same "talent" as Small’s staff. As of right now, it’s hard to beat a staff that had Giunta, Mariani, and Steckel on it!

As for (other poster’s) comments about Lehigh’s funding and the partnership, I too am disgusted. After seeing what was done with the funds raised, I chose to stop donating. We are currently using using a great portion of the alumni donations for items that should be covered by operating budget costs! Oh well…..

[RichHParticipant]

No doubt any comparison would be impossible except to highlight the ability of those prior staffs. Small, Lembo and Higgins all hired talent. Coen so far has not shown the same knack to find talent in his hired O coaches. My point was that this Offensive staff regardless of intelligence, experience seems to be solely reactive in planning their schemes and moreover ,in game calls. Some mindless aping of other staff’s ideas does not constitute creativity. That lack extends to Coen. He was very good at running the system given him by Small and taking it with him to Penn. He comes back and decides to dump it :o , WHY ,was he bored with the system that got him the HC position :?:

[hawkineerParticipant]

"RichH" wrote: These are intelligent and experienced guys for the most part.

Coen , he of "I dont what happened until I look at the tape" is reactive to problems not proactive it appears. He ran the LU O at Lehigh and Penn with great success. An already created system. I guess he thought he could create his OWN signature O ala Woody Hayes. He was wrong. He created a mess.

Not sure about intelligent. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, perhaps they are something other than intelligent! White jacket, padded room!

I must admit that I thought that Coen was a good hire especially given his track record at Lehigh and Penn as OC. He has shown that he could be creative and knew how to utilize the talent. That’s what makes the offense that we have seen for the past four years so friggin’ head scratching. The only conclusion one can draw is the Higgins and Bagnoli called the shots and defined the philosophy..

I agree that the post game interviews have been carbon copies of one another. He constantly states that he has to see the tapes to see how it went. Everyone else can see exactly what happened by watching the game.

The first Lehigh coach that I remember is Fred Dunlap. Without a doubt, Coen is the worst that I’ve lived through.

[RichHParticipant]

I started with Cooley, trust me he was the worst by many miles. Not all his fault i think LU gave him$10 to recruit. When Fred came in my last year. A drill sgt back then but his position coaches were great and he built a program that despite some bumps has prospered for 40 years.

Intelligence , I assume they are all college graduates . True tho, their production so far does bespeak of insanity. When I was in grad school, all my classmates were college grads but many did not have the common sense God gave cabbage

On recruiting Andy has done a very good job,great students and overall very good talent. He has as every coach before him lost out on many also. Was looking at my lists for last 3 yrs. Looking at kids we missed particularly speed kids came in 2nd on many. Shaw from Cal signed then took a track schollie from Pac10. 6’2" kid with blazing speed . Mills a very quick athlete signed as well took a schollie in Cal. Ah well. Kankam ,another,still at school just lost interest in football. We have a bunch of 4.5 4.6 wrs Flynn Spatola and Kablan only real speed kids. Without a n OC with a plan and some imagination, the O wont improve

[HistorianParticipant]

I have heard that Lehigh is no longer competitive when it comes to the assistant coaches’ salaries. For that matter, Coen is the only head football coach making less money than the head wrestling coach. Of course Santoro went 23-1 last season and beat Oklahoma State in a dual meet.

[RichHParticipant]

And this is Lehigh where Santoro’s salary is endowed as are the scholarships. We need to go aways before our football gets the same status.

[MLKParticipant]

Rich. Perhaps you could organize a petition on line to send to our Trustees and Alice P noting the disaffection caused by Lehigh’s cavalier approach to varsity athletics [ particularly Football ]. We seem to think the Athletic Partnership should pay for basics rather than be a supplement. I for one am tired of way out university programs and the dissing of athletics.

[RichHParticipant]

Gien the overall success of our athletic program , I would rather limit my anger to football.I Hope AD getting together his list for new HC, if needed. A call to Cecchini not a bad idea. Lets see what happens over next few weeks. Admit I am not optimistic at all.

[Author]

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