The Patriot League Is Broken. First, They Must Admit It.

[DFW HOYA]

At some point, does this league simply disband football and send everyone on their independent ways? It has become non-competitive.

[Sader87]

Holy Cross won at Yale today....

[Bogus Megapardus]

At some point, does this league simply disband football and send everyone on their independent ways?

Nope. xnonono2x

[DFW HOYA]

Nope. xnonono2x

It's become the Eastern version of the Pioneer League. Can it be fixed?

- - - Updated - - -

[Sader87]

HC, Fordham and Lafayette look to be of varying degrees decent this year...the rest of the league is a dumpstah fire right now.

[Digby]

Has Gilmore been fired yet?
I’d put $5 on fired tomorrow, announced Monday.
Fordham should leave the league. Georgetown should drop football.
Have at it!

[Digby]

If Lehigh fires Gilmore, he makes history as the first PL coach to be fired TWICE in mid season.
His hiring is a huge blot on Sterrett’s excellent career.
If he is fired, will Bucknell hire him?

[The Boogie Down]

Has Gilmore been fired yet?
I’d put $5 on fired tomorrow, announced Monday.
Fordham should leave the league. Georgetown should drop football.
Have at it!


If Lehigh fires Gilmore, he makes history as the first PL coach to be fired TWICE in mid season.
His hiring is a huge blot on Sterrett’s excellent career.
If he is fired, will Bucknell hire him?

I was tempted at bolding the whole thing since it's all guns blazing xlolx

But yeah, I hope Fordham's new administration (coming soon), decides to aim higher when it comes to football. As for Georgetown, I dunno... Despite the brand new and rather nice looking venue, it's almost the literal definition of too little too late. It's half the size as advertised and came in about 10 years after promised. They never singed up for scholarships, took a time out when everyone else in the league tried salvaging some sort of 2020 season and just have an overall perception of meeting every forward step with two back. I thought Georgetown was there in 2012. Thought they had a few moments since. None worked out. Bucknell looked like they had a bit of a moment last season too. Guess it's back to autopilot for them. At least Bucky will quietly (very quietly) field teams as long as Lehigh and Lafayette do the same. Even with the brand new little venue, not sure what Georgetown football's incentive is.

[Sader87]

Nobody is going anywhere btw.....where to? The CAA, NEC or Pioneer???

Holy Cross should be CAA-level given its football history, facilities, committment to football etc. but the school/admin is very sanguine with its PL membahship overall in toto.

It is what it is....get bettah or quit bitching.

[Digby]

The return on investment is low, in terms of quality on the field.

The actual ROI of a sport financially is hard to measure but it’s not a winner. Some link alumni support in general to football. Anecdotally, that connection is falling. In countable dollars and cents we know it’s a loser at most schools.

I am content with FCS ball. I’m content with getting whacked annually by a BCS team though I do not care for those games. It’s probably good for the program.

I am disgusted with the OOC failures. Not every year can be good but the PL is outclassed and that is with scholarships.

There is only ONE football season. There are not two, one where you get smacked about and another where you play in the baby pool.

[UNHWildcat18]

Nobody is going anywhere btw.....where to? The CAA, NEC or Pioneer???

Holy Cross should be CAA-level given its football history, facilities, committment to football etc. but the school/admin is very sanguine with its PL membahship overall in toto.

It is what it is....get bettah or quit bitching.

I agree, I root for HC to get better every year, I hope UNH schedules them more since BC and UmAss won’t even look our way.

[Sitting Bull]

The box says attendance at Colgate 1,135. I hope that’s a misprint.

[DFW HOYA]

The PL ends week 3 with a total of 3-17 (.150) in non-conference play. Or, to look at it another way, Holy Cross is 2-1 and everyone else is 1-16.

The league office can continue to ignore the usual low offensive numbers at Georgetown and Bucknell, but the outputs at Colgate and Lehigh are concerning. The two flagship programs of the modern PL have been outscored by a combined 212 to 16. That's a reflection of the rules that hinder the PL being competitive, namely, redshirts.

[The Boogie Down]

There is only ONE football season. There are not two, one where you get smacked about and another where you play in the baby pool.

You pointed this out in an earlier post and hafta admit that I had never realized how seamless the football season used to be. Before, playing Columbia and Yale seemed just as important as playing league games, even if they meant nothing in terms of PL standings. Now, no matter how much we get smacked around by the likes of Nebraska and FAU, it doesn't really matter. It's just getting us ready for the second season inside the baby pool.

OTOH, if the league as a whole was better, and if we could hang with the FBS the way the CAA often does, then it wouldn't feel like two separate seasons at all. It still wouldn't be exactly the same. It still wouldn't feel as organic as taking on the Ivies. But, if we were better, the season would feel more seamless. Especially if those FBS contests came against locals (like Syracuse, Rutgers, Temple, BC, the service academies) that we have some sort of history with.

[Digby]

When looking at the aggregate league record, to be fair we should exclude FBS losses and any game coached by Tom Gilmore.
These are no-contests.
It is a lot easier to get friends and neighbors to join me at games against the Ivies and some of the CAA, versus saying, “Hey let’s go see (fill in the blank, I don’t want to be rude to good fans).”

[clenz]

I member being told the Patriot getting scholarships would be a death sentence for many teams chances of winning playoff games and being ranked

I didn’t realize they meant the Patriot teams themselves when that was happening.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[caribbeanhen]

Is FCS becoming more split between the haves and the have nots

the Patriot, NEC, Pioneer, MEAC, SWAC, maybe the Ohio Valley are not really FCS level, I left out the Ivies because they are not really part of FCS

Big South Conference is on the fence

[Baron Sardonicus]

It's become the Eastern version of the Pioneer League.

It is not anything like the Pioneer. Cut Patriot League football budgets by 60 percent, and get a few more players in the NFL. Then you can make that analogy.

[The Boogie Down]

When looking at the aggregate league record, to be fair we should exclude FBS losses and any game coached by Tom Gilmore.
These are no-contests.
It is a lot easier to get friends and neighbors to join me at games against the Ivies and some of the CAA, versus saying, “Hey let’s go see (fill in the blank, I don’t want to be rude to good fans).”

There was a year when Fordham's entire non-conference was Ivy. That's a bit too much. Either way they decided not to schedule us as much. Or at all as has been the recent case.

But if we (the PL) could go back to 2 Ivies and throw in 1 FBS, 1 CAA (except for Albany, Stony Brook and Elon, all have some sort of history vs. the PL) and 1 NEC, then that would make for a solid OOC schedule for each/every PL team. Assuming we could get some W's that is. If not then, as DFW hinted, I'd prefer each of us going our separate ways to this endless run of being Patsy punchlines. Even if, realistically, the only two teams with any chance of ever leaving the PL are Fordham & Georgetown.

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

There was a year when Fordham's entire non-conference was Ivy. That's a bit too much. Either way they decided not to schedule us as much. Or at all as has been the recent case.

But if we (the PL) could go back to 2 Ivies and throw in 1 FBS, 1 CAA (except for Albany, Stony Brook and Elon, all have some sort of history vs. the PL) and 1 NEC, then that would make for a solid OOC schedule for each/every PL team. Assuming we could get some W's that is. If not then, as DFW hinted, I'd prefer each of us going our separate ways to this endless run of being Patsy punchlines. Even if, realistically, the only two teams with any chance of ever leaving the PL are Fordham & Georgetown.

Bison137 might say otherwise but perhaps Bucknell? Their administration does football ZERO favors. The whole thing as become an apathetic mess. Perhaps they're simply more likely to drop football than leave the PL? I honestly believe there's some relevance to this....

I personally would not be opposed to the PL dropping football as a sponsored sport IF the CAA would blow up at some point. I could see Lehigh and Lafayette joining up and COMMITTING to a quality conference with Villanova, SBU, Albany, Delaware, Towson, W&M and Richmond. That would could leave Colgate, Holy Cross, Fordham, UNH, Maine, URI, Monmouth, CCSU (?) in another COMMITTED, quality league? Obviously there would be a lot of OOC opportunities.

Something has to give imo. I'll be THAT guy and say Colgate and Lehigh sucking is doing the league no favors. We know those programs ceilings on a national level. Winning playoff games, Top 25 rankings, national awards (Colgate has TWO Payton winners) etc. They need to get their bleep together! But their problems are in many ways a microcosm of the league's; failed decisions/failed leadership/inability to navigate troubled waters.

It's a bleeping mess....

[Sader87]

Holy Cross is really the only PL football member with any history of D1 football relevance post WW2....Colgate has had a fine program but they play in the hinterlands of Central NY and really have nevah had any following.

Lehigh, Lafayette and Bucknell are all fine institutions...but they really were nevah D1 football programs.

Fordham and Georgetown had football at the D1 level decades ago but they both dropped out of major college football years ago and now rely on basketball as their signature sport.

It is what it is....Holy Cross is the one school in the Patriot League that was once relevant in D1 sports in both football and basketball and actually had a metro (greater Worcester) following....but we now play in the anonymity of the PL.

Point being, it's a different world today.....no one cares about the Lehigh-Colgate football game today, if they evah did.

The Patriot League is a mess athletically if having the right intentions academically. It basically gutted HC hoop and football....but that's where we are in college athletics today sadly.

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

Holy Cross is really the only PL football member with any history of D1 football relevance post WW2....Colgate has had a fine program but they play in the hinterlands of Central NY and really have nevah had any following.

Lehigh, Lafayette and Bucknell are all fine institutions...but they really were nevah D1 football programs.

Fordham and Georgetown had football at the D1 level decades ago but they both dropped out of major college football years ago and now rely on basketball as their signature sport.

It is what it is....Holy Cross is the one school in the Patriot League that was once relevant in D1 sports in both football and basketball and actually had a metro (greater Worcester) following....but we now play in the anonymity of the PL.

Point being, it's a different world today.....no one cares about the Lehigh-Colgate football game today, if they evah did.

The Patriot League is a mess athletically if having the right intentions academically. It basically gutted HC hoop and football....but that's where we are in college athletics today sadly.

Please look up the definition of D1....

Your perception of Holy Cross relative to other PL schools is skewed to say the least...

[Go Green]

Colgate had a nice run in the playoffs as recently as 2018.

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

Colgate had a nice run in the playoffs as recently as 2018.

Won two games in 2015 as well...

[BigBlueMU]

Bison137 might say otherwise but perhaps Bucknell? Their administration does football ZERO favors. The whole thing as become an apathetic mess. Perhaps they're simply more likely to drop football than leave the PL? I honestly believe there's some relevance to this....

I personally would not be opposed to the PL dropping football as a sponsored sport IF the CAA would blow up at some point. I could see Lehigh and Lafayette joining up and COMMITTING to a quality conference with Villanova, SBU, Albany, Delaware, Towson, W&M and Richmond. That would could leave Colgate, Holy Cross, Fordham, UNH, Maine, URI, Monmouth, CCSU (?) in another COMMITTED, quality league? Obviously there would be a lot of OOC opportunities.

Something has to give imo. I'll be THAT guy and say Colgate and Lehigh sucking is doing the league no favors. We know those programs ceilings on a national level. Winning playoff games, Top 25 rankings, national awards (Colgate has TWO Payton winners) etc. They need to get their bleep together! But their problems are in many ways a microcosm of the league's; failed decisions/failed leadership/inability to navigate troubled waters.

It's a bleeping mess....

I think Monmouth would jump on this in a heartbeat (Football only). I would love to see us play Albany and CCSU on the regular again. However, basketball would never leave the MAAC for something like this.

[NY Crusader 2010]

I think Monmouth would jump on this in a heartbeat (Football only). I would love to see us play Albany and CCSU on the regular again. However, basketball would never leave the MAAC for something like this.

No but you'd leave the MAAC in a heartbeat to become full members of the CAA. That should be the goal for Monmouth right now.

[Fordham]

Bison137 might say otherwise but perhaps Bucknell? Their administration does football ZERO favors. The whole thing as become an apathetic mess. Perhaps they're simply more likely to drop football than leave the PL? I honestly believe there's some relevance to this....

I personally would not be opposed to the PL dropping football as a sponsored sport IF the CAA would blow up at some point. I could see Lehigh and Lafayette joining up and COMMITTING to a quality conference with Villanova, SBU, Albany, Delaware, Towson, W&M and Richmond. That would could leave Colgate, Holy Cross, Fordham, UNH, Maine, URI, Monmouth, CCSU (?) in another COMMITTED, quality league? Obviously there would be a lot of OOC opportunities.

Something has to give imo. I'll be THAT guy and say Colgate and Lehigh sucking is doing the league no favors. We know those programs ceilings on a national level. Winning playoff games, Top 25 rankings, national awards (Colgate has TWO Payton winners) etc. They need to get their bleep together! But their problems are in many ways a microcosm of the league's; failed decisions/failed leadership/inability to navigate troubled waters.

It's a bleeping mess....

Agreed it's a mess. I actually think we have a legit team this year but our schedule is now beating us down alot.

That said, I'm trying to figure out what went wrong. Scholarships can't be to blame since the staff has the flexibility to recruit the same kids they did before scholarships PLUS those that they couldn't before. I think alot of it was that the PL did it so grudgingly that scholarships became the only thing they did and the marketplace changed without a peep from PL leadership. Ivies' financial aid increased dramatically to where they're supplying de facto scholarships to the top academic schools in the country. That's just huge. Other schools now offer schollies that didn't as well (eg - NEC) to provide more competition. All the while the PL does nothing to promote its brand in any professional way imo and has stood there getting passed by.

HC has shown it can compete. I think we're not that far from them and Lafayette has a good team after that as well. The rest of it is a worse than ever type mess but I don't see how aligning with state schools like Maine, Albany, URI, etc makes any sense for the Fordhams and Holy Crosses. It makes sense for Maine, UNH, et al but not for us imo.

[The Boogie Down]

Bison137 might say otherwise but perhaps Bucknell? Their administration does football ZERO favors. The whole thing as become an apathetic mess. Perhaps they're simply more likely to drop football than leave the PL? I honestly believe there's some relevance to this....

I personally would not be opposed to the PL dropping football as a sponsored sport IF the CAA would blow up at some point. I could see Lehigh and Lafayette joining up and COMMITTING to a quality conference with Villanova, SBU, Albany, Delaware, Towson, W&M and Richmond. That would could leave Colgate, Holy Cross, Fordham, UNH, Maine, URI, Monmouth, CCSU (?) in another COMMITTED, quality league? Obviously there would be a lot of OOC opportunities.

Something has to give imo. I'll be THAT guy and say Colgate and Lehigh sucking is doing the league no favors. We know those programs ceilings on a national level. Winning playoff games, Top 25 rankings, national awards (Colgate has TWO Payton winners) etc. They need to get their bleep together! But their problems are in many ways a microcosm of the league's; failed decisions/failed leadership/inability to navigate troubled waters.

It's a bleeping mess....

I agree that things are a bleeping mess. I also agree that aside from Colgate's two impressive runs (they beat James Madison each time), it's been a mess for 6/7 years now. Seriously, aside from those 2 Colgate runs we've seen nothing from this league. We literally have a Pioneer League guy on this thread goofing on us and yeah, there's no comeback from our end. And now things look worse than ever.

Has a league ever split apart because the whole thing sucked?

I kinda/sorta heard somewhere, don't know all the details, that at one point, what is now the Pac-12 briefly broke apart b/c none of the members were adhering to NCAA rules at the time. Could be off on that, but do know the league did break apart for a season or two.

If the mess continues that's what needs to happen here. Have the teams that care about football go in one direction and the teams that don't go another.

As for the CAA blowing up, well, not sure that would ever happen. Seems more inconceivable than the PL dropping football but if the CAA did break apart that would probably help to keep the PL together. Adding any CAA team to this collection, even the worst CAA or worst couple of CAA teams would only make the PL stronger as a whole.

[The Boogie Down]

Holy Cross is really the only PL football member with any history of D1 football relevance post WW2....Colgate has had a fine program but they play in the hinterlands of Central NY and really have nevah had any following.

Yeah, I never understood Colgate's lack of following. But on the field they do have a winning post-WW2 record vs. Holy Cross. Take out HC's glory decade (from the early '80s to early '90s), and the post-WW2 head-to-head isn't even all that close. So that kinda gives them relevance, no?

[TheRevSFA]

HC, Fordham and Lafayette look to be of varying degrees decent this year...the rest of the league is a dumpstah fire right now.

How do you lose to Merrimack after getting a FBS scalp?

[DFW HOYA]

I kinda/sorta heard somewhere, don't know all the details, that at one point, what is now the Pac-12 briefly broke apart b/c none of the members were adhering to NCAA rules at the time. Could be off on that, but do know the league did break apart for a season or two.

The Pacific Coast Conference (Washington, Washington St., Oregon, Oregon St. Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Idaho, Montana) broke up in 1960 when allegations of payments to players at UCLA were met with UCLA claiming USC did the same thing. Cal-Berkeley resigned in protest. Five of the schools then formed the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) in 1959 (Washington, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC) and the PCC dissolved. Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State were eventually admitted, while Idaho and Montana did not pursue membership. The AAWU became the Pacific-8 in 1968 and considers the history of the PCC and AAWU as its own.

[Sader87]

How do you lose to Merrimack after getting a FBS scalp?

Merrimack isn't bad, their QB is a Louisiana Tech transfer and was easily the best QB HC has faced so far (UConn and Yale). They nearly won at Maine this past weekend as well.

UConn is terrible.

That's your answer.

[Bill]

Agreed it's a mess. I actually think we have a legit team this year but our schedule is now beating us down alot.

That said, I'm trying to figure out what went wrong. Scholarships can't be to blame since the staff has the flexibility to recruit the same kids they did before scholarships PLUS those that they couldn't before. I think alot of it was that the PL did it so grudgingly that scholarships became the only thing they did and the marketplace changed without a peep from PL leadership. Ivies' financial aid increased dramatically to where they're supplying de facto scholarships to the top academic schools in the country. That's just huge. Other schools now offer schollies that didn't as well (eg - NEC) to provide more competition. All the while the PL does nothing to promote its brand in any professional way imo and has stood there getting passed by.

HC has shown it can compete. I think we're not that far from them and Lafayette has a good team after that as well. The rest of it is a worse than ever type mess but I don't see how aligning with state schools like Maine, Albany, URI, etc makes any sense for the Fordhams and Holy Crosses. It makes sense for Maine, UNH, et al but not for us imo.
Fordham,

You may have seen this in a different thread...but the IVY financial aid packages and rise of the NEC aside...it's coaching (and recruiting by those coaches). A few posters waxed poetically about the Lehigh, Lafayette, and Colgate staffs...I sure know that if Lehigh had scholarships in that 95ish-2004ish era, we very well could have actually won a title. All bias and nostalgia duly noted:D

[The Boogie Down]

The Pacific Coast Conference (Washington, Washington St., Oregon, Oregon St. Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Idaho, Montana) broke up in 1960 when allegations of payments to players at UCLA were met with UCLA claiming USC did the same thing. Cal-Berkeley resigned in protest. Five of the schools then formed the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) in 1959 (Washington, Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC) and the PCC dissolved. Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State were eventually admitted, while Idaho and Montana did not pursue membership. The AAWU became the Pacific-8 in 1968 and considers the history of the PCC and AAWU as its own.

So we just need one school to cheat and then rat out another to blow the whole thing up? Sounds like a plan!

[Pard4Life]

Lehigh has yet to score a TD this year. Of course the Patriot League is broken and nobody else is worth a d__n.

[TheValleyRaider]

I think there are two elements to this, the League itself and the individual institutions
The League's restrictions on things like roster size and the AI (while they are agreed upon by the members) don't help. Add into that the improvement in local competitors (Ivy, NEC, CAA), we are at best standing still

As for the institutions, I think you can really organize them into three tiers:
- Georgetown has always been a step behind the rest of the League in terms of support, and Bucknell clearly doesn't care about football.

- Lafayette is definitely a level up in some respects, certainly in regards to football, but how much I'm not sure. My impression from the outside is that there are a lot of behind-the-scenes struggles that are going to impact athletics in general, plus it seems like a department that is too chummy with its coaches (Tavani, Fran O'Hanlon). It wouldn't take much, I think, for them to step up, but that's about getting internal priorities straight
- I sort of feel the same way about Holy Cross, though that is changing in recent years. Chesney was a good hire, but what will they do when he leaves? It seems like they are moving in the right direction, but HC was also the school that led the charge for the League back in the 1980s. The Crusaders look good now, but have also never won a playoff game.
--Those two programs, by the way, have combined to win 11 total PL titles in all sports over the past decade (2011/12-2020/21 school years); Colgate has won 19 and Lehigh 24 in that same stretch (I counted RS and Tournament titles as one when they were swept). Whatever issues exist in their athletics departments are not football-exclusive.

That leaves Lehigh, Colgate, and Fordham in probably the upper tier.
- Colgate and Lehigh are very similar to one another, and like Owl points out are the two flagship programs for the League. Their weakness (best exemplified by this Saturday's Saddest PL Pillow Fight) is hurting the League externally. Both, though, take athletics seriously, even if not quite as much as their fanbases might like, and both are in an extended funk.
-- Lehigh's strikes me as coaching-based, first with Coen's decline (hope he is doing well) and the hiring of Gilmore (defensible if not exciting at the time, pretty much inexcusable at this point). The right hire to follow Gilmore could revitalize them quickly.
-- Not sure what is happening at Colgate. Hunt was very up and down, seems like a lot of groundwork needed to be laid down before the big runs in 2015 and 2018. It is great the program has such a strong tradition and culture, but I wonder if we might have benefited from bringing a few more people from outside the family for some refreshment. The administration and athletics department are both saying all the right things about supporting and improving athletics, and it shows in many other sports (hello Women's Hockey and Men's Basketball). The two highest profile sports, though, are struggling (Football and Men's Hockey).
- Fordham is somewhat a class by themselves, being full members of the A-10 for other sports while still putting emphasis on Football. All programs are dependent on coaching, and the Rams are the most obvious example, going from highs to lows pretty cyclically. Given they aren't full members, to me Fordham is the greatest flight risk if, say, the CAA called after JMU joins the Sun Belt. Would any of the other five risk blowing up the League? I'm skeptical.

A bit of a ramble, but I think my larger point is that I am less concerned about the League's overall vision (such as it is) then I am about the individual visions of each school. If they can't get on a more similar plane, nothing that comes out of Center Valley is going to matter.

[Pard4Life]

I think Lafayette took a big step forward by our new President putting the athletic director in her cabinet. Also, our President is from UVA. We have not had a DI President since... ?

[Digby]

Lousy league. Great conversation.
The Gilmore hiring was always odd. How many PL football coaches get fired in mid-season and not long after a good win?
As for Lafayette, the school falls in love with losing coaches. There are otherwise intelligent people who think O’Hanlon is the John Wooden of the East Coast. Lose, lose, lose.
Maybe just four years ago I was at a very good game in Lewisburg. I can’t imagine making that trip now.
Ex-Colgate Coach Hunt has as many wins as almost every other league coach this year.
These are times that try men’s souls.
I am still a PL fan. I’m just not in denial.

[Sader87]

Ironically, the PL nee Colonial League started out as a "football only" league in 1986...hard to believe given the current circumstances.

[The Boogie Down]

As for the institutions, I think you can really organize them into three tiers:
- Georgetown has always been a step behind the rest of the League in terms of support, and Bucknell clearly doesn't care about football.

- Lafayette is definitely a level up in some respects, certainly in regards to football, but how much I'm not sure. My impression from the outside is that there are a lot of behind-the-scenes struggles that are going to impact athletics in general, plus it seems like a department that is too chummy with its coaches (Tavani, Fran O'Hanlon). It wouldn't take much, I think, for them to step up, but that's about getting internal priorities straight
- I sort of feel the same way about Holy Cross, though that is changing in recent years. Chesney was a good hire, but what will they do when he leaves? It seems like they are moving in the right direction, but HC was also the school that led the charge for the League back in the 1980s. The Crusaders look good now, but have also never won a playoff game.
--Those two programs, by the way, have combined to win 11 total PL titles in all sports over the past decade (2011/12-2020/21 school years); Colgate has won 19 and Lehigh 24 in that same stretch (I counted RS and Tournament titles as one when they were swept). Whatever issues exist in their athletics departments are not football-exclusive.

That leaves Lehigh, Colgate, and Fordham in probably the upper tier.
- Colgate and Lehigh are very similar to one another, and like Owl points out are the two flagship programs for the League. Their weakness (best exemplified by this Saturday's Saddest PL Pillow Fight) is hurting the League externally. Both, though, take athletics seriously, even if not quite as much as their fanbases might like, and both are in an extended funk.
-- Lehigh's strikes me as coaching-based, first with Coen's decline (hope he is doing well) and the hiring of Gilmore (defensible if not exciting at the time, pretty much inexcusable at this point). The right hire to follow Gilmore could revitalize them quickly.
-- Not sure what is happening at Colgate. Hunt was very up and down, seems like a lot of groundwork needed to be laid down before the big runs in 2015 and 2018. It is great the program has such a strong tradition and culture, but I wonder if we might have benefited from bringing a few more people from outside the family for some refreshment. The administration and athletics department are both saying all the right things about supporting and improving athletics, and it shows in many other sports (hello Women's Hockey and Men's Basketball). The two highest profile sports, though, are struggling (Football and Men's Hockey).
- Fordham is somewhat a class by themselves, being full members of the A-10 for other sports while still putting emphasis on Football. All programs are dependent on coaching, and the Rams are the most obvious example, going from highs to lows pretty cyclically. Given they aren't full members, to me Fordham is the greatest flight risk if, say, the CAA called after JMU joins the Sun Belt. Would any of the other five risk blowing up the League? I'm skeptical.
Great post. Love the breakdown showing how it's not just a generic "PL Sucks" thing, but individual players all doing their own part to bring in all that suck. My one and only disagreement is that, to me, Gilmore never seemed like a defensible pick. Didn't anyone making the hire read ANY of Sader's anti-Gilmore rants over his last few years up in Woostah?


Ex-Colgate Coach Hunt has as many wins as almost every other league coach this year.
Not sure if I'm here for the griping or the one-liners but yes, great convo all the same.


Ironically, the PL nee Colonial League started out as a "football only" league in 1986...hard to believe given the current circumstances.
Ahhh, the irony.

[Go Green]

So we just need one school to cheat and then rat out another to blow the whole thing up? Sounds like a plan!

That's pretty close to what happened to the old SWC. But be careful what you wish for--not everyone landed on their feet after it got blown up.

[TheValleyRaider]

My one and only disagreement is that, to me, Gilmore never seemed like a defensible pick.

I thought that might get a reaction xlolx

Gilmore is not the guy I would have hired, as I think Lehigh can (and could have) done better, but in his defense:
- He had a League title under his belt
- The early part of his time at HC was quite good. The Crusaders had 1 winning season in the 11 years before he was hired. He had a winning record in his second year (the first of seven in a row), and that title in year #5
- Between 1992 (the year after their last PL title) and 2016 (Gilmore's last full season), HC has 10 winning seasons, 8 under Gilmore. That's a decent resume (even if things had slipped quite a bit since 2009)
- Add to that his previous time with Lehigh, which went well enough to get him hired somewhere else

If you are Lehigh, you can talk yourself into a coach that knows your school and the league, and had success at a program with less of a commitment to football. Sure things fell apart at the end, but sometimes guys just lose steam, need a change of scene, you know?

[Bogus Megapardus]

Lehigh always could have gone with Frank Tavani . . .

But seriously, I can hardly believe I'm reading all of this.

[Mocs123]

What has caused it to be broken? Not that I know anything about the league but I understand that you offer 60 scholarships instead of 63. I'm not sure I understand that - might as well let schools offer the full 63 but that shouldn't make you uncompetitive. I know you don't do redshirts, which can hurt. I assume this is because most PL schools don't have a graduate school.

The bigger challenge, one the root causes are identified, is how do you fix it?

[NY Crusader 2010]

I think there are two elements to this, the League itself and the individual institutions
The League's restrictions on things like roster size and the AI (while they are agreed upon by the members) don't help. Add into that the improvement in local competitors (Ivy, NEC, CAA), we are at best standing still

As for the institutions, I think you can really organize them into three tiers:
- Georgetown has always been a step behind the rest of the League in terms of support, and Bucknell clearly doesn't care about football.

- Lafayette is definitely a level up in some respects, certainly in regards to football, but how much I'm not sure. My impression from the outside is that there are a lot of behind-the-scenes struggles that are going to impact athletics in general, plus it seems like a department that is too chummy with its coaches (Tavani, Fran O'Hanlon). It wouldn't take much, I think, for them to step up, but that's about getting internal priorities straight
- I sort of feel the same way about Holy Cross, though that is changing in recent years. Chesney was a good hire, but what will they do when he leaves? It seems like they are moving in the right direction, but HC was also the school that led the charge for the League back in the 1980s. The Crusaders look good now, but have also never won a playoff game.
--Those two programs, by the way, have combined to win 11 total PL titles in all sports over the past decade (2011/12-2020/21 school years); Colgate has won 19 and Lehigh 24 in that same stretch (I counted RS and Tournament titles as one when they were swept). Whatever issues exist in their athletics departments are not football-exclusive.

That leaves Lehigh, Colgate, and Fordham in probably the upper tier.
- Colgate and Lehigh are very similar to one another, and like Owl points out are the two flagship programs for the League. Their weakness (best exemplified by this Saturday's Saddest PL Pillow Fight) is hurting the League externally. Both, though, take athletics seriously, even if not quite as much as their fanbases might like, and both are in an extended funk.
-- Lehigh's strikes me as coaching-based, first with Coen's decline (hope he is doing well) and the hiring of Gilmore (defensible if not exciting at the time, pretty much inexcusable at this point). The right hire to follow Gilmore could revitalize them quickly.
-- Not sure what is happening at Colgate. Hunt was very up and down, seems like a lot of groundwork needed to be laid down before the big runs in 2015 and 2018. It is great the program has such a strong tradition and culture, but I wonder if we might have benefited from bringing a few more people from outside the family for some refreshment. The administration and athletics department are both saying all the right things about supporting and improving athletics, and it shows in many other sports (hello Women's Hockey and Men's Basketball). The two highest profile sports, though, are struggling (Football and Men's Hockey).
- Fordham is somewhat a class by themselves, being full members of the A-10 for other sports while still putting emphasis on Football. All programs are dependent on coaching, and the Rams are the most obvious example, going from highs to lows pretty cyclically. Given they aren't full members, to me Fordham is the greatest flight risk if, say, the CAA called after JMU joins the Sun Belt. Would any of the other five risk blowing up the League? I'm skeptical.

A bit of a ramble, but I think my larger point is that I am less concerned about the League's overall vision (such as it is) then I am about the individual visions of each school. If they can't get on a more similar plane, nothing that comes out of Center Valley is going to matter.

Holy Cross and Lafayette largely follow the "participation model" when it comes to minor sports. Very little scholarship money and a lot of what I would call "walk-on" teams where most members were lightly recruited if at all.

But this doesn't really matter -- I can't speak for Lafayette but the focus at Holy Cross as far as budget, dollars and commitment to winning is honed on M/W Basketball, Football and M/W Hockey. Find a way to expand out to commit to being competitive in M/W Lacrosse, Baseball and M/W Soccer and that's gravy. If we're winning/competitive in this portion of the athletic dept., I could care less if the swim team gets nipped by WPI in the Worcester City Championship meet or if the tennis and golf teams perform at a NESCAC-level.

[clenz]

What has caused it to be broken? Not that I know anything about the league but I understand that you offer 60 scholarships instead of 63. I'm not sure I understand that - might as well let schools offer the full 63 but that shouldn't make you uncompetitive. I know you don't do redshirts, which can hurt. I assume this is because most PL schools don't have a graduate school.

The bigger challenge, one the root causes are identified, is how do you fix it?
You don't need a graduate program to have a kid in school five years. The way universities have gone it very difficult to graduate in 4 years. Across the national the average time to graduate with an associates degree (a 2 year degree) is 3.3 years. The average length of a bachelor degree is 5.1.

Lack of redshirting players is absolutely killer. Teams are rolling 22 or 23 year olds out against their 18 year olds

It's not the end of the world to give a kid 4.5 years to graduate

It doesn't make your precious academics any less prestigious.

[Mocs123]

Why don't they allow redshirts then? Is it because they want to be more like the Ivy?

[Sader87]

Holy Cross and Lafayette largely follow the "participation model" when it comes to minor sports. Very little scholarship money and a lot of what I would call "walk-on" teams where most members were lightly recruited if at all.

But this doesn't really matter -- I can't speak for Lafayette but the focus at Holy Cross as far as budget, dollars and commitment to winning is honed on M/W Basketball, Football and M/W Hockey. Find a way to expand out to commit to being competitive in M/W Lacrosse, Baseball and M/W Soccer and that's gravy. If we're winning/competitive in this portion of the athletic dept., I could care less if the swim team gets nipped by WPI in the Worcester City Championship meet or if the tennis and golf teams perform at a NESCAC-level.

HC was basically just D1 in football, basketball, baseball and maybe track when I attended in the 80s. The other sports basically played in a hodge-podge of D2 or D3 leagues, independent schedules etc. then.

The Dayton Rule, Title IX, joining the PL/Colonial League etc, for bettah or worse, sort of "flattened out" the HC athletic department. Raising the profile of many sports at HC but lowering the profile of the more high-profile programs like football and men's basketball.

The only solution, as the school seems very committed to being in the PL, is to try and improve each sport on a team-by-team basis... i.e. bettah hiring of coaches, more committment/resources to programs etc.

For football, putting the PL on a more "level-playing field" with the MVFCs. CAAs of the world...the league has to allow for the full 63 scholarships, allow some form of red-shirting and eliminate rostah limits. Until we do this, the league will be much closer to the Pioneers, MEACs etc of the world than at the top half or so of the FCS world.

[crusader11]

You don't need a graduate program to have a kid in school five years. The way universities have gone it very difficult to graduate in 4 years. Across the national the average time to graduate with an associates degree (a 2 year degree) is 3.3 years. The average length of a bachelor degree is 5.1.

Lack of redshirting players is absolutely killer. Teams are rolling 22 or 23 year olds out against their 18 year olds

It's not the end of the world to give a kid 4.5 years to graduate

It doesn't make your precious academics any less prestigious.

Philosophical differences.

Holy Cross' four-year graduation rate is 91%. I imagine other PL schools are somewhere in the 85% - 92% range (Fordham may be lower and would probably be best positioned to institute redshirts).

PL schools don't want to have a number of football kids spending five years on campus while everyone else is just on for four years. Some schools, which have grad programs, would be better to handle redshirts than others. I know at Holy Cross, if a kid is going to take a medical redshirt, there are a couple of hoops that need to be jumped through -- 1) pick up a double major, 2) take a semester off during the year in which you aren't playing.

I don't see the PL budging on the redshirt issue, despite it definitely being what is handcuffing them more than anything.

I'm not sure what the reason is for staying at 60 scholarships, rather than going up to 63.

It's still perplexing to me though -- why was the PL pretty competitive nationally in the non-scholarship era and occasionally sending two teams to the playoffs and now they are in the bottom four leagues?

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

Philosophical differences.

Holy Cross' four-year graduation rate is 91%. I imagine other PL schools are somewhere in the 85% - 92% range (Fordham may be lower and would probably be best positioned to institute redshirts).

PL schools don't want to have a number of football kids spending five years on campus while everyone else is just on for four years. Some schools, which have grad programs, would be better to handle redshirts than others. I know at Holy Cross, if a kid is going to take a medical redshirt, there are a couple of hoops that need to be jumped through -- 1) pick up a double major, 2) take a semester off during the year in which you aren't playing.

I don't see the PL budging on the redshirt issue, despite it definitely being what is handcuffing them more than anything.

I'm not sure what the reason is for staying at 60 scholarships, rather than going up to 63.

It's still perplexing to me though -- why was the PL pretty competitive nationally in the non-scholarship era and occasionally sending two teams to the playoffs and now they are in the bottom four leagues?

Bucknell's really good kicker (Pechin?) was the Bison's first ever 5th year player iirc! That includes medical redshirts!

[Sader87]

Philosophical differences.

Holy Cross' four-year graduation rate is 91%. I imagine other PL schools are somewhere in the 85% - 92% range (Fordham may be lower and would probably be best positioned to institute redshirts).

PL schools don't want to have a number of football kids spending five years on campus while everyone else is just on for four years. Some schools, which have grad programs, would be better to handle redshirts than others. I know at Holy Cross, if a kid is going to take a medical redshirt, there are a couple of hoops that need to be jumped through -- 1) pick up a double major, 2) take a semester off during the year in which you aren't playing.

I don't see the PL budging on the redshirt issue, despite it definitely being what is handcuffing them more than anything.

I'm not sure what the reason is for staying at 60 scholarships, rather than going up to 63.

It's still perplexing to me though -- why was the PL pretty competitive nationally in the non-scholarship era and occasionally sending two teams to the playoffs and now they are in the bottom four leagues?

Probably not the whole story, but both the rise of the NEC (talent drain in the Northeast and elsewhere) and the Ivies raising their financial-aid committment (thus recruiting/taking players that may have gone PL before) have hurt a lot.....probably the latter moreso than the formah here.

It's kinda interesting....Holy Cross nevah seemed to have a "good feel" for recruiting in the non-scholarship era after having been a scholarship program for decades. Likewise, the other PL schools nevah had full scholarship football during the past 60 or so years, and many of them are now struggling with having scholarships.

At the very least, if this futility continues on (which it definitely will this season), there needs to be some sort of PL football competiveness group/forum established soon.

[crusader11]

At the very least, if this futility continues on (which it definitely will this season), there needs to be some sort of PL football competiveness group/forum established soon.

Should we just send Jennifer Heppel in Center Valley this thread? Or maybe organize a roundtable conversation with the dozen guys on this board who have the questionable hobby of closely following PL football?

[Lehigh Football Nation]

DFW is right. I've posted a bunch of articles detailing why.

Before you just dismiss it as a "Lehigh sucks" problem, it's not just Lehigh.

https://www.college-sports-journal.com/what-is-going-on-with-patriot-league-football/

https://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com/2021/09/competitive-disadvantage.html


2015 was not only notable for its playoff success - it also featured four teams who finished above .500. Fordham won the Patriot League with a 9-2 record, while Colgate made it as an at-large team at 7-4. Lehigh (6-5) and Holy Cross (6-5) had plenty to be optimistic about, too, for the future.

But since then, the Patriot League as a whole suffered a surge of uncompetitiveness against the rest of the FCS. This is reflected in the number of teams who finished over .500 for the year after the epic 2015 season.


2016: 2 (with Colgate finishing 5-5), Top Team Lehigh (9-3)
2017: 1, Colgate, (7-4, did not win league)
2018: 1, Colgate (10-2)
2019: 1, Holy Cross, 7-5)
Spring 2021: * (Patriot League only played each other; 3-1 Holy Cross lost to Monmouth in the only out-of-conference game)


The fall 2021 season seems destined to follow a similar trajectory as the last four fall seasons, one, or perhaps zero, teams finishing above .500.

The competitiveness of the Patriot League overall has been in steady decline since 2015. Sure, in 2018 Colgate still had a terrific team, mostly comprised of pre-2015 players and an above-average number of 5th years (for a PL school). But if you subtract them out, the entire league hasn't been competitive on the national stage.

You can read the articles if you want for a fuller explanation, but the cliffs notes are that the straitjacket of no redshirting and limited roster sizes are basically forcing PL teams to play too many true underclassmen vs. other FCS teams. Meanwhile, thanks to policy changes and an expansion of the redshirting rules, PL teams find themselves facing FCS teams with loads of redshirt and 5th years out-of-conference.

When only 1 team finishes over .500 in your conference for three consecutive years (including one year when a sub-.500 team won the title), there is by definition a problem in plain sight.

[fillfittonfield]

If you look at the history of the PL, it seems that big changes only occur when one school decides to “break the rules.”

For example, basketball scholarships were not permitted in the league until Holy Cross announced in 1998 that they were going to bring them back. What happened next? All the league members started bringing back scholarships within the next several years.

Fordham started giving scholarships over a decade ago in football. What happened next? All the league members (except Georgetown) brought them back in the following 5 years.

This league is run by the Presidents, not by the ADs. The Presidents will only take action on athletics when there is significant alumni/ae pressure.

The solution? One school Prez needs to lead the way and announce 1) they are moving to 63 scholarships and 2) will start permitting some sort of redshirt/5th year framework. When this happens, the rest of the schools will eventually follow (except Georgetown…and maybe Bucknell).

Based on history, either Fordham or Holy Cross needs to take this first step…

[Lehigh Football Nation]

If you look at the history of the PL, it seems that big changes only occur when one school decides to “break the rules.”

For example, basketball scholarships were not permitted in the league until Holy Cross announced in 1998 that they were going to bring them back. What happened next? All the league members started bringing back scholarships within the next several years.

Fordham started giving scholarships over a decade ago in football. What happened next? All the league members (except Georgetown) brought them back in the following 5 years.

This league is run by the Presidents, not by the ADs. The Presidents will only take action on athletics when there is significant alumni/ae pressure.

The solution? One school Prez needs to lead the way and announce 1) they are moving to 63 scholarships and 2) will start permitting some sort of redshirt/5th year framework. When this happens, the rest of the schools will eventually follow (except Georgetown…and maybe Bucknell).

Based on history, either Fordham or Holy Cross needs to take this first step…

It won't be Lehigh, but I wish they would.

[Digby]

Three more scholarships will not change anything. Look at these scores.
As far as redshirting, just my opinion, it will never happen in this league and it shouldn’t.
I don’t pretend to have any solutions. This year is mind-boggling.

[NY Crusader 2010]

Three more scholarships will not change anything. Look at these scores.
As far as redshirting, just my opinion, it will never happen in this league and it shouldn’t.
I don’t pretend to have any solutions. This year is mind-boggling.

I agree that the extra three scholarships (<1 guy per class) aren't going to magically change anything. IMO, you have three options:

1) Eliminate the AI and allow individual schools to make their own admissions decisions regarding athletes.
2) Allow non-medical red-shirting. This will make the biggest difference. Having your senior class full of guys who are 23 years old, with an extra year of strength and conditioning under their belts, makes a difference. And no, allowing these guys to take 3 less credit hours / semester and graduate in 9 semesters as opposed to 8 will not academically dilute any of the league's schools. Right now, it's almost as if you hope your top players get injured as freshmen so they can get that 5th year medical. Dumb system.
3) Have some level of imagination when it comes to conference expansion, at least for football (might have to combine this idea with the AI). Monmouth begged to be let into the PL in 2013 and were scoffed at. Do you think anyone in Lehigh Valley would think about the idea of bringing in Merrimack as an all-sports member? Of course not, and in 3 years they'll have a better overall athletic program than anyone in our conference outside of the service academies. Duquesne should've been added as a football affiliate years ago back when they were the only program in the MAAC with a pulse.

I think the league's downfall has a lot to do with the rise of the bottom half of the Ivy League. When I was in school, the Ivy League was basically Harvard, Yale and Penn. Everyone else was basically the equivalent of Bucknell. No longer the case. I know the NEC has gotten a lot stronger, as well as other programs in the Northeast (Monmouth, Albany, Stony Brook) since then but you've also had schools like Northeastern and Hofstra drop football. With our academic pedigree, are we really going head to head for the same offers/recruits as Duquesne, CCSU and Sacred Heart? I don't follow recruiting like that so I don't know. My opinion is that the downfall of the PL and the rise of the NEC are two separate things. And I'm happy for the NEC. More relevant FCS football in the area is a good thing.

[Digby]

Scholarships were going to make all the difference in basketball. We actually got worse (Lafayette perspective).

Scholarships were going to make the league relevant in football.
Yeah.

Adding Loyola was going to make the entire league better in lacrosse. Maybe.

Football expansion is sort of the “third rail” of league chat. I’m all for it and Duquesne would have been a good addition and I’d take Monmouth, but the topic was beaten to death years ago. But yes we need it.

Are we the last generation? A bunch of mostly old guys? Probably, and the schools know this.

I’ll go to some games this year and enjoy the atmosphere and the fine fall weather and beautiful campuses and accept that yes, this is what I got. I signed up for this almost 45
years ago. So be it.

Good luck out there!

[Lehigh Football Nation]

Have some level of imagination when it comes to conference expansion

Although this is needed and desired, no institution of higher learning in America will accept the current straitjacket the league members are in in football, IMO.

[Digby]

If Gilmore is not removed by 4 pm today, the Lehigh football program is in worse shape than we already knew.
Please, please keep him!