The only team that managed to defeat the NCAA Division III national football champion this past season came from the Landmark Conference.

Not a bad reputation for a league that has played exactly one season of football.

It was a landmark (pun intended) opening season of play on the gridiron for the Landmark Conference, which crowned a league football champion for the first time in 2023. Now, with the opening jitters shaken away, a second season is on the horizon for Landmark teams this fall — and they’re ready to get rolling in preparation for the second go-round.

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The league’s media day, held this week, brought some of the stars and main figures from every Landmark team together on the Susquehanna University campus to chat about all that needs to be chatted about ahead of the 2024 season.

What it all resulted in was plenty of commotion and conversations about where the future outlook of the league may go next.

Here’s a look at some of the major takeaways that were unraveled at the Landmark Conference’s Football Media Day:

‘It’s Going to Be Personal’ For Susquehanna

One of Susquehanna football’s most exciting victories of the 2023 season came when it went on the road to defeat then No. 10-ranked Cortland in nonconference play Sept. 16, scoring 17 unanswered points in the final 4:09 of game time to escape with a wild comeback 38-35 win. 

The River Hawks went on to win the Landmark Conference in its inaugural season with an unbeaten 10-0 regular-season record but were eliminated in the first round of the D-III playoffs by Grove City College after the Wolverines scored a game-winning touchdown with seconds left.

That same Cortland team SU took down months earlier, meanwhile, went on to win the national title with its defeat to the River Hawks being the Red Dragons’ only blemish on a 14-1 record.

Coach Tom Perkovich and his program watched Cortland’s playoff run and knew that it could’ve been them, as he told FloFootball in January. But the good news for Susquehanna, however, is that much of the same core is back to try and finally get the River Hawks to the promised land.

“They’ve come back in a great way this offseason,” Perkovich said of his team at Landmark Conference Media Day. “We’ve got a lot of people back, lot of guys that are in their senior or fifth year coming back that want to continue to take our program to new heights.”

Perkovich told FloFootball in January that as many as 18 of a possible 22 starters on both sides of the ball could be returning for 2024, and some of the biggest names of that bunch like reigning Landmark Offensive Player of the Year and wideout Kyle Howes, Second Team All-Landmark quarterback Josh Ehrlich and First Team All-Landmark running back Tommy Grabowski are indeed listed on the program’s 2024 roster. Those three players make up part of the 13 All-Landmark returners that the River Hawks get back, as well, a group which includes leading tackler Drew Robinson (72 total tackles) and sack leader Garrett Carter (five sacks).

Tommy Grabowski, became the first player in the Landmark conference to earn 1,000 rushing yards in a season.

Grabowski set the tenth 1,000-yard rushing season in Susquehanna history with 1,005 yards, his season best of 144 yards was against Keystone on Oct. 7. #LandmarkFB pic.twitter.com/6i9EZ2Xj49

— FloFootball (@FloFootball) January 25, 2024

The heavy favorite to make it back-to-back Landmark titles, SU is the league’s only team ranked in D3football.com’s Preseason Top 25 poll (at No. 12) and will get to rematch with No. 2 Cortland at home on Sept. 21 in a titanic clash that will be streamed live and exclusively on FloFootball. 

Landmark play starts Oct. 5 at Catholic, and from there, the mission is simple for Susquehanna: dominate the league, clinch the playoff auto-bid, and make a run for the top of the D-III table.

“The culture around here at Susquehanna that we’ve built from the ground up just makes me not want to leave this place,” Robinson said at media day. “For me to be in my fifth year is just crazy to say. But I think this last season, it’s going to be personal.”

Was Lycoming’s Late Surge a Sign?

Here’s a trivia question for you: Which current Landmark team was the last program now part of the conference to make a D-III football national championship game?

The answer is Lycoming, which last made the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl in 1997 as one of the victims of Mount Union’s reign of terror atop D-III from 1996-2002, when the Purple Raiders won six national titles in seven seasons.

The point is that Lycoming has been among the D-III elites before, and somewhat recently, too. A second-place ranking in the Landmark’s Preseason Coaches’ Poll certainly helps the Warriors’ reputation across the league as being a program trending on the up after a strong close to the 2023 season.

“Starting off slow can be challenging, getting the guys together and stuff like that,” returning Lycoming quarterback Will Fish said at media day. “We really just had to rally up and get it together. We wanted to make the end of our season more meaningful and so we ended up having an approach of (how) you’ve just got to take it one game at a time, chip away from there.”

When Fish says that Lycoming started off slow, that may be understating it a bit.

The Warriors were battered and beaten all over during their 0-5 start a season ago, losing 62-7 against Cortland and 59-3 against Brockport in nonconference play before dropping their Landmark opener to Wilkes. 

Faced with a potential dumpster fire of a season, Lycoming rebounded strong and went on to win its next four games (all in Landmark play) to make it a de-facto conference championship game in its regular-season finale against Susquehanna, which the River Hawks went on to win. The Warriors’ season didn’t end there, however, as they were invited to and won the Cape Charles Bowl in November over Washington & Lee.

A total of 10 All-Landmark names are back for the Warriors as they’ll attempt to turn all of the momentum they acquired in the second half of last season into sustained success, though there’s undoubtedly a gap to the River Hawks that they’ll need to make up to contend for the league crown. Still, it’s a young and hungry group with a lot to prove, with only three of those All-Landmark picks being incoming seniors.

“I certainly feel proud,” Lycoming head coach Mike Clark said. “Last year was hard … Changing some things, it mattered, but at the end of the day you’ve got to keep working.

“You have to just keep working. You have to take responsibility and be accountable for your actions and you have to know that there are standards, and if there aren’t, what are you really trying to do? … I love our guys, I think we have the right kind of players on our team (and) I also think we have more talent.”

Moravian’s Lethal Aerial Attack

In a league where rushing attacks are often the most dangerous types of offenses, Jared Jenkins and Moravian bucked that trend a season ago.

The conference’s reigning First Team All-Landmark quarterback and passing yardage leader (2,737 yards) is back under center this fall for the Greyhounds, who showed promise with a 3-0 start to Landmark play but faded late to end the 2024 season with three straight defeats.

Still, no one gave Susquehanna a tougher game in the Landmark than Moravian last season as the Greyhounds were eventually cast aside 33-14, and with a third-place spot in the conference’s Preseason Coaches’ Poll entering this year, perhaps others across the league are keeping tabs on Moravian as a potential spoiler with a signal-caller who can sling it.

“I think we got a little complacent last year toward the middle of the season, that’s why we kind of tapered off a little bit at the end,” Jenkins said. “We’ve been hungry ever since the last game to kind of get back and kind of redeem ourselves a little bit. But I think I grew a lot as a leader on the field last year. I think I need to take another step for the offense in that respect, I think that’s the most important part about being a captain and quarterback.”

That growth and taking of another step from Jenkins may prove crucial to how successful the Greyhounds’ season ends up being because while the hometown kid from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania did lead the Landmark in passing touchdowns with 26, he also led the league in interceptions with 14. 

His top wideout (and the Landmark’s best-receiving threat at all) from last season, Jordan Bingham, is now gone, as well, with him being among the major holes to fill for second-year coach Jeffrey Long Jr. and his staff to figure out. And with no seasons over .500 since 2015 plus a tough nonconference slate featuring No. 21 Muhlenberg and two bowl qualifiers in Utica and Hobart, there will undoubtedly be an uphill climb ahead for the Greyhounds this fall.

Who ya got? 🤔#LandmarkFB | @LandmarkConf pic.twitter.com/7jMaCmYdsP

— FloFootball (@FloFootball) July 30, 2024

Long appeared and sounded cool and calm at media day going into his second year, however, and Moravian will be ready to test itself against its gauntlet of a schedule after he was encouraged by what his program showed during the spring.

“Anytime (in) Year 1, if you think you have all the answers, you’re dead wrong,” Long said. “We’re learning every day, I try to pride myself on being ready to learn every day. … Developing a standard that we’re going to consistently raise each day, I think that was exciting to see at times last year. Consistency now is the goal; we showed flashes of really great things on the field, but then couldn’t finish the job in some aspects. So we’re now locked into that.”

Wilkes, Catholic Look To Find Footings

With just a few plays of difference here and there, Wilkes and Catholic could’ve been higher up the Landmark’s pecking order in the league’s debut football season.

Instead, the Colonels and Cardinals, respectively, had to settle for middle-of-the-road placements in the league standings — exactly where each ended up in the conference’s Preseason Coaches’ Poll headed into this upcoming campaign, too.

Wilkes is projected to finish fourth and Catholic fifth in the league this season, with both programs looking to go forward after they each entered the Landmark off of the backs of winning seasons in 2022, only to be just short of going over .500 both ways in 2023.

The Colonels, who finished 5-6 in their first losing season since 2017, will be in a unique situation this season as the only Landmark football program with a new coach. Ex-coach Jon Drach, who left for the same role at Union after taking Wilkes to a win in the Chesapeake Bowl Challenge over Bridgewater College, has been succeeded by David Biever, a Colonels assistant under multiple coaches for a decade.

Raring to go in his rookie season as a college head coach, Biever is looking to take what he’s learned from Drach and expand on it to help drive Wilkes forward in a league that’s most certainly not getting any easier in Year 2. The opportunity to get back to a winning season is there, however, especially after three defeats of nine points or less in 2023.

“Working with Jon the last couple of years has been great,” Biever said. “Obviously, he’s a mentor and a friend (who) has given me everything I’ve needed at Wilkes to be successful. … We’re really excited about the opportunity to kind of do it (and) put my swing on things and our way of kind of getting our guys going.”

Over at Catholic, Cardinal football alum Mike Gutelius is back in the saddle for his seventh season in the nation’s capital, and Catholic like Wilkes had three defeats of nine points or less this past season in missed opportunities to beef up its resume.

Gutelius was absent from media day due to a doctor’s appointment as associate head coach/offensive coordinator Jonathan Rutledge was the top Cardinal coach at the microphone this week, but in speaking for the program, Rutledge explained how there was plenty of buzz going around for Catholic heading into 2024.

“We are chomping at the bit to get going,” Rutledge said. “We’ve got an experienced team coming back with a lot of talent and we’re really amped up to get going on August 13 and fired up to get everybody back. We won our last three games, so we’ve got a little confidence going into the season, but we know we left a lot of meat on the bone. … We’ve got a hunger we feel pretty confident in.”

Juniata, Keystone Have Big Tasks

One team is a former D-III titan who has sent out an organized football team for over a century, the other only restarted football in 2021 after 74 years away.

But even with their different program paths, Juniata and Keystone are each trying to create a spark and climb up the Landmark Conference ladder nowadays.

Juniata — which was a small-school power in the 1950s and played in the very first Stagg Bowl in 1973 — has fallen on hard times as of late, having finished the season over .500 just once (in 2013) since 1999. The Eagles’ inaugural season in the Landmark a year ago was also the debut campaign for coach Blake Treadwell, whose team went 1-9 but had overall better-scoring offense and defense averages from the 2022 season.

Picked to finish last in the Landmark, the Eagles do have some solid opportunities to build some positive momentum in nonconference play ahead of time, however. Shenandoah (who Juniata will face Sept. 28 on FloFootball) is the most notable non-con opponent, having gone 5-5 on top of making history against Juniata last year as the Hornets’ Haley Van Voorhis became the first non-kicker women’s player in NCAA football history after coming on as a safety.

“Trust the process,” Treadwell said. “I’m a big process guy. What does the process mean? Basically, it’s this: When we play football games, the first play is the most important play, then it’s the next play, then it’s the next play. And that’s what we’re striving to be as a football team. … We’re excited going into Year 2, lot of confidence with these guys.”

Meanwhile, at Keystone, the Giants bookended their 2023 season with a win in their season opener against Gallaudet and a win in their season finale against Juniata, but a lot of the games in between those two victories were a struggle as they finished sixth in the conference standings last year.

Still, Keystone can be excused a bit as it is quite literally trying to learn how to win consistently in the modern age after nearly three-quarters of a century of being a dormant program. And while five wins in two years may not sound like much on the surface, coach Justin Higgins (the only boss that the Giants have had since restarting their football program) has been liking what he sees as Keystone attempts to build a contender from the ground up.

“That was a big step for us last year, being able to get in (the Landmark) and getting into the conference and I think competing quite well,” Higgins said. “We’re not new anymore; we’re still young, I would say … These guys and their teammates were great this spring, they didn’t let the noise bother them. They knew that they had a task at hand until someone told them they couldn’t do it.”

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