After 658 days since the Saints' last football game in November of 2019, the St. Lawrence University football team is set to kick off the 2021 season on the road against Endicott College this Saturday in Beverly, Massachusetts.

"I think getting back into the swing of things this year, after taking a year off, we kind of walked into an unknown and needed to see what we had and we have the makeup of a really good football team," said head coach Dan Puckhaber. "We have a great group of guys this season, in terms of who they are and how they play, but also what kind of shape they showed up in and how they were able to come together as a team in our preseason camp this year."

In 2019, the Saints posted a .500 record and broke 14 school records throughout the course of the season. Saints' quarterback Tyler Grochot broke single-season records in pass attempts (426), pass completions (247) and passing yards (2,978). The Saints also broke team records for completions (271) and passing yards (3,301) and ranked seventh nationally with 330.1 passing yards per game.

The Saints also increased their win total by three from 2018 to 2019 and St. Lawrence hopes to build upon that in 2021. The offense will be in good hands with the return of Grochet, who earned All-Liberty League Honorable Mention honors and offensive lineman Max Warden, a First-Team honoree in 2019 and a D3football.com Preseason All-America honoree for the 2021 season.

Grochot's 26 touchdowns on the season rank second-all time for the Saints, while Warden helped the team eclipse the 3,000 passing yards mark for the first time in program history in 2019 as the team totaled a league-high 3,301 passing yards (4,120 total yards).

The Saints also welcome back a core group from the 2019 defense, including Caleb Null, Ryan Reinke and Max Gilbert. Null, an All-Liberty League Honorable Mention selection, recorded 24 tackles and two sacks, as well as a league-high two fumble recoveries. Reinke was among the team leaders in tackles-for-loss with eight. He totaled 31 tackles on the year and 3.5 sacks. Gilbert accounted for 44 tackles, 24 of which were solo and he was second on the team with two interceptions.

When Puckhaber was asked what he's most excited for this season the answer was simple, "to COMPETE. It's been a long time as a coach to go without a competition and that is probably the most rewarding thing to see and to have the opportunity to do this weekend, is to flat out compete with our football team against another quality opponent."

"The guys that are in place had the last 17-18 months of their life in a weird spot, so to be able to get back to a little bit of normalcy, even though we aren't fully back to normal, but being able to be back as a football team, practicing, preparing to compete, the guys are super excited about that. Coming back from our scrimmage at Castleton this past weekend you could just see the smiles and excitement on their faces, because their back doing something they love to do," Puckhaber added.

After the trip to Massachusetts, the Saints will host their first game at Leckonby Stadium on September 11, where the Scarlet and Brown will compete against the Norwich Cadets for the Hoffman Cup. St. Lawrence will then travel to Morrisville to face the Mustangs under the lights on September 17 and host Castleton University on September 25 before opening Liberty League play on October 9 at Union.

The Saints will host Liberty League games versus Ithaca on October 16, the University of Rochester on October 30 and Rensselaer on senior day, Saturday, November 6, before wrapping up the regular season on November 13 at Buffalo State.

Follow the links to check out the Saints' latest news, roster, and schedule for the upcoming season.