Looking for its third-straight Northeast Conference championship, the Sacred Heart football team starts the 2022 season Saturday at Lafayette. This will be the seventh meeting between the two programs and the first since 2019 when the Pioneers won a 54-40 shootout in Easton. The Leopards are under the direction of John Troxell, who takes over after a 3-8 campaign. Troxell was the head coach at Franklin & Marshall for 16 seasons. Sacred Heart will have several new faces in the line-up this year as it returns six starters on both sides of the ball.

OPENING KICKOFF

• Coming off back-to-back Northeast Conference Championships, Sacred Heart opens the 2022 campaign Saturday at Lafayette.
• The Pioneers are 5-1 against the Leopards, having won the last five contests. SHU took the 2019 game, 56-40.
• Running back Malik Grant, who ranked fourth in the FCS last year with 1,347 yards - the fourth-best on the SHU single-season list - was named to the Walter Payton Award Watch List for the second year in a row.
• Also making his way to a Preseason Watch List was defensive end Kevin Peprah, who was selected to the Buck Buchanan list, which goes to the top defensive player in the country.
• SHU is 7-3 in season openers under head coach Mark Nofri and snapped a two-game losing streak by beating Bucknell, 21-0, last season. Overall ,the Pioneers are 13-11 in season openers in the Division I era (since 1998).
• The Pioneers have lost their last two season openers on the road since beating Stetson, 18-14, to start the 2016 campaign.
• Sacred Heart was picked to win the Northeast Conference for the second season in a row. SHU garnered five first-place votes.
• Sacred Heart had the best passing defense in the country, limiting opponents to just 118.4 yards per game.