Hey, Landmark Conference — this weekend is finally your moment to shine as a football-playing conference.

For nearly two decades, the Landmark never stepped foot into the sport, letting its full members with programs be affiliate schools elsewhere in order to get their fix of Saturday battles on the turf. 

Now? Everything has changed.

In a new twist to the league’s story, playoff dreams by way of a conference title in football are on the line in the Landmark for the 2023 season, something that the league has never been able to say previously. 

There can be only one school that will ever be able to hold the crown of being the Landmark’s first-ever football conference champion, and though several more weeks are still to go before that’s determined, two of the early favorites to take the title are bound to clash immediately at the start of conference play.

Buckle up and watch some history unfold, because in the Landmark Conference, nothing will ever be exactly like its initial season of football ever again. 

Here’s a look at what to watch out for as No. 12 Susquehanna hosts Catholic this weekend during the first-ever weekend of Landmark Conference play, with kickoff scheduled for 1 p.m. (ET) Saturday on FloFootball:

Without a Scratch

What a path it’s been thus far this year for Susquehanna, which completed an unbeaten regular season a year ago while winning a conference championship, to make its presence felt in the inaugural year of Landmark Conference football. 

The River Hawks, following a 4-0 start, enter conference play as the league’s favorites and the No. 12-ranked team in the most recent D3football.com Top 25 poll, the program’s highest ranking in the tenure of ninth-year head coach Tom Perkovich. Winners of 15 consecutive regular season matchups dating back to 2021, SU’s road to an unbeaten start has been far from perfect, but thanks to a top-10, comeback win on the road (Sept. 16 at then-No. 10 SUNY Cortland) and an overall proficiency for grinding it out when the going gets tough, the River Hawks have impressed enough folks to become a team in the hunt for hosting a playoff game — if the cards fall in the right direction and Susquehanna keeps winning, that is — and be the cream of the crop of the Landmark until further notice. 

And then there was one 👀

The River Hawks remain as the only undefeated team in the inaugural season of the Landmark Conference. pic.twitter.com/xA7vmNnLAH

— FloFootball (@FloFootball) September 22, 2023

In its home opener against Western New England this past weekend (a 26-18 SU victory), Susquehanna brought plenty of that grittiness as it ran the ball 49 times for 256 yards and two scores, both of which came from the legs of leading tailback Tommy Grabowski (26 carries, 131 yards against WNE). The defense also picked off Golden Bears quarterbacks on three separate occasions and held Western New England to just a late touchdown that ended up being for naught in the second half, with WNE signal-callers Tyler Millerick and Conrad Swanson held to a combined 8-for-21 passing for just 86 yards as the Bears struggled to get anything going through the air. 

Hoping to see its regular season wins streak continue in its conference opener, getting the 16th such victory in a row against Catholic would have an extra bit of meaning for Susquehanna — it would be a new school record, breaking the old mark set from 1985-87. So yeah, expect the River Hawks to be motivated this weekend.

Cardinal Rules

With the exception of SU, much of the rest of the Landmark has found nonconference play an unenjoyable experience. Five of the Landmark’s seven teams currently sit under .500 overall, and only the River Hawks enter the opening weekend of league play with a win in their nonconference finale. 

With all of that in mind, it may be the Cardinals — the only other .500 or above team at the moment in the Landmark at 2-2 — who have the best chance on paper to take down Susquehanna and make the battle for the first-ever Landmark Conference regular season title a fierce one. 

Catholic’s 2023 season has been a bit of a mixed bag thus far; senior quarterback Madden Lowe leads what’s been the most productive passing attack (277 average yards per game) in the league to date, but he additionally needs to improve upon his touchdown-to-interception ratio (nine scores to six picks). The defense has held two teams under 10 points, but it also has given up 59 to another. Neither of Catholic’s victories has come consecutively, and in tough weather conditions in Washington D.C. in this past weekend’s game against Alfred, the Cardinals’ offense was unable to find the endzone in a 9-6 loss. 

With the additional hurdles of having to go on the road to take on Susquehanna, Catholic has a challenge on its hands, and its trajectory for an upset against the River Hawks may be determined by how quickly Lowe — who can absolutely take over games, like when he went 26 for 38 through the air for 389 yards and five touchdowns in the Cardinals’ season-opening win against McDaniel — gets into a flow. Lowe doing that against the league’s top scoring defense (18.8 points per game allowed), however, is much easier said than done, as SUNY Cortland proved when it entered its game with Susquehanna ahead by a 35-21 margin entering the fourth quarter, a potent can give the River Hawks problems. Keeping their own offensive talent at bay for long enough to pick up a victory, however, is another tall task on its own.

Landmark Moment

With a long road to get to this moment that’s been years in the making, the string-pullers behind the scenes who have helped make Landmark Conference football possible at all have got to be grinning ear to ear this week in eager anticipation. 

History will be made this weekend as for the very first time, the Landmark — founded in 2005 but having previously missed out on games played on the gridiron throughout its existence — will play host to football conference games and officially get the race to its inaugural football conference championship going with an automatic berth to the NCAA Division III playoffs later on in the season on the line. 

With seven football-playing schools (six of whom are full league members already, with Keystone of the United East Conference also in the Landmark as an associate member), the Landmark has created a new home for football-playing D-III schools in the east with a subsequent new opportunity to shine and represent the conference along with the other best of the best programs nationally at the D-III level. 

Susquehanna-Catholic is the highlight showdown of the landmark (pun intended) first weekend, but Juniata at Wilkes and Keystone at Moravian will make up the other two league matchups being played Saturday afternoon as Lycoming takes the opening weekend off for a bye. FloFootball will stream all three games live (along with league games for the rest of the season), and as the first D-III conference to sign a multi-year agreement with FloSports, it’s only right that such a milestone moment for the Landmark will be merely one part of such a significant streaming rights package for seasons to come.