On September 2 under the lights at Merrimack College, Holy Cross will officially kick off its push for a national title.

No, not just a four-peat in the Patriot League, but a national title. When you’ve done what the Crusaders have done over the last few seasons, expectations change and nationally, Holy Cross enters the 2022 season as a Top 15 team in FCS.

Not only are the boys in purple now getting national recognition in polls, but also with preseason award lists. On Tuesday, it was announced that 14 different players (listed below) were bestowed All Patriot League honors.

Dobbs, Liam Anderson, John Smith, Dan Kuznetsov, Patrick Haughney, Terrell Prince, Matt Sluka, Peter Oliver, Jalen Coker, Sean Morris, Nick Olsofka, Pat McMurtrie, Luke Newman and Derek Ng all made the list and all should be key contributors to the success of this year’s squad.

All the extra attention is great for the program, particularly recruiting, but the players and coaches don’t want to hear any of it when camp starts this weekend.

“We always contain the outside noise and worry about getting 1% better every day,” said Dobbs. “Coach Chesney does a great job of setting that example for us every single day. We focus on the task at hand, which is getting 1% better that practice, that rep, it’s always about living in the moment…that’s all you can do when you’re building towards your ultimate goal.”

“I don’t think we think about that stuff,” added Asante. “Last year ended last year when we lost at Villanova and this year started during winter workouts and spring ball and now we just completed our summer workouts. Like Jacob said, just taking it a week at a time, a day at a time, that’s what we’re focused on. The preseason stuff doesn’t really matter, because what matters at the end of the day is how we end the season.”

Chesney and his staff have prided themselves on the ultimate one day at a time approach and it’s served the team well, so why stop now?

“We’ve had good momentum every single season, we’ve had good momentum into the offseason, we’ve had good momentum in the spring and in the summer. We just continue to get better as a football team and certainly, I think our best days are still ahead of us,” said Chesney.

For the players, the Holy Cross education and foundation being built for life outside of football is the most important aspect of the experience. Winning is fun, but molding the future is far more important.

“I think our pride comes from the culture we’ve established within our team,” said Dobbs. “It’s a true brotherhood and I think everybody loves each other…I think that’s what I’ll look back at and be most proud of after my four years here and I think Ayir would say the same thing. We’ve built a family, we’ve built lifelong relationships with teammates and coaches. To see how we’ve built that, how we’ve built the kind of men that are going to come out of this program in the future with what they’re going to do after football, I think everybody’s going to smile at that.

“It gives me goosebumps thinking about that because that’s what matters. The culture and the kinds of things we do every day and the kind of men we’re creating every day to be husbands, to be fathers one day and you know, to be in the community one day, there are great people being made by this football program. The football stuff that comes with it are just cherries on top.”

If you didn’t hop on the bandwagon last year as Holy Cross won a third straight league title and then went on to win its first ever playoff game, you may want to get on early this year, it’ll fill up quick as more and more eyes are opened to this surging program.