The newest conference in D-III football — and whose champion will receive an automatic bid to the division’s playoffs at season’s end — the Landmark is gearing up for play on the gridiron for the first time with a seven-strong membership and a new era for all of its personnel involved since the plans to bring football to the league first came to fruition.

D-III football can be an unforgiving beast, however, with one of the best ways to prepare for any elite opposition being by playing elite opposition. In Week 1 of the Landmark’s new era, many teams are already seeing if they’re up to the challenge by playing in early-season non-conference tests.

New associate member Keystone College is one example. The Giants, who’ve only been playing football for a handful of seasons, will open their season against not just a reigning conference champion and D-III playoff qualifier, but also a program that has few equals anywhere else in the sport, no matter what level it's played at.

It’s a matchup that’s worthy of your attention, and for the rest of the Landmark’s inaugural season to come, it’s worth sticking around for, too.

Here’s a look at what to watch out for as Keystone hosts Gallaudet for its first football game in the Landmark Conference, with kickoff scheduled for noon (ET) Saturday on FloFootball:

A Unique Team

A truly one-of-a-kind program, Gallaudet, based in Washington D.C. and which plays in the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference, isn’t just listed in this article because the Bison are coming off a strong season, having made the D-III playoffs for the first time since 2013. The main reason is because Gallaudet plays a distinctive brand of football unlike anyone else in the sport — mainly because they have to. Gallaudet is a school for the deaf and hard of hearing, with instruction and programs made for and tailored to a student population who communicates through American Sign Language. The huddle, now a common part of football at all levels, began at Gallaudet as a way for the Bison to avoid having their hand signals calling plays deciphered by opponents, and games full of visual and physical cues not seen elsewhere are present at GU games — such as coach Chuck Goldstein telling/showing ESPN that he uses a booming, vibrating bass drum rather than a whistle to signal instructions to players. 

Watching a Gallaudet game is a vastly different experience to most football you’ll find anywhere else at any level, but after one of the strongest seasons in program history in 2022, don’t think for a minute that the Bison can’t play. Gallaudet averaged nearly 250 rushing yards per game last season, a mark that ranked in the top-10 in D-III, and returns its top two rushers in Brandon Washington (955 rushing yards, eight touchdowns) and Dre’Vaughn Mackall (574 rushing yards, four touchdowns) to the fold for 2023. Washington, the reigning ECFC Offensive Player of the Year, is especially unique as he’s often the main man the Bison turn to in a variety of roles on offense; not only did he run the ball 174 times, but he also threw 29 passes (including three touchdowns) and caught a team-high 14 receptions for 263 yards and three touchdowns across the 2022 season. The defense was a bit leaky last year, but with GU scoring at least 30 points in four games, it has a squad on offense to help it compensate.

Game week! Kickoff at 12 p. m.

We can’t wait to be back in front of our fans to start the season at home. #1Day1Brick ??? pic.twitter.com/kHTb7zxc94

— Keystone Giants Football (@KeystoneFTBL) August 28, 2023

Giants’ Growth

After a 71-year hiatus, football returned to Keystone College recently, but the journey toward fielding a competitive outfit wasn’t an easy one. Playing its first games of its return in 2019 and an all-varsity schedule for the first time in 2021, Keystone, which started its revived program’s life out in the ECFC with Gallaudet and others, got its share of initial growing pains in full force. The Giants lost their opening 16 games as a varsity program from 2021-22, never winning until defeating Anna Maria College 41-39 on Oct. 15 of last year, but after going through defeat after defeat, finally getting over the hump and nabbing a win seemed to do wonders for Keystone and coach Justin Higgins. Including the Anna Maria victory, the Giants won three of their final four games in 2022 to finish 3-7, a landmark step for a budding program which enters the 2023 campaign now on a two-game winning streak extending into this past season. That opening win could’ve easily come against Gallaudet last season, though, and the Giants know it. 

During each teams’ ECFC opener against each other in early October of last year, the Bison edged out Keystone in a 52-44 shootout which included a combined 57 second-half points and nearly 400 yards of rushing from GU, though Keystone was up at the end of the first quarter and had a drive to potentially tie it with under two minutes left come up empty due to a fourth-down fumble. Had it gone the other way, both the Giants would’ve gotten their first win in the modern era earlier and the Bison’s push for a league title would’ve gotten off to a much worse start than it actually did — and who knows if we would’ve been talking about Gallaudet as a defending playoff team in that case?

History in the Making

Though this is not a Landmark Conference game — Keystone has moved to the league as an associate member, Gallaudet has not — it is the first week of the Landmark’s existence as a league playing football games, with it contesting an inaugural season this year featuring seven teams in a long-awaited debut since the league approved sponsoring the sport early last year. A new era in D-III football is upon the horizon as FloFootball will be holding streaming rights to numerous Landmark games throughout the season, and if you want an introduction to what the league and/or D-III football as a whole brings to the table, checking out Gallaudet-Keystone this weekend is a good way to do it. Keystone was projected to finish sixth in the Landmark’s first-ever preseason coaches poll, but the Giants do return multiple All-ECFC selections back including star running back Mujaheed Muhammad (948 rushing yards, 12 touchdowns in 2022) and defensive back Sean Pettway, who had 64 total tackles and two interceptions (including one returned for a touchdown) as a standout in the Giants’ secondary a year ago. Getting redemption for last season’s narrow defeat by nabbing a season-opening win over GU would do wonders for getting Keystone’s 2023 season off on the right foot and boosting them toward possibly contending in the Landmark. The Giants’ biggest key to the game, however, might be at quarterback after a year in which they threw more interceptions (15) than passing touchdowns (11), with junior Donald Leach III the only upperclassman signal-caller on the roster and a possible option to start under center. A complete game (and perhaps some improvement on defense after last year’s matchup with the Bison, too), could give Keystone arguably the biggest win in its program’s history this weekend if things go correctly – and be a potential catalyst for better things to come for the still-growing program.