TIM WEIGHT/For the Express Lock Haven quarterback Jackson Ostrowsky warms up on the sideline prior to a home game during the 2024 football season. Ostrowsky returns to the team for 2025.

LOCK HAVEN — While we are still weeks away from the kickoff of the 2025-26 college football season, that doesn’t mean it’s too early to start discussing what the new season will bring. For Lock Haven and the rest of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC), today’s annual PSAC virtual media day opened said discussions.

Every year the PSAC does a pre-season poll to predict each team standing in their respective division, and when Lock Haven’s name came up, it showed that they were projected to finish sixth in the PSAC East. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, as last year they were projected fifth to start the year, and ended up finishing sixth.

In the video released with the standings, new Lock Haven head coach Joe Battaglia detailed his excitement for the new season.

“We are really excited to kick off this 2025 campaign. The momentum here has never been higher,” expressed Battaglia. “We have got a team coming back here who has gone through a lot of adversity together, [including] back-to-back 5-6 seasons, and a lot of close losses dating back to last year. But we have got a hungry team who is ready to win some ball games here in 2025.”

A lot of close losses is an understatement when talking about last season, as four of Lock Haven’s six losses came by one score or less. The Bald Eagles were truly five or six plays away from winning seven or even eight games in 2024.

Lock Haven does return the number one passing offense in the PSAC this season, as was detailed by coach Battaglia, with quarterback Jackson Ostrowsky returning to The Haven for his final year.

“We have got the league’s leading air attack coming back this season,” Battaglia added. “Whenever you’ve got the league’s leading passer returning that’s always a good thing. Then, getting back to our run game [is vital], two years ago we had an unbelievable rushing attack, so we are looking to be a little more balanced this year.”

The Bald Eagles made a few strides in the rushing department this offseason, adding a few new names to the offensive line and running back room to hopefully improve on what was a disappointing rushing attack last season.

All in all, this upcoming season will be an important one for the future of Lock Haven Football, as they try to keep the momentum they have built up the past two years alive. But this current staff seems confident that they can do just that, outperform their pre-season projections and shock the PSAC the same way they did in 2023.

The 2025-26 season will officially kickoff on Sept. 6, when Lock Haven hosts Glenville State for their home opener.