Shepherd University's football team plays Kutztown University at Ram Stadium in Sept. 2021.

SHEPHERDSTOWN — The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) makes its nationwide reputation from the exploits of its football and wrestling teams for the most part.

When Mercyhurst University left the conference after the 2024 spring seasons were completed, the league still had 15 football-playing schools remaining.

Kutztown University, Slippery Rock University, Indiana University Bloomington, Pennsylvania Western University, California had deserved reputations as the league’s most consistent leaders in number of winning seasons.

Shepherd University was admitted to the conference in 2019. Since then, the Rams have played in one football conference championship game, dropping a 24-21 decision to Indiana in 2022.

Kutztown has won the league championship in three of the last four years.

The consistent Golden Bears are once again favored to win another league title in 2025. Last year’s team only allowed 10.2 points a game. Quarterback Judd Novak also returns with his experience and winning ways.

The logical choice to challenge Kutztown is East Stroudsburg, a playoff team a year ago.

Millersville, Lock Haven, Bloomsburg and Shippensburg may not manage a win in the league unless they are playing one another. At any rate, none of those four will defeat Kutztown or East Stroudsburg

West Chester, which last played in the conference championship game in 2018, and Shepherd appear to be more potent than any of those four teams, but not in the same elite class as either Kutztown or East Stroudsburg.

In the league’s West Division, Slippery Rock is again the team to chase. The teams with the fastest legs to come after The Rock are still Indiana and California.

Edinboro, Seton Hill, Clarion and Gannon are not, surprisingly, like the league’s East Division group that might win conference games, only when they are facing each other and not against Slippery Rock, California or Indiana.

Some conference teams open their 2025 seasons beginning on Aug. 28. More teams play that same weekend with games this Friday and Saturday.

Shepherd signed a six-year contract with nearby Frostburg State. In this first year of the home-and-home contract, the Rams travel the short distance to Frostburg for a 6 p.m. game on Saturday.

Frostburg is a relatively new member of the Mountain East Conference (MEC) and recorded a 6-5 win-loss mark in 2024.

The Rams play away from home in their first three games only getting to familiar Ram Stadium on Sept. 27 for the first time. Of its 11 games, Shepherd plays before the home crowd only five times.

The PSAC is usually able to send more than one team to the NCAA Division II national playoffs. Last season it had Kutztown, Slippery Rock, California and East Stroudsburg in the playoffs. It could send three or four teams into this season’s national playoffs.