ST. PAUL Minn. – Despite the fact that the NSIC has cancelled all football games for the 2020 season, the Concordia-St. Paul football team is still hard at work preparing for 2021 and beyond.

"Practice has been really good; It's been great to be out here." Head coach Shannon Currier said, "We can't control a lot of these different things, but we've just got to not let the negativity creep into our minds, and we need to stay positive."

The Golden Bears are coming off a 2019 season that saw them finish 6-5, landing them in fifth place in the NSIC South and eighth in the NSIC overall.

Senior Linebacker Dalton Smerchek is excited about the opportunity to take a year off of games, saying, "I'm very excited taking this whole year off. It's just a whole year of growing … being able to use that year to develop everyone and not worry so much about games."

Though the team lost some key players after last season, they also bring in a talented group of young players to replace them. Highlights for the 2020-2021 squad include 66 returning players and 57 new players including 22 transfers and 35 true freshmen. The Golden Bears return every starter at running back, cornerback, and linebacker.

For more CSP fall camp updates keep an eye on cspbears.com.