On the road to a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) football championship in 2013, Bloomsburg was without one of its top defensive lineman in the trenches.

Salisbury High School graduate and redshirt-junior Tony David suffered a season-ending ACL injury on the Huskies' first defensive series of last season against Stonehill, forcing him to miss all of the Huskies' 10-2 campaign. The Huskies also advanced to the NCAA Division II playoffs where their season came to an end against West Chester.

But now, nearly a year removed from that setback, David is on course to make a full recovery for the 2014 campaign. Head coach Paul Darragh is excited to have one of his defensive leaders back on the field.

"We're looking forward to getting him back, and he should be 100 percent," Darragh said. "We have a couple of guys coming back from injuries, Tony being one of them, that I think will help us. He is an experienced player.

"He's a guy, even though he didn't play last year, he's got experience before that. He's a veteran coming back from injury, and I think he'll be one of several to help us bring along some of this young talent that we have on this team."

As a sophomore, David started in 11 of the Huskies' 12 games on the defensive line. He recorded 41 total tackles (15 solo), six tackles for loss, four sacks, two fumble recoveries and one interception, showcasing his versatility up front.

It may take some time for David to become acclimated once again to game speed, but Darragh fully expects him to become one of the prominent leaders on defense.

"He was focused through the spring rehabbing and being around all the time," Darragh said. "I think his veteran leadership and his experience, more than anything on game days, will help bring along some of the young guys on the defensive front."

The Huskies were selected as the No. 3 ranked team in the PSAC East Division's preseason coaches poll during Monday's Football Media Day at Kutztown University. West Chester received seven of eight first-place votes as the division's top-ranked team, while No. 2 East Stroudsburg received the other first-place vote.

Shippensburg (4), Kutztown (5), Lock Haven (6), Millersville (7) and Cheyney (8) rounded out the East Division poll.

"I think preseason polls obviously have some merit, but we're not going to put a lot of emphasis on that," Darragh said. "We have a great division that we play in, and everybody is very competitive. There are good football teams, and teams that year-in and year-out are competing for the Eastern Division title."

The Huskies' offensive takes a major hit this season without running back Franklyn Quiteh coming out of the backfield. Quiteh, the conference's all-time leading rusher and Harlon Hill recipient last year, amassed 7,523 career rushing yards.

Despite Quiteh and a number of other Huskies that graduated from last year's title team, Bloomsburg has their eyes set on a potential 15th East Division crown and 18th conference championship.

Bloomsburg is third in the PSAC with 10 appearances in the NCAA playoffs, including the past two seasons.

"Our expectations are the same every year," Darragh said. "We try to come into it with the idea that we want to win the division, we want to win the conference, and we want to go as deep as possible in the national playoffs. That has not changed.

"We didn't have a big senior class, but we probably had the most talented senior class we've ever had. We had the national player of the year. We had guys get drafted. We had one of the best all-time kickers in the conference. Those are all guys we are going to have to replace."

Troy Parton, a 2014 graduate of Salisbury High School, enters his freshman season on the Kutztown football program under first-year head coach Jim Clements.

At the PSAC West Football Media Day at Slippery Rock, Indiana University of Pennsylvania received five first-place votes and the No. 1 position in the preseason division poll. No. 2 California received the remaining three first-place votes, and Slippery Rock is the West's third-ranked team for the fourth-consecutive year.

Mercyhurst (4), Gannon (5), Edinboro (6), Clarion (7) and Seton Hill (8) are the remaining West Division teams ranked by the coaches.