SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio -- The countdown for the inaugural season of Falcon Football has reached T-minus-60. As in 60 days until the launch of NDC's newest varsity program on Aug. 28, when Notre Dame hosts Mercyhurst (Pa.).

That game, a 7 p.m. kickoff at Korb Field (Brush High School) in Lyndhurst, Ohio, will be the culmination of a few years of work behind the scenes by NDC administrators and 20 months of work by head coach #Adam Howard# and his staff.

“The excitement is building as we approach our inaugural season,” said Howard, who was hired in January, 2009. “It's palpable; we can feel it.”

The Mercyhurst game will mark the first of 11 inaugural-season games for Notre Dame, which played a trial junior varsity season last year (2009). In that season, with games against college JV and club and prep-school squads, the Falcons were impressive, going 8-0 and outscoring their opponents, 312-116.

“We gathered momentum for the program last fall,” said Howard, who came to NDC after serving as defensive coordinator at Baldwin-Wallace for six seasons. “We plan to use that momentum, combined with the energy created from the excitement of our first season, to build positive results this year.”

The Falcons will have upwards of 80 new players in the program in 2010, with freshmen and sophomores making up more than 90 percent of the roster.

“We have a strong nucleus of players returning,” said Howard, “and an outstanding recruiting class to add to our foundation. A lot of our players stayed here this summer to work and work out, and I'm anxious to see that payoff. We are naturally going to be young, but we're not going to allow anyone to use that as an excuse.”