The Monmouth University football team is getting ready to kick off its historic spring season this weekend with a game against Charleston Southern following a two-week delay.

It's been more than 470 days since Monmouth football has played a game. That streak was supposed to end two weeks ago, but COVID-19 issues with other teams delayed the opener.

“We're hungry to play,” says Union native, and offensive lineman Charles James. “It's been almost two years since we've been out there, we are hungry to play, we are attacking everyday like we have a game the next day and we just love being out here.”

Monmouth's first two games against Robert Morris and Gardner Webb have been rescheduled, and the Hawks will still play their four-game Big South slate, with the league winner earning an automatic spot in the 16-team FCS playoff.

“Everybody wants to be the best, it's not just ‘oh we want to win the Big South, oh we want to beat Robert Morris,’ we want to win a National Championship and that's special,” says Middletown native, and linebacker Eddie Hahn.

Monmouth is the only team in the Big South that hasn't played a game yet because of COVID-19 pauses in other programs. Head coach Kevin Callahan says that works as both an advantage and disadvantage.

“The teams that have played, we've had an opportunity to see them on video this year, no one has seen us on video this year,” says Callahan. “But having played, once you play a game you find out a lot about yourself and your team and we have not had the opportunity to do that yet.

The opportunity is finally coming Saturday. The hawks will get to run out onto their home turf again in front of a limited number of fans.

“It's going to be phenomenal, it's been so long, we're all just dying to run out here and just dominate another team,” says James.

Kick off for Monmouth and Charleston Southern is Saturday at 1 p.m.