When Josh Snyder took over as the head coach at Northwestern in 2012, he looked around and decided the best approach was to go with young players.

Back then, Snyder knew the team would take some lumps for a while, but also believed that he would be able to build those young players into not just a strong team, but also a program that would be competitive for years to come.

Since then, Snyder has taken advantage of opportunities to get underclassmen into the lineup whenever possible. This season, he’s back to having a young team after having lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 career starts when last year’s class graduated.

The fact that young players get a chance to play under Snyder will help the team as it heads into Colonial League play, starting Friday night at Palmerton.

Snyder went with freshman quarterback Frank Dangello when he took over and Dangello went on to set a number of school records. With Dangello graduating, Snyder goes back to the drawing board with another freshman quarterback in Deven Bollinger.

“He impressed us very early on, probably back in May, we started to kind of focus on him,” said Snyder. “We initially figured on having him in there maybe around week five, but he’s ready now, so we’re going to run him out there.”

Bollinger beat out senior Ryan Hippensteel and junior Phil Dangello, the younger brother of Northwestern’s record-holding quarterback. Bollinger admitted there is some pressure in following Frank Dangello, but believes he is ready to take over the quarterback job.

“I think that we can get it done and that we’re going to do a great job,” said Bollinger. “There are a lot of weapons around me.”

The 6-foot-3 Bollinger has a big arm, but Northwestern also likes its quarterbacks to be able to run the ball, so they have to be durable.

While he didn’t win the starting job, Snyder did say that Dangello will likely see time under center in some situations and they’ll use Dangello for certain plays where he may be a little better suited than Bollinger. Dangello will see most of his playing time in the secondary, playing safety along with Matt Shetayh.

The biggest hole to fill comes from the loss of running back Harry Hall. Tyler Foster was impressive when he got the chance to carry the ball over the past couple of seasons and while he’s not Hall – although he is wearing his old number – Foster is capable of making big plays.

There are a lot of what Snyder calls “moving parts” on the offensive line, but one anchor remains in Jacob Ruch at tackle. James Felch, who played tight end last year, will serve as one of the defensive ends in this year’s system.

“We have some pretty big guys who have started some games for us up front, but the rest, is going to require a little work,” Snyder said. “It’s not that we don’t like the guys we have there, it’s just that they don’t have that game experience. Guys like Cameron Sanchez, a first year starter, and Andrew Seyler, who played about six games for us last year, just don’t have as much experience.”

On the defensive line, James Felch moves inside to defensive tackle and Evan Scholler moves outside. The other two spots are going to be a work in progress early in the season, with Snyder rotating guys into the lineup in different situations.

Other moves on the defense include Caleb Clymer moving to inside linebacker after adding some weight. Clymer will be paired with sophomore Tyler Lobach to take care of the middle. Another sophomore, Anthony Colucci will start at outside linebacker, with senior Tyler Foster anchoring the group at the other outside linebacker spot.

In the secondary, Trevor Cunningham was second team all-league last season and returns to anchor the secondary at one corner, with Hippensteel taking over the other corner spot on a full-time basis after rotating into the spot last season. Dangello and Shetay will play at safety, but Shetay could also move into a linebacker role, if needed.

Last year’s senior class was credited with being the core group of guys that turned Northwestern football around when they took over starting jobs as young players. This season, a new crop of young players is challenged with filling those rather large holes.

“Every year you’re going to lose guys, so you just have to adapt,” said Snyder. “We lost a lot of guys, but we’ve also got guys ready to step in and play, so we focus on that.”