NATCHEZ — Alcorn State head football coach Jay Hopson said there is no time to rest.

Despite earning back-to-back SWAC titles, the fourth-year coach is in full throttle in attempting to make his program bigger and better.

“We have to keep grinding,” Hopson said. “That’s part of the journey in football. You have to try to get better every day, and that’s our vision.”

The first chore for Hopson is attempting to replace a group of seniors that will leave the Lorman-based campus as perhaps one of the best and most memorable in the Braves’ storied program.

Twenty-two separate seniors entered their freshman campaigns in 2011 after having seen Alcorn suffer through four-consecutive losing seasons. By the time they departed, they had helped build a once struggling program into one of the nation’s elite: 32 wins over four years, two SWAC titles, a Celebration Bowl appearance in 2015 and a black college national championship in 2014.

“We were an extremely strong football team,” Hopson said. “I’m very proud of their entire work over four years. This senior class was very special, and we all got here together. They were a group that worked hard and accomplished a lot feats. I think (the 32 wins) is the largest total of wins in a four-year class history. It was a class that really accomplished a lot.”

Offensively, the Braves will lose leading rusher Darryan Ragsdale and three lineman, but will return quarterback Lenorris Footman and a bevy of talented playmakers at the wide receiver position.

On the defensive side of the ball, Hopson said he expects approximately six starters to return.

“It’s going to be kind of a normal loss,” Hopson said in regards to players lost to graduation. “We’re going to return some players, and we’re going to lose some players, and we have to replace the ones that we are going to lose.”

Currently, Alcorn State, along with the rest of the college football world, is in an NCAA dead period –where college coaches are forbidden from having face-to-face contact with athletes or their parents. But that ends Jan. 13, and Hopson said he plans to hit the ground running.

“We’ve been trying to get (to 20-25 signees) every year and having a pretty healthy class,” Hopson said. “When we first got here, our numbers were kind of skewed, but I think we’ve been able to stabilize that a little bit.”

WIth signing day on the horizon Feb. 3, Hopson said he believes the opportunity to partake in an end-of-the-season bowl game will help further boost the school’s ability to bring in top talent.

“The great thing I like about our conference, we really are an FBS program because we can go bowling,” Hopson said. “We can get into a bowl game, and I think it kind of separates us a little bit in the FCS level. It was a great experience for our players, and something that is great for our conference.”

Alcorn finished the 2015 season 9-4.