The Coastal Athletic Association Football Conference, formerly the Colonial Athletic Association Football Conference, branded as CAA Football, is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I whose full members are located in East Coast states, from Maine to North Carolina. Most of its members are public universities, and the conference is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. The conference is run by the same administration as the multisport conference Coastal Athletic Association (CAA; formerly the Colonial Athletic Association) but is legally a different entity.
History
CAA Football was formed in 2005, although it did not begin play until 2007, as a separate conference independent of the CAA, but administered by the CAA front office. In the 2004–05 academic year, the CAA had five member schools that sponsored football, all of them as football-only members of the Atlantic 10 Conference. In 2005, Northeastern accepted the CAA's offer of membership, giving the CAA the six football-playing members it needed under NCAA rules to organize a football conference. At that time, the CAA announced it would launch its new football conference in 2007. Next, the CAA invited the University of Richmond to become a football-only member effective in 2007. Once UR accepted the offer, this left the A10 football conference with only five members, less than the six required under NCAA rules. As a result, the remaining A10 football programs all decided to join the CAA for football only, ending A10 football. Since the CAA football conference had the same members as the A10 the previous year, it can be said that the CAA football conference is the A10 football conference under new management.
The CAA football conference's earliest roots are in the New England Conference, founded in 1938 by four state-supported universities in that region plus Northeastern; three of the public schools are currently in CAA Football. However, neither the multi-sports CAA nor CAA Football includes the New England Conference in CAA Football history. After the departure of Northeastern in 1945, the remaining members joined New England's other land-grant colleges, Massachusetts State College (now the University of Massachusetts Amherst) and the University of Vermont, to form the Yankee Conference under a new charter in 1946, with competition starting in 1947. That conference eventually dropped all sports other than football in 1975. Starting in the 1980s, it expanded to include many schools outside its original New England base. After the NCAA voted to limit the influence of single-sport conferences, the Yankee merged with the A-10 in 1997.
CAA Football went through many changes during the early 2010s with the loss of Georgia State, Massachusetts, and Old Dominion and the addition of Albany, Elon, and Stony Brook. Stability was maintained for a decade before the departure of James Madison in 2021 leading to the addition of Campbell, Hampton, Monmouth, North Carolina A&T, and Bryant from 2022 to 2024.
Timeline
May 4, 2005 – CAA Football was formed with inaugural members Delaware, Hofstra, James Madison, Maine, New Hampshire, Northeastern, Rhode Island, Richmond, Towson, Massachusetts (UMass), Villanova, and William & Mary.
May 31, 2006 – Old Dominion, at the time a member of the all-sports CAA, announced plans to add football for the 2009 season and join CAA Football in 2011.
June 11, 2009 – Georgia State, at the time a member of the all-sports CAA, announced the addition of Football in 2011, and joining the CAA football conference in 2012.
November 9, 2009 – Northeastern announced plans to drop football after the 2009 season.
December 3, 2009 – Hofstra also announced that the university would no longer be sponsoring football.
June 1, 2010 – Due to the reduction of the conference, CAA Football did not use the division format for the 2010 season.
April 20, 2011 – UMass announced that it would transition to FBS beginning fall 2021, and would become a football-only member of the Mid-American Conference (MAC).
April 7, 2012 – Georgia State began an FBS transition in advance of its 2013 move to the Sun Belt Conference.
May 17, 2012 – Old Dominion announced its plans to join Conference USA and transition to FBS status for the 2013 season.
August 7, 2012 – Albany and Stony Brook both accepted offers of membership in CAA Football for the 2013 season.
May 23, 2013 – Elon announced that the school would become a member of CAA Football and the all-sports CAA for the 2014 season.