Colonial Athletic Association

History

The CAA has expanded in recent years, following the exits of longtime members such as the United States Naval Academy, the University of Richmond, East Carolina University, and American University. In 2001, the six-member conference added four additional universities: Towson University, Drexel University, Hofstra University, and the University of Delaware. Four years later the league expanded again when Georgia State University and Northeastern University joined, further enlarging the conference footprint. Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) left for the Atlantic 10 Conference in July 2012. More changes came in 2013: Old Dominion University left for Conference USA, Georgia State joined the Sun Belt Conference, and the College of Charleston joined the CAA from the Southern Conference.

On the playing field, the CAA has produced 16 national team champions in five different sports (the most recent being the James Madison University Dukes who won the 2016 Division I FCS football championship), 33 individual national champions, 11 national coaches of the year, 11 national players of the year and 12 Honda Award winners. In 2006, George Mason became the first CAA team to reach the Final Four. In 2011, the VCU Rams became the second CAA team to reach the Final Four, as well as the first team to win five games en route, due to their participation in the First Four round.

On March 25, 2013, George Mason University left the CAA to join the Atlantic-10 Conference. Shortly after, the CAA ceased sponsorship of wrestling due to the lack of teams.

The 2015–16 basketball season saw the conference RPI reach its highest rating when it finished the season ranked 9th in the nation.

Current full members

‡ – Towson joined the league as a charter member in 1979, left in 1981 to join the ECAC-Metro Conference, and re-joined the CAA in 2001.

Former associate members

Membership timeline

Full members Full members (non-football) Assoc. members (football only) Assoc. member (list sports)

Sports

The CAA sponsors championship competitions in ten men's and twelve women's NCAA sanctioned sports. Twelve schools are associate members in three sports.

Men's sponsored sports by school

Men's varsity sports not sponsored by the CAA which are played by CAA schools:

Women's sponsored sports by school

Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the CAA which are played by CAA schools:

In addition to the above, Charleston counts its female cheerleaders (though not its male cheerleaders) and all-female dance team as varsity teams. Neither cheerleading nor dance team competitions are sponsored by the NCAA.

Regular season champions

Note: The conference was known as the ECAC South from 1979 to 1985.

History of the Tournament Final

In December 2012 the CAA announced that the 2014 through 2016 tournaments would be held at the venue then known as 1st Mariner Arena, now known as Royal Farms Arena, in Baltimore. It marked the first time the tournament was held outside the state of Virginia.

Men's CAA Tournament Championships and finalists

^‡Former member of the CAA

Women's CAA Tournament Championships and finalists

^‡Former member of the CAA

Football

The CAA Football Conference 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. For this reason, there are no true "football associate members" as every member of CAA Football is a full-member of the football-only conference. 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 (A10). In 2005, as previously noted, 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 on a football-only basis, spelling the end of A10 football, at least under that conference's banner. 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 the CAA football conference. 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) 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 A10 in 1997. Every school that was in the Yankee Conference at the time of the A10 merger and still fields an FCS-level football team (nine out of the final 12 members of the Yankee Conference) is in the CAA football conference. As further proof of the continuity between conferences, the CAA inherited the A10's automatic bid to the FCS playoffs, which in turn was inherited from the Yankee.

On May 31, 2006, Old Dominion University announced that it would start a football team to begin play in 2009. ODU joined the CAA football conference in 2011. On April 17, 2008, Georgia State University announced that it would start a football team to begin play in 2010 and join the CAA football conference in 2012. The team is playing in the 70,000 seat Georgia Dome, but is restricting ticket sales to just over 28,000 for virtually all its games. However, GSU played only the 2012 season in the CAA, and was not eligible for the conference title, as it began an FBS transition in advance of its 2013 move to the Sun Belt Conference.

Since the CAA began play as a football conference in 2007, a member team has played in the FCS Championship game five times, with Delaware making it in 2007 and 2010, Richmond in winning in 2008, Villanova winning in 2009, and James Madison winning in 2016. In 2007, the CAA set records with 15 national player of the week honorees and by sending five teams to the national championship playoffs. The very next season, in 2008, they broke that record with 19 national player of the week honorees and tied their own record by again sending five teams to the national championship playoffs for the second straight year. At the end of the 2008 season, the CAA had six Top 25 teams with four placing in the Top Ten. Players from the CAA received 78 All-America honors.

In the opening weekend of the 2009 season, CAA teams defeated three Division I FBS teams. William & Mary and Richmond took down teams from the ACC (one of the six conferences whose champions receive automatic Bowl Championship Series berths), respectively Virginia and Duke, while Villanova defeated Temple from the MAC. The following weekend saw New Hampshire defeat another MAC team, Ball State (which had gone through the previous regular season unbeaten, but ended 2009 2–10). All four of the CAA teams to defeat FBS teams qualified for the 2009 FCS playoffs and won their first-round games; Villanova and William & Mary reached the semifinals, and Villanova won the FCS championship.

Northeastern—the school whose 2005 move to the CAA enabled the creation of the CAA football conference—dropped football after the 2009 season. President Joseph E. Aoun and the board of trustees endorsed the move after an extensive, two-year review of the athletic program by its director, Peter Roby. The decision to eliminate football followed six straight losing seasons and sparse game attendance at a school whose ice rink often sells out for hockey.

On December 3, 2009, Hofstra announced that the university would no longer be sponsoring football. The decision follows a two-year review of sports spending at Hofstra. School officials stated there are no plans to cut any other sports at the Long Island school. Hofstra cited costs and low student interest—only 500 students would attend home games despite free tickets—as reasons to drop the program. Due to the reduction of the conference, the CAA did not use the division format for the 2010 season. Even though Old Dominion began conference play in 2011 and Georgia State did the same in 2012, the divisional format is not likely to return in the immediate future, as the CAA lost football members in both 2012 and 2013. UMass departed for FBS and the Mid-American Conference in 2012 followed by Georgia State's departure for the Sun Belt and Old Dominion for Conference USA.

The 2010 season started with the biggest non-conference win of the CAA's short history, when James Madison defeated nationally ranked Virginia Tech (FBS #13 at the time) of the ACC. JMU won 21-16 on September 11, at Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium.

Current members

The CAA football conference has the following members:

Former members

The former members of the CAA football conference are:

Northeastern also played in the Yankee and Atlantic 10 Football Conferences from 1993 to 2006, as did Massachusetts from 1947 to 2006 and Hofstra from 2001 to 2006.

Additionally, former members of its ancestor conferences (New England Conference, Yankee Conference, Atlantic 10 Conference) include:

Membership timeline

Full members

All-time conference championships

Co-championships are designated by italics. ^‡Former member of CAA Football

Regular season champions

Note: The conference was known as the ECAC South from 1983 to 1985.

List of CAA regular season champions.