CAA cancels football, other fall sports due to COVID-19

By Kevin Kelley -

The Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) has canceled football and other fall sports due to the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the conference announced on Friday.

News of the CAA canceling Fall sports was first reported on Thursday by The Athletic.

Although no other conference has announced a plan to play football in the spring, the CAA will explore the “…possibility of conducting a football season during the Spring of 2021, and will continue to analyze this scenario as more information becomes available and conditions continue to evolve.”

Additionally, the CAA announced that teams that wish to play football this fall may do so as an independent.

In expressing an understanding of the uniqueness of the Conference’s composition (12 institutions that compete in other sports in four Division I Conferences), the geographical expansion of the Conference membership and the complexity of an ever-changing situation, the Conference’s Board of Directors also affirmed that the Conference’s policies would permit member institutions the ability to explore the option of pursuing playing an independent football schedule in the Fall of 2020.

The CAA is the fourth Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) conference to cancel their fall sports. The Ivy League, Patriot League, and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) previously announced their decisions to cancel football this fall.

“I commend the Board of Directors for their forward thinking and open-mindedness when dealing with the uncertain and complex moment that we find ourselves in,” said CAA Commissioner Joe D’Antonio. “Each of our institutions is making the best decisions for its campus community, based on a totality of the circumstances analysis.”

As a result of the CAA canceling the fall 2020 football season, 12 non-conference games against Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) opponents are affected. Towson at Maryland and William & Mary at Stanford on Sept. 5 were previously canceled by the Big Ten and Pac-12, respectively.

  • Maine at Ball State (Sept. 3)
  • Stony Brook at Western Michigan (Sept. 4)
  • New Hampshire at Kansas (Sept. 5)
  • Rhode Island at Northern Illinois (Sept. 5)
  • Towson at Maryland (Sept. 5)
  • William & Mary at Stanford (Sept. 5)
  • Elon at Duke (Sept. 12)
  • Stony Brook at Florida Atlantic (Sept. 12)
  • James Madison at North Carolina (Sept. 19)
  • Richmond at Pitt (Sept. 19)
  • UAlbany at UMass (Sept. 19)
  • Villanova at Wake Forest (Sept. 19)
  • Delaware at NC State (Sept. 26)
  • Maine at UConn (Oct. 10)

CAA Football Schedule

Comments (4)

Not good at all. This Virus is going to end up costing come FBS and FCS programs their teams.

Give credit to these small conferences for cancelling their seasons because of the uncertainty of the Covid-19 virus. The Power 5 conferences don’t have the balls to do that, They are more concerned about the money they will lose, over the possibility of the players lives being lost during this pandemic.

Some of these schools are in trouble. If they don’t open, some will close forever, and they will deserve their fate.

My guess is that the PAC 12 will be the first Big 5 conference to cancel or postpone till spring. I hope the Virus numbers get lower and I am wrong!