Whatever Happened to This Conference?? - The Yankee Conference

Conference realignment is seemingly never going away in college football and it has become a topic of constant conversation. We currently have conferences seemingly on the brink of either ceasing operations completely or becoming realigned in a way that doesn’t make geographical sense (or some already have). We’re talking about a Major Power Five conference potentially being broadcast on random networks or potentially being put behind a streaming service paywall. Due to this uncertainty, we started to wonder what happened to conferences in college football’s past and how they fell out of the picture. We will take a brief tour of some defunct conferences, explore their members, give a brief summary on how the conference fell apart and where everyone wound up after the conference disbanded.  

The Yankee Conference

The Yankee Conference was a collegiate sports conference in the eastern United States. From 1947 to 1976, it sponsored competition in many sports, but was a football-only league from mid-1976 until its dissolution in 1996. It is essentially the ancestor of today's Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) football conference, and the continuation of the New England Conference, though all three leagues were founded under different charters and are considered separate conferences by the NCAA.

The Yankee Conference membership consisted of University of Connecticut, University of Maine, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of New Hampshire, University of Rhode Island & University of Vermont. It later added and finished with Boston University, the University of Delaware, Villanova University, the University of Richmond, James Madison University, Northeastern University and the College of William and Mary.

The Yankee Conference Timeline

Formed in 1947 and for its first 24 years, the conference consisted of the six charter members, each of which was the flagship public university of its state: University of Connecticut, University of Maine, University of Massachusetts-Amherst (new name adopted in 1947), University of New Hampshire, University of Rhode Island (known as Rhode Island State College until 1951) & University of Vermont. During this time, Yankee Conference football teams competed in the College Division of the NCAA, the lower of two tiers of varsity competition. Back then you could consider this somewhat similar to the current Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).

Here is a page from the 1956 Sports Illustrated preview of the Yankee Conference. Nothing like the Activair shirt and pocket Henessy.

The conference also sponsored several other sports, such as basketball and baseball. Conference bylaws required all members to field teams in all conference-sponsored sports. This was an important line in the conference bylaws going forward, as it caused some universities issues in trying to enter the conference and forcing others to leave.

In 1971, the Yankee conference announced its first expansion, the addition of Boston University and the College of the Holy Cross. Since football schedules were set in advance Boston University would not begin to play football until 1973.

Holy Cross, the formerly all-male college, began admitting women. Holy Cross already had by far the smallest enrollment in the conference, and administrators reached the conclusion that its shrinking male population would not be able to field competitive teams in all Yankee Conference sports. Accordingly, Holy Cross announced in November 1972 that it would quit the conference immediately and never played a single game in the Yankee conference.

The conference rule that all members must compete in all sports was tested again in 1974, when Vermont announced it would drop its football program at the end of that season.

Vermont University officials decided to eliminate football from UVM's sports budget. The team had been wallowing in mediocrity, regularly competing against smaller Division II and Division III opponents. At the time it seemed like the right, albeit painful, thing to do. (We miss you Vermont football, come back please).

In 1975, after Vermont left the conference, they amended the conference bylaws to allow its members to choose conference participation on a sport-by-sport basis.

Also, in the middle of this conference membership shuffle, the NCAA threw in a little wrench in to the Yankee Conference and reclassified the football divisions. In 1973, the old College Division was replaced by NCAA Division II, for "minor" programs that offer athletic scholarships, and NCAA Division III, for those without scholarships. The Yankee Conference programs were all placed in Division II.

However, in 1978, the NCAA introduced Division I-AA (now FCS), a subdivision that allowed universities competing in Division I in other sports to field football teams in that division without having to match up with the major football powers. From 1978 on, all Yankee Conference members have been members of Division I-AA aka FCS.

Yankee Conference expansion continued in the 1980s and 1990s. They added several colleges and universities from the Mid-Atlantic region.

In 1986, they added the University of Delaware and the University of Richmond. Bringing membership up to 8 teams.

In 1988, Villanova joined the conference bringing membership to 9 teams and it led to this sweet helmet graphic previewing the Yankee Conference membership and the Conference Trophy. (we beveled it of course)

The Yankee Conference was not done expanding and ballooned up to 12 teams in 1993 with the Addition of Northeastern University, James Madison and William & Mary. The conference then created the New England and Mid-Atlantic Division after these additions.

Total Yankee Conference Championships

• UMass - 20

• UConn - 16

• New Hampshire - 13

• Maine - 8

• Rhode Island - 5

• Boston University - 5

• Delaware - 5

• Villanova - 2

• Richmond - 1

• William & Mary - 1

• Vermont - 0 (We can kind of see why they dropped football now? I guess but please come back Vermont football)

(I had to count these manually so forgive me if I made an error and oh my word there were so many split conference titles. In 1982, they had 4 teams winning a share of the conference title, it was shared between Boston Univeristy, UConn, Maine and UMass)

Just look at that sweet Yankee Conference trophy and could we get one of those V-Neck UMass cashmere sweaters?

The Yankee Conference Breaks Up

This conference break-up seemingly had its hand forced by the NCAA. The 12-member, two-division arrangement continued until 1996, when the NCAA adopted rules limiting the influence of single-sport conferences over policy.

The Yankee Conference was essentially facing extinction due to this new NCAA policy. Since the Yankee Conference’s only sport was football, they would not have been allowed to participate in NCAA deliberations under the new restructuring. They then made the move to merge with the Atlantic-10 Conference which didn’t sponsor football.

UMass and URI were already members of the A-10 in other sports; the other 10 Yankee members became associate members in football only. For the 1997 season, the A-10 football league had the exact same members and division structure as the 1996 Yankee Conference.

After membership changes in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) over the following 10 years, management of the A-10 football conference, which continued to include most of the former Yankee Conference teams, passed to the CAA in 2007.

Sound off in the comments below if you’d like us to review what occurred in another defunct conference.