William & Mary will leave the Coastal Athletic Conference (CAA) and join the Patriot League as a football-only affiliate member beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. The news comes after rival Richmond made the same move last May. William & Mary’s other sports will remain in the CAA.
The Patriot League is up to 9 teams while the CAA will be down to 13, as Delaware and Richmond are leaving this year, and William & Mary will depart the CAA in 2026. The Tribe joined the then Division I-AA Subdivision in 1982 as an independent. W&M joined the Yankee Conference in 1993, which became the Atlantic 10 in 1997. The A10 teams eventually moved to the CAA in 2007, where the Tribe has been since.
William & Mary has made 11 FCS playoff appearances since joining the FCS with the first appearance occurring in 1986. The best finish was in 2009 when the school made a semifinal appearance but lost to fellow CAA and eventual national champion Villanova. The Tribe most recently made the FCS Playoffs in 2022, reaching the quarterfinals.
The Patriot League will consist of Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham, Georgetown, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh, Richmond, and William & Mary starting in 2026. Of course, this assumes no further membership changes. William & Mary will begin the final CAA season on Saturday, August 30 at Furman (SoCon). They’ll open CAA play at Villanova on Saturday, September 27, and fittingly, end the regular season against Richmond on November 22 in a non-conference contest.
The CAA has seen a steady outflow of top teams over the past few years. James Madison left in 2022 to join the FBS, Delaware is leaving in 2025 to join C-USA, Richmond is joining the Patriot League in 2025, and now William & Mary will follow Richmond in 2026. JMU made the playoffs in its final three seasons in the FCS, Delaware made it twice and was ineligible for the final season in 2024, and Richmond also made it the final three times as a member of the CAA. William & Mary hasn’t made the FCS Playoff since 2022 but has posted a winning record in each of the last four seasons.
To offset the loss of James Madison and get ahead of additional moves, the CAA added Hampton and Monmouth in 2022, Campbell and North Carolina A&T in 2023, and Bryant in 2024. The combined record of those five teams since joining the CAA is 41-85 overall and 21-67 in CAA games with no team posting a winning record during that time.
Photo Credit to William & Mary University Athletics
