I received plenty of questions throughout the season about how the Patriot League stacked up against the CAA and how each will look after recent announcements. All of our focus will be on the portal once it officially opens on Friday, so this is a good time to look at both conferences before the New Year.

Past seasons

The Patriot League and the CAA weren’t even remotely comparable five years ago.

The CAA was a top 3 conference consistently getting 4+ teams in the playoffs, while the Patriot League couldn’t crack the top 10 of all FCS conferences. The resurgence of Holy Cross and Lehigh, plus the Spiders joining in 2025, saw the Patriot gain ground but the main driver in the two leagues being near equals was the CAA’s inability to backfill the losses of JMU, Delaware, and Richmond.

Replacing those teams with Bryant, Campbell, North Carolina A&T, and Hampton watched a once top 3 conference plummet to #8. Every single recent addition was ranked outside the top 75 this season, as the CAA’s “quantity over quality” approach has led to an oversized, watered-down league.

We felt the impacts of this decline in our recent strengths of schedule. What was consistently a top 50 schedule dropped into the 70s and 80s in our final two CAA seasons. Despite our move to the “lesser” Patriot our schedule technically improved in 2025, something that would’ve never happened five years ago.

Even with eight of our 11 FCS opponents finishing with 6+ losses, we had a “better” schedule on paper than we did in 2024. The CAA’s poor scheduling that saw us skip Villanova and Rhode Island back-to-back seasons had us effectively playing an old-style Patriot League level schedule in ’23 and ’24. That’s not meant to diminish what the 2023 and 2024 teams did, it’s just the perfect outline for how far the CAA has fallen. It’s up to you whether the Patriot League feels like a good landing spot, but there’s no denying the Spiders escaped a sinking ship in the CAA.

Future seasons

If the Patriot League catching the CAA surprised you, wait until you see what 2026 has in store. With Villanova and William & Mary official football members next season, plus the CAA’s addition of Sacred Heart, it’s a complete 180 in terms of East Coast dominance.

Below is how the two leagues would look in 2026 based on regular season power rankings from 2025 (“new” teams in green).

The average Patriot League team is roughly 10 spots higher, with stronger upper half of the conference. Most importantly, there’s no fear of skipping the best teams. Obviously we can’t expect Lehigh to be a top 10 team every year but I’d also like to think we won’t be 48th and Holy Cross won’t be 66th too often.

Had that shift fully taken place in 2025, look at where the conferences would’ve ranked:

Suddenly the Patriot is the 5th highest rated conference, while the CAA is struggling to stay inside the top 10. The culmination of significant losses alongside insignificant additions has the CAA reeling and ultimately puts the Patriot League in the perfect spot. The ideal number of teams (10) means nine conference games with zero skips while the strategic additions of schools with continued success means a higher concentration of playoff teams and more at-large spots. It’s shocking how quickly things flipped upside down as the East Coast FCS landscape of 2021 is officially no more.

What this means for us

The Spiders are back in a top conference and we need to be ready to play like it. We’ll still have “easy” games on the schedule however unlike this past season there isn’t one conference game that will feel like a make or break – we’re going to consistently face three to four FCS contenders on an annual basis, something that won’t just help us build a playoff resume but will surely increase our level of play.

Watching Lehigh go 12-0 and earn the #5 seed plus Villanova getting all the way to the semifinals should be a real wake up call. The new Patriot League is serious about making noise in the FCS playoffs and there’s no reason we shouldn’t expect to be front and center in that charge. The past few seasons have been strange in terms of disjointed schedules and changing leagues, but things are directly in front of us moving forward.

I’m sure you saw the 2026 schedule release and there’s no better example of things being directly in front of us than our last four games. That’s four teams that fully expect to be in the playoff hunt and we’re going to have to go right through them. No skips, no tiebreakers, just nine competitive Patriot League matchups. I know it’s still 2025 but I’m pretty excited about the increased opportunities (and challenges) that the Spiders have in 2026.

Transfer Portal

This post was purely about the Patriot/CAA but we do have portal changes. Four new entrants since my last update (listed in blue), bringing our total to 12.

Seven of the 12 are potentially taking their final year somewhere else. Although our total departures are similar to last year it’s difficult to expect grad guys to stay for five years, so the feeling is quite different.

Next Post

The first update in January will bring better portal news. We’ll get a final count on the guys leaving (I imagine we still have a few that will enter the portal) and will begin to see new offers posted. I’ll have thoughts on which positions we’re targeting and the overall shape of the 2026 roster.