RICHMOND — The Colonial Athletic Association isn’t finished with expansion just yet.
Rocked by summertime defections of two schools and NCAA sanctions for two others that threatened the league’s short-term viability in basketball, the CAA on Wednesday introduced Albany and Stony Brook as members of CAA Football, a separate enterprise than its other sports.
“Expansion for all-sports stuff is still a work in progress,” Yeager told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
Football was the first priority after Georgia State, Old Dominion and Rhode Island all announced plans to leave the league following this season, leaving just eight teams.
The CAA, which has established itself in recent years as the strongest league in Football Championship Subdivision ranks, wanted to be able to provide member schools with at least eight conference games, but Yeager added: “This isn’t just filling out a roster to get an extra conference game. These are two programs that have distinguished themselves as champions.”
Both schools will join the league after the coming academic year.
Stony Brook will compete for one last season in the Big South, in which it has won three straight conference championships, and last year claimed the league’s first automatic berth to the playoffs. Albany will complete its football affiliation with the Northeast Conference.
Yeager said both moves are football-only and that talk of replenishing the league’s basketball membership was for another day. The departures of Virginia Commonwealth and Old Dominion this summer, as well as NCAA academic sanctions that make N.C.-Wilmington and Towson ineligible for postseason, leave the CAA with only seven teams for its basketball tournament.
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