This newsletter is about William & Mary football joining the Patriot League

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

Real quick, I’d like to make an exciting announcement. Our list of Extra Points Library Institutional Partners has grown once again! We’re excited to announce DAYTON has joined the EPL Family:

Do I love every single one of our Extra Points Library clients? Of course. But am I a teensy bit more excited to see an Ohio institution sign up? Guilty as charged.

Whether you’re an athletic department, sports management department, newsroom, marketing agency or anyone else, Extra Points Library is your affordable way to get the best college sports data. Check out what’s in the Library, right here. 

I started working as a full-time college sports journalist in 2012, and I distinctly remember rumors that William & Mary might join the Patriot League then. As Richmond.com reported earlier this week, these efforts have really been going on since the 1990s. 

Those rumors didn’t always make sense, but they were always out there, from the message boards to the assistant coaches to even, occasionally, athletic directors. But when Richmond made the jump from CAA Football to the Patriot last year, those rumors started to get a little louder. And when William & Mary announced they were not planning to opt into the House settlement this year, even though everybody else in CAA FB said they would, I started to hear even more chatter that the Tribe might be on the move.

Last week, it finally happened. William & Mary announced they’re leaving CAA Football for the Patriot League, starting in 2026. The move gives the Patriot nine football institutions.

Why did this happen now? What does it mean for the Patriot, CAA, and everybody else? I made some calls over the last few days, and here’s what I’ve learned.

Reminder: this isn’t your dad’s Patriot League football

Unlike the Ivy League, The Patriot started offering football scholarships in 2013. Back when Richmond joined the league in 2024, commissioner Jen Heppel told me that just about everybody in the league was offering close to the max of 63 football scholarships, and that teams had increased their staff and infrastructure investments. Patriot League teams want to be competitive in FCS football. They win playoff games.

Folks around Richmond told me they strongly pushed back on the idea that the Spiders were moving to Patriot Football as a way of downgrading their institutional support of the program. William & Mary athletic director Brian Mann told me the same thing was true for his program. “We have no plans to reduce anything with our football program,” he told me. If the school didn’t believe the Tribe could compete at a high level out of the Patriot, the school wouldn’t have made the move.

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