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Sacred Heart’s move to the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) Football Conference this season was a relatively quiet move with hardly any external impacts. The Pioneers were previously independent, so the only programs that felt its effects were schools that Sacred Heart had scheduled. However, the move left one conference in shambles.
The Yankee Conference experienced a brief revival in 2024 and 2025 when the winner of the Sacred Heart-Merrimack game received the conference’s old trophy. Unfortunately, the CAA snubbed Merrimack, leaving the future of the Yankee Conference in doubt. Luckily, a new Division II program in the region could keep the conference’s tradition alive.
Monroe University is making the difficult jump from the JuCo ranks to Division II this season. While we chronicled how they built their schedule earlier this offseason, the school so happens to be a logical fit to replace Sacred Heart in the Yankee Conference. Monroe is located in New Rochelle, well within the former league's northeast footprint.
Although the original Yankee Conference never had a school in the Empire State, its successor, the Atlantic 10 Football Conference, did feature a New York school, Hofstra. Although Hofstra was never a Yankee Conference member, it played many of the league’s schools as an Atlantic 10 and CAA member from 2000 until the program’s shutdown in 2009.
As a result, it is reasonable to think that many fans of the Yankee Conference have a “Mandela Effect” regarding Hofstra and associate it with the league.
Despite this minor issue with the Yankee Conference’s history, Monroe represents the best option to keep the Yankee Conference alive. 2026 FCS independent Chicago State and Division II’s other independent Northeastern State are far too west to maintain the Yankee Conference’s regionality. Division III independent Keystone College in Pennsylvania and one-game Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference member Gallaudet (more on that here) are likely reluctant to play a scholarship-granting Division I school. Thus, this leaves Monroe.
Although not ideal for Merrimack and Monroe, adding the upstart New York school could preserve one of Northeastern college football’s most fascinating events, the Yankee Conference Championship.
