Saturday, December 30, 2023

Bryant, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island (2023)

Our next look at the year in uniforms takes us to the Colonial Athletic Association Coastal Athletic Association Coastal Athletic Association Football Conference. How about "The Conference With Too Many Damn Teams"? or "Why won't the America East Conference add football already?"

Anyway, here's a look at the four CAA teams covered on this site, plus Bryant, which is leaving the Big South for the CAA next year, which will raise the conference's membership to 743.

Bryant — anyone else remember when the Patriots trained there in days of yore? — added a white shirt to more closely match the black jerseys introduced last year when the Bulldogs switched to New Balance uniforms. The gold alternate jersey worn last year was left on the bench in '23.

Delaware, which will be leaving the CAA for FBS and Conference USA in 2025, changed its blue jersey to match the white road version, and the blue pants now match the white and yellow versions with the big ol' hen on the right pant leg.

Maine made a few changes this year, which doesn't hide the fact that my Black Bears won two games for the second straight year. The helmet stripe colors were reversed and the script "Maine," last worn in 2015, returned, replacing the Maine logo with the black bear head. Only problem is that the size of the revived logo is tiny — did Maine borrow the decals from the hockey team or something?? And speaking of hockey, Maine added new road jerseys with numbers that mirror those worn by the pucksters. 

Finally, Maine changed its white pants, with a striping pattern that matches the ones on the helmet and navy blue jerseys.

New Hampshire didn't change much from last year, although the white helmets underwent a couple changes throughout the season: The Wildcats had a white wildcat logo for one game, switched to the throwback "NH" logo for homecoming and used a blue wildcat logo the rest of the way.

Rhode Island kept its multitude of jerseys and pants from 2022, and for good measure, added an alternate white uniform, giving the Rams four different shirts and FIVE different pants. But only one helmet? Yeah, I know, helmets are expensive. 😎

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