CAA (2025)

Next up for the uniforms of 2025 are New England's representatives in the Coastal Athletic Association, or as I like to call it, the Crumbling Athletic Association, since teams seem to be leaving left and right, usually for the Patriot League (William & Mary, Villanova, Richmond) or FBS (James Madison, Delaware). Hey, UMass, you can always come home. ...

Sacred Heart will join the league in 2026.

All four teams covered here didn't change their look much from last year, although I wonder why Maine doesn't wear its light blue alternates when the Black Bears recruits always wear them on social media.

Ivy League (2025)

We'll start the uniforms of 2025 with the ivy League. A few notable things:

• Harvard added white pants, and they look pretty sharp;
• Yale wore names on their jerseys for the first time for the Harvard game;
• Harvard and Yale wore NCAA patches as the Ivies participated in the NCAA FCS tourney for the first time (yay!). Harvard played it first postseason game since the 1920 Rose Bowl, while Yale made its postseason debut.

And so, without further ado ...

New Hampshire Wildcats (2004)

 

Can one person singlehandedly turn a program around? Take a dreary team and make it succeed beyond fans’ wildest imaginations? 

Absolutely. And no, I’m not talking about Tom Brady. (Despite the belief of many hot-take artists, Bill Belichick did far more than twirl a whistle for 20 years while TB12 did all the dirty work.) I’m looking about 100 miles north, in Durham, New Hampshire.

Going into the 2004 season, New Hampshire had enjoyed one winning season over the previous seven years, and even that was a tepid 6-5 mark in 2000. Sixth-year coach Sean McDonnell had a lifetime record of 23-33. The 2003 Wildcats went 5-7 in front of mostly blah crowds at ancient, dilapidated Cowell Stadium. (A late-season game against James Madison attracted a whopping 1,815 fans; even the annual rivalry game against Maine two weeks later drew a modest gathering of 4,246.)

The 2004 season looked to be more of the same. UNH was picked to finish fourth in the Atlantic 10’s six-team North Division. The Wildcats’ season opener was at Delaware, the 2003 I-AA (now FCS) national champion and preseason No. 1 in ’04. The season, frankly, looked to be over before it started. 

Then it happened. Sept. 2, 2004. Delaware Stadium, Newark, Delaware. More than 22,000 Blue Hen zealots in attendance.

UNH quarterback Mike Granieri, who was coming off a solid 2003 season (2,595 yards, 22 TDs, 8 interceptions), went down with a knee injury in the first half. In came redshirt freshman Ricky Santos, a walk-on from Bellingham, Massachusetts who had contemplated trying out for basketball if this football thing didn’t work out. Playing more like a four-year starter, Santos was 10-for-11 passing for 146 yards, including a go-ahead, fourth-quarter 44-yard TD pass to David Ball in a 24-21 mega-upset of the Blue Hens —the Wildcats' first-ever win over a No. 1 team.

The miracle man.

One week later, UNH pulled off another stunner, defeating Big East member Rutgers 35-24, the first five straight wins against I-A/FBS competition. Santos threw for 385 yards and five TDs, three in the second half, when the Wildcats outscored the Scarlet Knights 21-0.

After a 9-7 loss to William & Mary in the home opener in front of only 3,512 fans, UNH won seven of its last eight regular season games to finish at 9-2, claim a No. 6 ranking in the Sports Network poll and earn its first I-AA postseason berth since 1994. Santos threw for 3,318 yards and 31 TDs, and his favorite target, David Ball, caught 86 passes for 1,504 yards and 17 TDs. UNH outscored its opponents 426-339, 32.8 points per game. 

Santos and Ball, the Steve Young and Jerry Rice of FCS.
(Ball actually broke Rice's FCS record for career TD catches,)

Despite the lofty ranking, UNH had to visit lower-ranked (No. 10) Georgia Southern in the first round of the I-AA tournament. Although Santos threw for only 204 yards and one TD, UNH pulled off a 27-23 "upset." 

The Wildcats’ title dream came to an end a week later in the quarterfinals at Montana (a 47-17) loss, but the die had been cast by Ricky Santos. And it has yet to be broken. Just look at the Cats' run of success since.

UNH went on to reach the NCAA tourney 14 straight seasons. Sean McDonnell, he of the 23-33 record, retired in 2021 with a record of 157-104 (134-71 A.S. — After Santos). Chip Kelly, his heretofore unknown offensive coordinator, was acclaimed as a genius. A spanking new stadium was built in 2016. UNH has gone 20-3 against archival Maine since 2003 (sad face from this Maine alum) after going 41-42-8 previously.

You can even dust off those old Playstation 2 NCAA Football
video games and play as Ricky Santos, although you'll have to add his name. 

And Santos, the guy who wondered if this football thing would work out? He went on to win the Walter Payton Award as the nation’s top I-AA/FCS player in 2006, had his jersey retired and is now the Wildcats’ head coach — where he’s back going to the postseason every year.

All because Mike Granieri injured his knee at Delaware.

Phrases like “transformational” and “generational talent” get tossed around like wobbly passes in a backyard game these days, but Ricky Santos truly lived up to those lofty labels.

UMass Minutemen (1978)

It’s not easy being a UMass football fan. 

As of this writing, the Minutemen are 28-136 (.170 winning percentage) over 13 1/2 seasons since leaving the Football  Championship Subdivision for the Football Bowl Subdivision in 2012. Some people say UMass should return to FCS; others say the school should just dump the sport entirely and spend the money on, well, anything else. Fans, what few are left, are wondering what sins they committed in a previous life to deserve this fate. Most UMass students likely don’t remember the last time the school fielded a winning team (2010, when it went 6-5 in its next-to-last FCS season).  

It wasn’t always like this.

As noted elsewhere, UMass had a loud-and-proud football history. An FCS (I-AA) title in 1998. National title game appearances in 1978 and 2006. Bowl games in 1964 and 1972. A 1963 team that allowed 12 points ALL SEASON. Twenty-two conference titles.

One season that stood out in hearts and minds (not to mention the trophy case) was 1978, the first season of I-AA (now FCS), which was created when Division I split into two to separate the Alabamas of the world from the small fry. (Yeah, like there are no small-fry teams in today’s “big time” football.) UMass, which was officially Division II for football purposes along with the rest of its Yankee Conference brethren, was one of 43 charter members of the new division.

The 1978 UMass Minutemen.

The program, like now, was in a period of uncertainty. Beloved coach Dick MacPherson had just left for an assistant’s post with the Cleveland Browns and was replaced by unproven assistant Bob Pickett. The team had graduated a talented group of seniors from 1977’s 8-3 bunch that ran the table in the Yankee Conference and reached the NCAA Division II quarterfinals. The school was in a budget crunch, according to an Ernie Roberts column in the January 11, 1978 Boston (Evening) Globe that noted reductions in scholarships, a struggle to recruit on a level with the likes of New Hampshire and other YC rivals and an administration that seemed more focused on intramural programs.

Despite the shaky situation and a tough schedule that included five I-A schools (only two, Boston College and Rutgers, remain in football’s top tier today), the Globe still picked the Minutemen to win the YC that fall.

UMass poised for action against New Hampshire in 1978,
a 34-7 Minuteman win.

UMass dropped two of its first three games (Villanova and Harvard, both I-A programs at the time), then won seven of its final eight regular-season games, including all five Yankee Conference contests. A 19-17 win over Rhode Island on Oct. 21 sent the Minutemen into the Associated Press top 10 rankings for the first time. UMass dropped out of the rankings two weeks later after a loss to I-A Rutgers, but 33-8 win over I-A Holy Cross sent the team back in the top 10 to stay. 

The Minutemen ended the season with a 27-0 win over I-A Boston College (which went 0-11 that year). Eleven UMass players were named all-Yankee Conference, and guard Bruce Kimball was named a I-AA All-American. Running back Dennis Dent, all 5-feet-7 and 157 pounds of him, ran for 1,139 yards (a school record at the time) and nine TDs, and backfield-mate Hank Sareault added 823 yards and seven scores. Quarterback Mike McEvilly threw 12 TD passes. 

Defensively, Kevin Sullivan (no, not the famous pro wrestler and Boston native) and John Beerworth picked off eight passes each. Pickett was named ECAC I-AA coach of the year.

The first I-AA tournament consisted of a whopping four teams. UMass, seeded No. 4 with an 8-3 record, traveled to the University of Nevada and dismantled the top-seeded and undefeated Wolf Pack 44-21 in the semis on the strength of Dent’s 96-yard TD kickoff return and Sullivan’s three interceptions. 

Using a faux-New York Daily News motif, the 
Massachusetts Daily Collegiate previews the 1978 
I-AA national championship game.

UMass’ dream ride came to an end in the I-AA final (a.k.a. the Pioneer Bowl), where the Minutemen fell to Florida A&M 35-28 in Wichita Falls, Texas (roughly halfway between Dallas and Oklahoma City). Rattler running backs Mike Solomon and Melvin McFayden combined to run for 384 yards in 25 mph winds for fierce A&M failed to complete a pass.

While UMass didn’t return to the I-AA playoffs for another decade, the Minutemen won three of the next four YC titles and reaffirmed their status as one of New England’s top programs.

UMass’ uniforms had one of my all-time favorite logos — the minuteman perched between the “U” and “M.” That logo needs to make a comeback — along with the rest of the program. 

Columbia Lions (1915)

Many of you probably know that Rutgers and Princeton played the first intercollegiate "football" game in 1869, although that game bore little semblance to the game of even 30 years alter. A year later, Columbia University became the third school to take up the sport. The Lions (actually, they didn't use that name until 1910) were rather undistinguished until the turn of the century, when they went 49-22-4 from 1899-1905. 

But just as Columbia seemed to be getting it's act together, the school dropped football, citing the increase of violence that had plagued the sport in recent years, what with kicking, biting, flying tackles and the occasional death thrown in for good measure. Although a series of sweeping rules changes (highlighted by the addition of the forward pass) were passed in 1906, Columbia refused to reinstate the sport. (According to Mark F. Bernstein's Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession, the source for much of the info here, MIT, Northwestern, Trinity, Duke, California and Stanford also punted the sport after the '05 season.)

The Columbia student paper didn't hide its feelings on football.

After years of protest from students, Columbia allowed interclass games in 1914 and announced the return of the varsity game in February 1915. There were some conditions, however, including the prohibition of facing most of the big Ivy schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Cornell), games has to be restricted to campus and freshmen were forbidden from playing (a practice that eventually became universal). 

The 1915 Columbia Lions. Welcome back.

This illustration from the 1917 Columbian yearbook (which covered the 
1915-16 academic year) heralds the return of football to campus.

Columbia went 5-0 in its first season back, facing relative lightweights such as Stevens Tech, UConn and Wesleyan. The Lions played all their games on South Field on campus. And when I say "on campus," I mean "on campus." It looks like Columbia shoehorned a football field onto a campus mall or quad. Temporary stands were squeezed behind the sidelines. The Lions played in this makeshift facility until Baker Field opened in 1923.

The top photo is from 1915; the second photo is from 1919.
But they illustrate how Columbia's games were played on the heart of the campus.
Wonder if students walked across the field on their way to the library
 (the domed building in the background)? 

Columbia continued to play NESCAC-level teams the next several years, even after the ban against bigger Ivy schools was lifted. (In fact, Columbia didn't play Harvard again until 1948, Yale until 1934 and Princeton until 1932.)

Columbia's uniforms are pretty typical from the era; the trademark "Columbia blue" jerseys didn't arrive until about the late 1920s. The primitive numbers were sewn onto white squares that were stitched onto the jerseys.

The 1925 Project (Part 5)

Part 5 of our look at the New England(-ish) teams and uniforms of a century ago continues with eight schools that today are part of NESCAC (New England Small College Athletic Conference), basically the Ivy League's Division III Mini-Me. (And if you don't believe it, just remember NESCAC decided to allow its football teams to compete in the NCAA postseason not long after the Ivies made the same decision.)

I'm not going to go in to mountains of detail on each team here, but I will leave a few notes:

• Amherst was coached by DeOrmond "Tuss" McLaughry, who left after the season for Brown. His time with the Bears is discussed here. He also coached at Dartmouth. Also, I don't believe the Mammoths/Lord Jeffs had an official nickname at this point, so that space in the graphic is left blank.
• Notice how in the cases of Amherst, Middlebury and Tufts, some helmets had stripes and others did not. I *think* this was done to differentiate players based on position (remember, this was before teams wore uniform numbers on the front), but I could be wrong.
• The Trinity uniform could be a mash-up (see note on the graphic).
• Middlebury might have had the toughest schedule of anyone here. The Panthers opened the season against Harvard and Yale and lost by a combined score of 121-0. Middlebury also lost 33-0 to NYU, a well-regarded program.

And at last, the uniforms:

New Haven Chargers (1972, 2024)

New Haven? New Haven, you ask? Yes, New England's other UNH is moving on up to Division I from D-II this fall as a member of the Northeast Conference, bringing the number of active D-I football schools in New England to 17. Not bad for a region not known for college football in the grand scheme of things. (Six non-New England schools are also covered by this little ol' site.)

Looking over the Chargers' season-by-season history, I was struck by their long list of notable coaches:

• Larry McElreavy (1983-85, 12-18 record) later coached Columbia during their dark ages (going 2-28). When I lived in the Upper Valley, he coached Newport (N.H.). High to a state title or two.
• Chris Palmer (1986-87, 16-4) coached at Boston University for in 1988-89 and later was the first coach of Cleveland Browns 2.0 (1999-2000). He was New Haven's athletic director from 2018-19.
• Mark Whipple (1988-93, 48-17) coached four years at Brown, then led UMass to a I-AA (FCS) national title in 1998.
• Tony Sparano (1994-98, 41-14-1) went on to coach the Miami Dolphins to an AFC East title in 2008 during the thick of the New England Patriots' heyday. (Yeah, it was the season when Brady was hurt, but the Pats still went 11-5 with Matt Cassel at QB.)
• Darren Rizzi (1999-2001, 15-14) coached a year at Rhode Island (2008, 3-9) and was the interim head coach of the New Orleans Saints in 2024.

No matter their record, there's something to be said about a D-II/III program with three NFL head coaches among their ranks.

Another quirk about New Haven: The school dropped the program after the 2003 season and revived it in 2009. UAB, Villanova and Maine Maritime are other schools that eliminated the sport only to being it back in short order.

After fielding a club team for several years, the Chargers joined the varsity ranks in 1973 and promptly dropped their first 18 games before they finally tasted victory on Sept. 20, 1975 with a 13-7 win over Curry. The 1973 uniforms, shown above, are pretty basic with the exception of the triangles on the upper sleeves. The Pittsburgh Steelers wore something similar in the preseason during the 1960s.

A couple shots from New Haven's first varsity season in 1973.
The "field" looks more like a vacant lot on the outskirts of town.
Gotta start somewhere.

New Haven's 2024 uniforms rotated blue, yellow and white jerseys and pants. Not many teams in this site use yellow as a primary color, so hopefully the Chargers will break out the Screaming Yellow Zonkers look a few times this fall. 

The 1925 Project (Part 4)

A while back, we looked at four Ivy League teams as part of our tribute to New England college football of a century ago, including co-national champion Dartmouth. (Yes, you read that right.) Today, the rest of the not-yet Ancient Eight takes the snap. You can find more teams here and here.

Harvard

High Point: For a team with a winning record, I can't find any real high points. Three of the Crimson's four wins were over non-conference foes RPI, Middlebury and William & Mary. The fourth was a 3-0 win over Brown on Nov. 14, and even then Harvard was thoroughly outplayed if this article is to be believed. The big "victory" might be a scoreless tie with heavily-favored Yale in which the final whistle blew just as the Bulldogs lined up on Harvard's 3-yard line. (Remember, there were no digital scoreboards keeping time then, and only the officials knew the "real" time, kinda like soccer officials today.)

Low Point: Harvard was blown out by powerful Princeton and Dartmouth by a combined scored of 68-9.

Harvard opened the 1925 season against RPI;
today, the schools play in the same hockey conference.
Check out the RPI player with the letter "I" on the back!

Uniforms: Like many other teams of the era, Harvard had moleskin patches stitched on some jerseys in order to help the ballcarriers better protect the ball.

The Harvard brain trust had plenty to smile about
after a strong end to the season.

Other Trivia: Head coach Bob Fisher was 43-14-5 over seven seasons at Harvard, highlighted by a win in the 1920 Rose Bowl. As a player, he was a two-time All-American for the Crimson.

Pennsylvania 

High Points: There were 2: 

1) On Oct. 17, Penn beat Yale 16-13 for the Quakers' first-ever victory over the Bulldogs after 12 losses. Fullback Al Kruez led a bruising ground attack, stopped Yale's running game on defense, and his field goal proved to be the difference on the scoreboard.

Penn makes history against Yale.

2) The Quakers capped a successful season with a 7-0 Thanksgiving Day win over archival Cornell at Franklin Field. Penn's touchdown came on a Charlie Rogers 42-yard scoop-and-score in the final quarter. The Philadelphia Inquirer, using enough purple prose to drown a printing press, referred to Rogers as "The Camden Comet" (he was from Camden, New Jersey) and "the doughy scion of Jersey." The article later said Rogers "galloped like some elusive spectre, some ghost of the gridiron." Which leads us to ... 

Low Point: It might be unfair to call Penn's 24-2 Halloween loss to Illinois a "low point," since the main attraction wasn't so much the host Quakers as it was the Philly debut Red Grange, the Illini's "Galloping Ghost." Number 77 did not disappoint, running for 320 yards on 32 carries, including a 55-yard TD run on his first carry.

Red Grange, far right, leaves Penn in the dust. Or mud.

Oddly enough, the game drew "only" 60,000 fans to Franklin Field, 11,000 less than the Turkey Day turnout for Cornell. And probably 600,000 fans went on to tell their friends they were there when Red ran up, down and around the Quakers.

Uniforms: Even then, the Quakers had a recognizable look. Penn without the alternating red-and-blue stripes on the sleeves is like Ben Franklin without his bifocals. It's just not right. Going back to the 19th century, probably the only notable changes the Quakers had made to this point were the addition of helmets and numbers on the back. Notice the patches of the jersey fronts to help the ballcarriers. (I wonder if those actually worked?)

Other Trivia: Joseph Wilson, the captain, went on to serve 45 years as a United States district judge in Pennsylvania. ... Head coach Lou Young was 49-15-2 over seven seasons. It's interesting the note how successful coaches such as Young and Harvard's Fisher walked away from the game despite terrific records. My guess is that even then, coaching was a stressful profession.

Princeton 

High Point: It's always good to beat those traditional rivals, right? Princeton topped Harvard and Yale by a combined score of 61-12. The 36-0 win over Harvard was Princeton's most dominant victory in the rivalry to date.

Low Point: A 9-0 loss to Colgate in driving rain on October 24 cost the Tigers an undefeated season. Eddie Tyron, who I wrote about in this post, scored the Raiders' lone touchdown and bottled the Tigers on their half of the field with his booming punts.

Princeton and Navy face off in 1925. As is often the case,
good luck figuring out which team is which.

Uniforms: Like Penn, Princeton's basic design dates back to the 19th century with those gorgeous tiger stripes. From what I've been able to gather, some jersey numbers were orange and some were white. But with those grainy 1920s photos, you can never quite tell.

Other Trivia: Center Ed McMillan was a consensus first-team All-American. Like many Ivy players, his post-playing career differed from his contemporaries, as he served as an examiner for the Pennsylvania Securities and Exchange Commission. ... Fullback Jacob Slagle was a non-consensus All-American at fullback. ... Coach Bill Roper remains the Tigers' all-time winningest coach; the William Winston Roper Trophy, the school's highest individual honor for a male athlete, is named in his honor.

Yale

High Point: I'm tempted to say a 35-7 win over Georgia on Oct. 10, but a) Georgia was 4-5 that year; b) Southern football was on the rise (see Alabama's co-championship that year), but it wasn't quite SOUTHERN FOOTBALL yet, with Sammy Baugh and Davey O'Brien and those guys. There was a 28-7 win over Army on Halloween, but the Cadets' 7-2 record was deceiving (among their victims: Detroit, Knox, Saint Louis, Davis & Elkins and Ursinus). I'll pencil in a 20-7 win over Brown over October 24, by default of nothing else. (Yale's other wins were over Middlebury and Maryland; the Terps were kinda in the same camp as Georgia.)

Good seats were still available at the Yale Bowl
for the Bulldogs' 35-7 win over those other Bulldogs from Georgia.

Low Point: If Harvard's scoreless tie with Yale was the high point of the Crimson's season, I'm guessing it was a low point of the Bulldogs' season. Another downer was the aforementioned  16-13 loss to Penn.

Uniforms: Basic stuff. I'm not sure if the helmets are blue as in the above graphic; I'm guessing that's lost to history.

Other Trivia: Guard Herbert Sturhahn was named to the first of two straight All-America teams. ... Tackle Johnny Joss, who was named to the New York Sun's All-America team, later coached college football in Mexico.