Get to Know the FCS, 2023: NEC
Established: 1981 (1996 for football)
Headquarters: Somerset, New Jersey
Commissioner: Noreen Morris
History
The Northeast Conference got its start in 1981, originally as a non-football conference called the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Metro Conference. The charter member schools were Fairleigh Dickinson University, Long Island University, Loyola College (MD), Marist College, Robert Morris University, Saint Francis College (NY), Saint Francis College (PA), Siena College, Towson State University, the University of Baltimore, and Wagner College.
In 1988, as part of a move to give the conference its own identity rather than just an offshoot of the ECAC, the conference was renamed to the Northeast Conference (after considering such names as the Big North, Great North, North Shore, Northern, Northeastern, Eastern, and Eastern Private Intercollegiate).
NEC football began in 1996 with an inaugural conference game between Monmouth and Saint Francis. Charter members of the football conference were Central Connecticut, Monmouth, Robert Morris, Saint Francis, and Wagner. The conference would see its first expansion in 1998 with the addition of Sacred Heart. The following year would see more expansion, with the conference growing to 8 teams with the addition of Albany and Stony Brook.
St. John’s would join the conference in 2000 to bring the count to 9, although this move would be short lived, as the university decided to drop their football program two years later. This marked the first time the conference saw a reduction in membership, although not the last. The NEC would see Stony Brook leave the conference in 2006, Albany in 2012, and Monmouth in 2013 (all related to basketball conference movements that resulted in those teams realigning as football affiliates elsewhere).
2008 saw Bryant join the conference as a full time member and Duquesne join as a football affiliate. After the loss of teams in ’12 and ’13, this had left the conference at 7 members. Not great, but sustainable. But there is no lack of interest in (or escape of) FCS mid-major action, and the last two years have emphasized that.
In 2018 we saw some interesting movement, starting with D2 Merrimack announcing they’d be moving up and joining the NEC (leaving the similarly named Northeast-10 Conference). This move would be finalized for the 2020 season in football, although the Warriors would join the conference in other sports in 2019.
2018 would also see the merger of two universities, LIU-Brooklyn and LIU-Post, into a single entity, LIU (Long Island University). What made this interesting was that LIU-Brooklyn had been a DI member of the NEC in other sports since the conference’s inception, while LIU-Post had been DII in sports, including football. So upon the merge announcement, LIU football was immediately moved to the FCS level and became a full member of the NEC, having their inaugural football season in the conference in 2019.
The last piece of the current landscape comes with the departure of Robert Morris to the Horizon League, and the Big South for football, starting in the 2020 season. This move had been announced and intended to begin this upcoming 2021 fall season, but the pandemic and scheduling elements of the spring 2021 season lead to the departure being pushed up. All in all, this means the NEC currently has 8 football members, 7 of which are full members of the NEC.
One interesting element of the NEC is that it wasn’t until 2010 that the conference was awarded an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs. Before that point, three of the six conferences who did not receive auto-bids (the other two being the Pioneer Football League and the MAAC before they pulled out of FCS football) used to compete for what was referred to as the NCAA Division I FCS Mid Major National Football Championship. The winner of the FCS Mid Major Championship was awarded a traveling cup, called the Sports Network Cup. The NEC won two the cup twice between 2001 and 2007 (2001 by Sacred Heart, and 2004 by Monmouth). Duquesne also won the cup once in 2003 while still a member of the MAAC.
Another interesting element of the NEC: although the NCAA allows FCS programs to offer up to the equivalent of 63 full athletic scholarships, the NEC limits their members to only 45 (although equivalent aid can be provide up the FCS limit).
Membership
Current Members
Former Members
Conference Success and Strength
Conference Championships
FCS National Championships
No NEC team has won an FCS/I-AA National Championship, nor made it to the finals. However the conference does hold claim to 2 FCS Consensus Mid-Major Football National Championships:
Furthermore, one current member, Duquesne, won a Mid-Major Championship before joining the NEC:
Posted Aug 14, 2023, 3:10 PM UTC