RICHMOND, Va. – The Wildcats now know who, when, and where.

The University of New Hampshire football team will open its new 2021 spring season on March 6 vs. the University of Albany in Durham.

CAA Football announced its conference schedule for the 2021 Spring season, a season created when the conference cancelled this fall’s season due to the pandemic. It includes a six-game slate for each institution using a unique divisional format.

The North Division will include seven teams – UAlbany, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Stony Brook and Villanova.

There will be four teams in the South Division – Elon, James Madison, Richmond and William & Mary.

Teams in the North will face each other once (three home, three away), while teams in the South will meet twice, with each team getting a home and an away game. Towson announced on October 19 that it would not compete during the 2021 Spring season.

The remainder of UNH’s season: March 20, at home vs. Delaware; March 27, at Villanova; April 3, at Rhode Island; April 10, home vs. Stony Brook; and April 17, at Maine.

The team with the best overall conference record will earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Football Championship. Should the divisional champions finish with the same conference record, a tie-breaking procedure will be used to determine the automatic qualifier.

“We are pleased to announce the conference schedule for the 2021 Spring football season, but understand this is just the next step in the planning process associated with playing football on each of our campuses,” CAA Commissioner Joe D’Antonio said in a release sent out by the conference. “Our unique divisional format was developed with the goal of enhancing safety and reducing the risks associated with travel during this difficult period of time, while still providing a fair and competitive model to determine a champion.

“Today’s announcement hopefully provides an additional level of excitement for the student-athletes and coaches who have worked hard and made numerous sacrifices over the past eight months. As always, health and safety remain at the forefront of all return-to-play decisions that we as a Each team would have a bye week in the schedule, which could provide flexibility to make up games postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic if necessary.

Each institution has the option of adding up to two additional non-conference games to their schedule.

Institutions are able to schedule “non-conference” games against other conference members, but those games would not count towards the conference standings and the outcome would not be used in the tiebreaking procedures. Based on NCAA guidelines, teams are allowed to begin non-conference competition as early as January 23.

The NCAA Football Championship will feature 16 teams with 11 automatic qualifiers and five at-large berths. The playoffs are set to begin on Saturday, April 24 with a champion being crowned in Frisco, Texas on May 14, 15 or 16.

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