Commonwealth Coast Football (CCC Football) was a single-sport athletic conference that competed in football in the NCAA's Division III. It began play as CCC Football in 2017 after the New England Football Conference (NEFC) was renamed following the 2016 season. CCC Football was administered by the Commonwealth Coast Conference, known since August 2024 as the Conference of New England.[1]
The conference competed under the NEFC banner from 1965 through the 2016 season. Member teams are located in New England.
Before an NEFC conference split that took effect with the 2013 season, the NEFC was divided into the Boyd Division and the Bogan Division, with the division champions competing in Division III football's only season-ending conference championship game.[2]
After the 2012 season, the NEFC split, with the seven Massachusetts state institutions and Plymouth State playing in the MASCAC for football.[3] The conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs continued to be held by the eight remaining members: Curry, Endicott, Maine Maritime, MIT, Nichols, Salve Regina, Coast Guard, and Western New England. In the 12 seasons the NEFC hosted a championship game between its two division winners, these remaining eight members accounted for 16 of the 24 championship game participants and 8 of 12 conference champions.[4]
The decision to rename the NEFC was made in October 2015, as the Commonwealth Coast Conference announced that it would add football by effectively absorbing the NEFC as a single-sport conference known as Commonwealth Coast Football, starting with the 2017–18 school year. Accordingly, the 2016 season was the last for the NEFC under its long-standing name and acronym.[5]
The CCC and Commonwealth Coast Football unveiled a new family of logos during a June 2019 visual rebrand.[6]
Due to changes in NCAA Division III legislation regarding the number of members required for a conference to receive an automatic qualifier (AQ), football was incorporated into the multi-sport Commonwealth Coast Conference in 2022, eliminating the need for the football-only league. As noted above, the multi-sports conference adopted its current name, Conference of New England, in 2024.
NEFC and CCC Football Membership evolution
1965 – The New England Football Conference is founded by charter members Curry, Bridgewater State and Maine Maritime.
1971 – Plymouth State and New England College become conference members.
1972 – Nichols College and Boston State become conference members.
1972 – New England College suspends football program following '72 season; Mass. Maritime Academy becomes conference member.
1973 – Framingham State and New Haven become conference members.
1979 – Western Connecticut State becomes conference member.
1981 – Western New England College becomes conference member.
1981 – New Haven leaves conference, moves to Division II.
1981 – Boston State suspends football program following '81 season.
1982 – Westfield State becomes conference member.
1985 – Fitchburg State and Worcester State become conference members.
1985 – Western Connecticut leaves conference to pursue independent schedule.
1987 – UMass Lowell becomes conference member in 1987, initiating a split into two six-team divisions with divisional winners meeting in championship playoff game.
1988 – UMass Boston and UMass Dartmouth become conference members.
1988 – Western New England leaves conference following '88 season.
1992 – Plymouth State and UMass Lowell join the Freedom Football Conference; Curry and Nichols join the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference.
1992 – The conference now numbers nine colleges that play a round robin schedule.
1997 – Five new members begin conference play in 1998: Curry, Nichols, MIT, Salve Regina and WNEC. The 14-team conference had two 7-team divisions.
1999 – Bridgewater State (10–0) receives first automatic qualification to NCAA playoffs.
2000 – The first Championship game in the 14-team Conference is scheduled. Wal*Mart agrees to sponsor the game. The Divisions are renamed with the Red being the Bogan Division and the Blue becoming the Boyd Division named after the NEFC's first two commissioners. Bridgewater State defeats Salve Regina 27–24 for the championship. UMass Boston drops football.
2001 – The Bogan Division plays with only six teams while the Boyd continues with seven. Endicott College begins a football program and is admitted into the Boyd Division beginning with the 2003 season.
2004 – A Most Valuable Player Award is established for the NEFC Championship Game and is named the William Mottola Award in honor of the long-time conference commissioner.
2005 – Plymouth State University and the United States Coast Guard Academy are admitted as members for play beginning in the 2006 season. Plymouth enters the Boyd Division and Coast Guard Academy competes in the Bogan Division. The Conference decides that the Championship Game will be played at the campus of the Bogan Division winner in even numbered years and on the field of the Boyd Division champion in odd numbered years.
2007 – Curry College becomes the first NEFC team to win an NCAA Division III Championship Tournament game, defeating Hartwick College 42–21.
2008 – The NEFC qualifies two teams for the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament for the first time. Conference champion Plymouth State University receives the automatic bid, and Curry College receives an at-large bid.
2010 – Maine Maritime Academy sets a new NCAA Division III season rushing record with 5189 yards in 11 games. The Mariners miss the all-Division mark set by the University of Oklahoma in 1971 by eight yards.
2011 – Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference institution presidents decide to form a MASCAC football league, which consists of nine schools, and the league champion is awarded an automatic berth to the NCAA D-III Football National Tournament. Bridgewater State University, Fitchburg State University, Framingham State University, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Westfield State University, and Worcester State University are the six core schools deciding to join the new MASCAC conference. Also, Plymouth State University, UMass-Dartmouth, and Western Connecticut State also join the MASCAC conference as flagship members, effectively in 2013.
2012 – The NEFC qualifies two teams for the NCAA Division III National Tournament for the second time in league history. Framingham State (10–1) won the NEFC Championship and received the automatic bid, while Bridgewater State (9–1) received an at-large bid. Framingham State lost in the first round, 20–19 to Cortland State (NY), while Bridgewater State also lost in the first round, 44–14 to Widener University (PA).
2013 – Retired Bridgewater State University Director of Athletics John Harper is named Commissioner of the Conference
2014 – The Conference Championship traveling trophy is named for former Maine Maritime Academy Director of Athletics and football coach Bill Mottola. Mottola was NEFC Commissioner from 1997 to 2007 and was affiliated with the conference for four decades.
2015 – Maine Maritime Academy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the United States Coast Guard Academy announce plans to leave the NEFC following the 2016 season to compete in the NEWMAC, which begins sponsoring football as a championship sport in 2017.
2016 – The NEFC completes its final season of play under the NEFC name. Curry, Endicott, Nichols, Salve Regina, and Western New England compete in a renamed NEFC known as Commonwealth Coast Football (CCC Football) in succeeding years. Becker joins as an associate member in 2017 and the University of New England adds a football program and becomes CCC Football's seventh football member in 2018. As a renamed NEFC, CCC Football continues to receive automatic qualification to the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament.
2017 – The NEFC begins play as Commonwealth Coast Football and continues to operate as a single-sport conference administered by the Commonwealth Coast Conference.
2019 – Husson joins as an associate member.
2021 – Becker ceases operations.
2022 - Football fully incorporated into the CCC sport sponsorship, rendering CCC Football a defunct league.
The years of departure listed are the calendar years in which each school left the conference. Because football is a fall sport, the year of departure is the calendar year after the last season of competition.
↑ Although UMass Lowell left the NEFC in 1992, it continued to sponsor the sport through the 2002 season.
↑ Undergraduate enrollment; total enrollment is 11,319.
Commonwealth Coast Football
100km 62miles
Husson
Western New England
Univ. of New England
Salve Regina
Nichols
Endicott
Curry
Location of the current members
Membership timeline
Primary conferences
When the conference operated under the NEFC name, its teams competed in other primary multi-sport conferences.[8]
Related Research Articles
The Conference of New England (CNE), formerly known as the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC), is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Member institutions are located in New England in the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
The Little East Conference (LEC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference that competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III. The member institutions are located in all six states of New England.
The Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Full member institutions are all located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with affiliate members also located in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Virginia. The Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference was established in June of 1971, making it the oldest NCAA Division III men's and women's playing college athletic conference in the United States.
New England Hockey Conference is a college athletic conference which operates in the northeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division III as a hockey-only conference.
The ECAC Northeast was an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III as a hockey-only conference. For many years it was one of the three men's hockey conferences that operated under the umbrella of the Eastern College Athletic Conference; the others were the ECAC East, and the ECAC West. Member institutions were located in the New England region of the United States, in the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The New England Women's Lacrosse Alliance (NEWLA) was an NCAA Division III women's lacrosse-only conference that disbanded in 2012. NEWLA had nine member schools representing three states:. The schools joined their primary sports conference, seven schools joined the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference and two the New England Collegiate Conference.
The Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC) is a football-only intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Founded in 2009, it combines four schools spread across the states of Massachusetts and New York, plus Washington, D.C.
Salve Regina University competes on the NCAA Division III level and is a member of the Commonwealth Coast Conference and Commonwealth Coast Football. The university offers ten varsity sports for women, eight for men, and one co-ed sport (sailing). Sailing is governed by the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association, and its subdivision, the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association. The school also offers men's and women's rugby, governed by the Colonial Coast Rugby Conference, USA Rugby and the International Rugby Board. The men's rugby program competes at the Division III level, and the women's program competes on the Division III level in the National Small College Rugby Organization.
The Bridgewater State Bears are composed of 22 varsity teams representing Bridgewater State University in intercollegiate athletics. All teams compete at the NCAA Division III level and all teams compete in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC), except for field hockey, tennis and swimming & diving which plays in the Little East Conference (LEC).
The Framingham State Rams are composed of 14 varsity teams representing Framingham State University in intercollegiate athletics. All teams compete at the NCAA Division III level and all teams compete in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC).
The Massachusetts Maritime Buccaneers are composed of 15 varsity teams representing the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in intercollegiate athletics. All teams compete at the NCAA Division III level and all teams compete in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC), except for men's lacrosse, which plays in the Little East Conference (LEC), and sailing, which competes in the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association (NEISA).
The UMass Dartmouth Corsairs football team represents the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in college football at the NCAA Division III level. The Corsairs are members of the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC), fielding its team in the MASCAC since 2013. The Corsairs play their home games at Cressy Field in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
The New England Bowl was an annual NCAA Division III post-season college football bowl game series established in 2016 by four New England football conferences pulling their teams from the ECAC Bowl structure. All four conferences were eligible for postseason play and each of the 27 football-playing institutions in the conferences were eligible to participate in the New England Bowl series. The criteria used by the commissioners to select the teams required an overall winning percentage of .667 or higher and they evaluated overall record, conference record, conference standing, head-to-head results, and results versus teams selected for the NCAA Tournament.
The 2023 UMass Dartmouth Corsairs football team represented the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth as a member of the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) during the 2023 NCAA Division III football season. Led by first-year head coach Josh Sylvester, the Corsairs compiled an overall record of 9–2 with a mark of 7–1 in conference play, sharing the MASCAC title with Bridgewater State and Western Connecticut. UMass Dartmouthwas invited to the New England Bowl, where the Corsairs lost to Western New England. The team played home games at Cressy Field in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
Mark Robichaud is a former American college football coach. He served as the head football coach at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth from 2007 until his retirement after the 2022 season; leading the UMass Dartmouth Corsairs football to a record of 70–81 in fifteen seasons. Robichaud previously was an assistant coach for Shepherd, where he helped lead the team to a record of 54–31 in that time span. During his time at Shepherd the team had eight winning seasons, five West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) championships, three NCAA Division II Football Championship playoffs appearances, and two advances into the second round. At UMass Dartmouth, he led the team back to success by reaching the New England Bowl in 2021, and their first NCAA Division III Football Championship playoff appearance in twenty years in 2022. He finished second all-time in wins with the team.
The 2021 Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference football season was the season of college football played by the nine member schools of the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) as part of the 2021 NCAA Division III football season. The Framingham State Rams were conference champions; compiling perfect 8–0 records against conference opponents.
Mark Robichaud is the former head coach of the UMass Dartmouth Corsairs team, which represents the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in the NCAA, and participated in the New England Football Conference (NEFC) and the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) during his tenure. Robichaud was hired prior to the 2007 season and he led the resurgence of the UMass Dartmouth program following the retirement of William Kavanaugh. In 2007, the team played as a member of the NEFC. In 2013, UMass Dartmouth joined the newly formed MASCAC. Robichaud led the Corsairs to back-to-back and compiled a 70–81 record. Under the leadership of Robichaud the Corsairs won their first ever MASCAC championship in the 2022 season and first postseason appearance since 2002 under Kavanaugh.
The 1984 Plymouth State Panthers football team was an American football team that represented Plymouth State University as a member of the New England Football Conference (NEFC) during the 1984 NCAA Division III football season. In their fourth year under head coach Jay Cottone, the Panthers compiled a 10–1 record, won the NEFC championship, outscored opponents by a total of 358 to 120, and received a bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs. The team lost to Union (NY) 14–26 in the quarterfinal.
The 2024 UMass Dartmouth Corsairs football team represent the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth as a member of the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) during the 2024 NCAA Division III football season. Led by second-year head coach Josh Sylvester, the Corsairs played home games at Cressy Field in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
