Like the Big Sky and Southland (and most FCS conferences), the CAA lacks divisions. Unlike the Big Sky and Southland, however, the CAA actually has an even number of football teams (12), so any number of protected matchups per team can work for them. The conference schedule is 8 games. Below is a schedule for 3, 4, or 5 protected matchups. Again, I tried to protect the biggest rivalries first. Any thoughts on this?


The schedule with 5 protected matchups could have worked out the same as if the teams were split into the following nice geographic divisions:

North: Albany, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Stony Brook, Villanova
South: Delaware, Elon, James Madison, Richmond, Towson, William & Mary

... except that Delaware/Villanova had to be protected, which meant a bunch of other "cross-division" matchups (of dubious rivalry value) also had to be protected.

Actually, a divisional setup like this might work well:

North: Albany, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Stony Brook, Towson
South: Delaware, Elon, James Madison, Richmond, Villanova, William & Mary

This just swaps Towson and Villanova in order to keep Delaware and Villanova together. Each team could play its division plus half the other division every year for an 8-game conference schedule.