The College of William & Mary will be joining the Patriot League as an associate member for football beginning in the 2026 football season. With the University of Richmond set to join Patriot League football this upcoming season, William & Mary will expand conference football to nine teams.
“It’s no secret that William & Mary and the Patriot League have been engaged in a decades-long dialogue around the fact that our institutions are so aligned,” Patriot League Commissioner Jennifer Heppel said. “It’s an exciting opportunity as a whole.”
Expanding the pool of Patriot League teams will help simplify scheduling, according to football head coach John Troxell.
“It’s just getting harder to schedule those non-conference games in spots where you want them,” Troxell said. “The expansion of the conference, I think it’s tremendous for everybody involved, from not just us, but the other Patriot League schools.”
William & Mary will continue to compete in the Coastal Athletic Association, alongside Richmond, in its final year before Patriot League entry. The Tribe is coming off a 7-5 season, including a 4-4 record in conference play, and a loss in the last game of the regular season to Richmond to secure an undefeated CAA season for the Spiders.
“Certainly, their rivalry with Richmond is incredibly important to them,” Heppel said of William & Mary. “I think from their perspective, the timing was right.”
In addition to bringing the Richmond-William & Mary rivalry to the Patriot League, the two schools bring aligned academic and athletic visions to the conference, according to Director of Athletics Sherryta Freeman.
“Both institutions bring strong academic profiles and traditions of competitive excellence at the FCS level,” Freeman wrote in an email.
The Leopards last took on the Tribe in 2022, falling in a 34-7 blowout.
“I think the Patriot League is becoming one of the top football-playing conferences in the country, which will give us more national publicity,” Troxell said. “I think it will help the brand of Lafayette around the country.”
“It’ll definitely be more interesting because you’ll have more games that mean more, in a sense, because they’re conference games,” sophomore wide receiver Carson Persing said.
Heppel said that her long-term vision for the Patriot League amidst recent expansion was “to continue to solidify the league and the sport for our institutions and for the student-athletes and coaches.”
“We’re going to continue to make very smart and good decisions around how we play football, how we manage the sport,” Heppel said. “If we continue to do that, we’ll continue to be competitive on the national stage and represent our institutions well.”
