Patriot League - Football

Football

League champions
  • 1986 Holy Cross
  • 1987 Holy Cross
  • 1988 Lafayette
  • 1989 Holy Cross
  • 1990 Holy Cross
  • 1991 Holy Cross
  • 1992 Lafayette
  • 1993 Lehigh
  • 1994 Lafayette
  • 1995 Lehigh
  • 1996 Bucknell
  • 1997 Colgate
  • 1998 Lehigh
  • 1999 Colgate and Lehigh
  • 2000 Lehigh
  • 2001 Lehigh
  • 2002 Colgate and Fordham
  • 2003 Colgate
  • 2004 Lafayette and Lehigh
  • 2005 Colgate and Lafayette
  • 2006 Lafayette and Lehigh
  • 2007 Fordham
  • 2008 Colgate
  • 2009 Holy Cross
  • 2010 Lehigh
  • 2011 Lehigh


Patriot League football was non-scholarship until the league presidents voted to approve football scholarships starting with the 2013 recruiting class. Each school will be allowed no more than the equivalent of 15 scholarships to incoming football players. The total number of scholarship equivalents cannot exceed 60 in any season, three short of the NCAA FCS maximum.

Until 1997, Patriot League teams did not participate in the NCAA Division I Football Championship playoffs. The policy was in step with the Ivy League's policy of not participating in the playoffs since the Patriot League was founded with the Ivy League's athletics philosophy. The league champion receives the automatic playoff berth. If there are co-champions, a tie-breaker determines the playoff participant.

Colgate was the first team to receive the league's automatic berth in 1997. The following year, Lehigh won the league's first playoff game. It is also the only year where a Patriot League team, Colgate, received a playoff invitation without being a league co-champion. The 2003 Colgate team advanced all the way to the National Championship game before falling to the University of Delaware. It is the only time a Patriot League team has advanced beyond the second round and played in a championship game.

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Famous quotes containing the word football:

    “People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
    —Don Delillo (b. 1926)

    “...I’m not money hungry.... People who are rich want to be richer, but what’s the difference? You can’t take it with you. The toys get different, that’s all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It’s all relative.”
    —Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)

    “... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
    —Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)