The MAAC: Where College Football Programs Go To Die

Astute college gridiron fans fans may be saying to themselves right now, "But the MAAC doesn't even exist anymore!" You're right! The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference still fields 10 Division I basketball team, but the Division I-AA (I refuse to write it) football arm disbanded after last season. So what happened to those orphan teams? Well, rather than find a new conference to join or tough it out as an independent, they all pretty much just gave up. Former MAACFL member Iona announced this week that they will disband their football program permanently, making them the seventh school from this humble confederacy to shut it down in the last two years. Their spirits obviously broken after mighty Duquense won the conference title nine consecutive years, they simply lost the will to live. Only three teams from the old league remain and they were absorbed into other I-AA conferences. So what does it say about our world when an entire collection of tiny Northeastern Catholic schools turn their back on a violent, money-draining sport without so much as batting an eye? It must say something, right? IONA WILL NO LONGER SPONSOR FOOTBALL [Iona College] Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference [Wikipedia]