in 1938, five schools in new england formed the new england conference. when one of the schools left in 1945, the other schools joined with two other new england schools to form the yankee conference, which began play in 1947. in 1975, the yankee conference dropped all sports other than football, and over time many schools outside of new england joined the league. due to changes in ncaa rules in 1997, the yankee conference merged into the atlantic 10 conference (a10). after the caa announced plans to start a football league in 2007, all of the a10 football teams decided to join the caa for that sport.