Quote from: Patrick Coleman on May 25, 2026, 09:10:12 PMSignificantly more than one senior returning, as Jeff Devanney said in our podcast interview with him last week:
https://www.d3blogs.com/d3football/2026/05/18/atn-podcast-408-nescac-countdown-bomber-boss-mascot-madness/

Thanks Pat! Great interview; especially the roster limit conversation. It sounds like there will be 6 (SIX!) returning grad students for the Bants which includes the aforementioned Nolan O'Brien who will be a POY candidate.

Brady, the Bants do indeed look poised to make another run. They'll need to figure out Wesleyan and always seem to struggle in Vermont, but getting the Cards and what looks to be a strong Eph team in The Coop should help.

On offense Trinity returns Jaxon Carroll at QB, four starting O-Linemen and their top TE, Jamieson Hodlin. Carrol will have his top two WRs back in O'Brien and Darison Hooper. In addition, Devanney sounded very excited about reincorporating WR Pat McCaffrey back into the mix after he missed all of last season with a back injury. They do lose Tyler DiNapoli in the backfield, but (somewhat surprisingly) both Jack Tosone and Tate Hoffmeister averaged more rushing yards per game than DiNapoli last season.

On defense, the Bantams bring back all three starting defensive linemen, including Matt Hickey who was 2nd Team All NESCAC last year. Linebackers Lincoln Moore, an All-NESCAC 1st Teamer, and 2nd Teamer, Ethan Krauss, return. In the secondary, Shane Mosia who was 2nd team All-NESCAC and named a co-Captain this year, and Tyler Roberts are back.

A lot of it will come down to Carroll who was 2nd in the NESCAC last year in passing efficiency and and TD passes but with the pieces around him he should be expected to do more in '26. I'm hopeful this is the year Trinity can put it all together for 9 weeks and earn the league's first ever postseason bid.

Quote from: Brady12 on May 20, 2026, 05:24:44 PMI believe Trinity had 85 players last year with 22 being Seniors. With O'Brien coming back how can they bring in 29 players? 

The 2025 Trinity roster listed 83 names (23 Seniors). I'm not sure if anyone other than O'Brien are returning for a Graduate year, but assuming he's the only one and nobody else has transferred or left the team it would leave 61 players. If you add in 29 freshmen that puts the number of players reporting for camp at 90. With the roster limit at 84 players, it seems like a pretty reasonable number when you factor in potential injuries that could pop-up along with a handful of roster cuts.

Updated list of NESCAC commits announced by school:

Amherst 25 players
Bates 24 players
Colby 24 players
Hamilton 29 players
Trinity 29 players

Hamilton has announced their full class of 29 incoming players via twitter.
Bates has begun sharing their class as well; up to 10 thus far.


Also, in case you missed it, the reports of Nolan O'Brien's departure from The Coop have been greatly exaggerated. It was announced that he will return to the Bantams for a graduate year and resume his role as captain along with safety Shane Mosia.



O'Brien will be just the 10th Bantam to serve as captain for multiple seasons joining:

W.W. Barber - 1883, 1885, 1886, 1887
Ephraim McCook 1888, 1889
W.P. Brown - 1899, 1900
A.B. Henshaw - 1908, 1909
Mickey Kobrosky - 1935, 1936
Brian Fabrizio - 2001, 2002
David Midura - 2001, 2002
Ben Sherry - 2009,2010
Brian Casagrande - 2020,2021,2022

Quote from: Brady12 on May 06, 2026, 04:50:01 PMAny other schools list their incoming class? 

It's been surprisingly quiet, with only three league schools making any kind of announcements (at least via twitter).

Thus far, aside from Trinity, Amherst has shared 24 members of their incoming class. Not sure if there will be more.
Hamilton has announced 12 commits with more to come.

It's May 1st which means NESCAC programs can officially announce their incoming recruiting classes (or choose not to, if you're Williams).
Here's who Trinity is bringing to The Coop this fall:

NAME

SCHOOL

TOWN

STATE

Position

Height

Weight

Daniel Batstone	Canterbury School	New Milford	CT	RB	5'11"	195 lbs
Conor Casagrande	Daniel Hand	Madison	CT	LB	6'1"	215 lbs
Dylan Bean Crooker	Ridgefield HS	Ridgefield	CT	OL	6'1"	255 lbs
Tomas De Maria	Christopher Columbus	Miami	FL	OL	6'4"	300 lbs
Jay Diaz	Choate Rosemary Hall	Wallingford	CT	S	5'10"	190 lbs
Thomas Diemar	Bernards	Bernardsville	NJ	LB	6'1"	210 lbs
Demitrias Fletcher	Cheshire Academy	Cheshire	CT	RB	5'10"	185 lbs
Bryce Flower	Wayne Valley	Wayne	NJ	WR	6'1"	190 lbs
Chris Gibson	Red Bank Catholic	Red Bank	NJ	CB	5'10"	160 lbs
Matt Halloran	Boston College High	Boston	MA	TE	6'3"	215 lbs
Caleb Hatch	Brooks School	North Andover	MA	OL	6'3"	290 lbs
Ryan Hinckley	Weston High	Weston	MA	TE	6'2"	200 lbs
Kyle Knox	Springside Chestnut Hill	Philadelphia	PA	OL	6'2"	280 lbs
Luke Langella	Ramsey High	Ramsey	NJ	S	6'0"	200 lbs
Charlie Leach	Marshfield High	Marshfield	MA	LB	6'0"	220 lbs
Jordan Louis	Fairfield Prep	Fairfield	CT	DL	6'2"	240 lbs
Brady McCormack	Medfield High	Medfield	MA	CB	5'10"	175 lbs
Declan Miller	Chaminade	Mineola	NY	OL	6'2"	260 lbs
Carl Monks	Rivers School	Weston	MA	QB	6'1"	190 lbs
Johnny Nosal	Springside Chestnut Hill	Philadelphia	PA	S	6'2"	205 lbs
RJ Peterson	Somers High	Lincolndale	NY	OL	6'4"	255 lbs
Henry Pizzotti	Columbus Academy	Gahanna	OH	DL	6'2"	215 lbs
Michael Rimas	Roxbury Latin	West Roxbury	MA	DL	6'3"	250 lbs
Nathan Rivera	North Attleboro High	North Attleboro	MA	OL	6'2"	250 lbs
Jackson Shealy	Porter-Gaud High	Charleston	SC	RB	5'9"	175 lbs
Jackson Slack	Salisbury School	Salisbury	CT	S	6'	200 lbs
Anthony Trujillo	Summit High	Summit	NJ	DL	6'1"	250 lbs
Nick Weil	Staples	Westport	CT	ATH	6'	190 lbs
Joseph Yessis	Ramapo High	Ramapo	NJ	WR	6'	190 lbs

The class size (29) indicates last year's slightly smaller class may have been more of a blip than a trend for Trinity who has averaged 29.8 incoming players over the past 7 recruiting cycles.

2025 - 26
2024 - 29
2023 - 32
2022 - 33
2021 - 29
2020 - 31
2019 - 29

As usual, Connecticut (8) and Massachusetts (8) make up the majority of the class. A year after bringing in 5 recruits from New Jersey Trinity nabs 6 from the Garden State (much to the chagrin of Nescacman, I'm sure). With a haul of 7 WRs last year there's only 2 in this class. Meanwhile last year the Bants had only three Offensive Linemen, while this year they add 7 new faces to the OL room. I'm somewhat surprised that for the THIRD year in a row Trinity has brought in only one Quarterback.
 
It appears Hamilton is the only other league school to begin announcing their recruiting class (they've shared three).

Quote from: Tim Layden on April 25, 2026, 12:43:37 PMHah! Can't hang with the likes of nescac1, lumbercat, Nescacman, Trin9-0 or others on the hoops board like Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan), so I'll sit back and enjoy the conversations.Just wanted to shout out Farley, a friend and deserving NESCAC all-timer.

nescac1 deserves a weekly spot on the 9 Weeks podcast... make it happen Nescacman!

In 2003 we were hosting Williams and trying to snap the longest Trinity losing streak against the Ephs in school history (six years). We were up late and Williams called a timeout. I was playing cornerback and happened to be on the Williams sideline right next to where Farley had gathered his offense; so I casually walked over and joined the huddle. When Farley finally noticed me he stopped, looked me dead in the eye and let loose a string of expletives that might get me moderated from the Board if I shared them here.

Rest in peace, Coach.

In his memory, here's the full list of NESCAC coaches with 100+ victories. While he ranks 7th in career wins, Farley has the highest winning percentage and most undefeated seasons. Truly a legend.
                     

COACH	SCHOOL	WINS	LOSSES	TIES	WIN %	UNDEFEATED SEASONS
Don Miller	Trinity	174	77	5	.689	1
Jim Ostendarp	Amherst	168	91	5	.646	2
E.J. Mills	Amherst	158	74	0	.681	4
Dan Jessee	Trinity	150	76	7	.659	4
Jeff Devanney	Trinity	135	25	0	.843	4
Mickey Heinecken	Middlebury	126	96	2	.567	0
Dick Farley	Williams	114	19	3	.849	6
Bob Ritter	Middlebury	112	61	0	.647	1

Interesting social media recruiting strategy by Tufts to promote several past players who transferred from the school to either FBS or FCS programs:


Speaking of the Jumbos, they take on (fellow NESCAC foes and the defending National Champions) Trinity in the Elite Eight tonight at 6:30 p.m. Unfortunately, it appears you'll need an ESPN+ subscription to watch. Tufts topped the Bants during the regular season 68-62 in Medford while Trin prevailed in the NESCAC semifinals 80-70 in Middletown. At the very least the NESCAC is assured of a representative in the Final Four for the third straight year!

Union has played just under 300 games all-time against NESCAC opponents. They have a .405 winning percentage in those games.

Here's the team by team breakdown:

Amherst 4-21-2
Bates 0-7-1
Bowdoin 0-1
Colby 8-5
Hamilton 47-37-12
Middlebury 15-20-5
Trinity 7-6-2
Tufts 0-2
Wesleyan 5-11-2
Williams 21-54-4

How many schools can say they have a winning record against Trinity but have never beaten Bates nor Bowdoin?!


On an unrelated note; while looking this up I realized that the next Tufts win will be Jay Civetti's 61st victory which would make him the all-time winning coach in the history of the school. Not bad for a guy who started his tenure 0-24!

Shout-out to the reigning National Champion Trinity men's basketball program on their third consecutive NESCAC Championship! The Bants defeated rival Wesleyan 80-55 to cut the nets down in Middletown for the second straight year. Trinity joins the 2012-'14 Amherst squads as the only programs to win three consecutive men's hoops league championships.

The Bantams are likely to be the #1 overall seed for the NCAA playoffs. Wesleyan, Tufts and (hopefully) Amherst and Bates should all receive at large bids when the bracket is revealed later today.

Quote from: muleshoe on February 26, 2026, 08:45:52 AMWe got a very similar outreach from Colby for sideline tablets and helmet comms. My understanding is that the tablets might be a requirement for participation in the playoffs, but not 100% sure that is the case. Has anyone else heard the same?

They also mentioned some equipment technology that tracks helmet and shoulder pad contact data. Sounds like a really cool development on the player safety front, and I'm glad to see that the College is investing in it. 

From what I understand tablets and helmet comms were both recently approved at the D3 level but are not mandatory (which screams competitive imbalance if a particular school isn't investing in the technology). However, the NESCAC schools given their donor bases should have no excuse to foot the bill.

A recent Trinity football fundraising communication shared some specific examples of what have become "essential for programs preparing for postseason play" These include:

• Sideline tablets, filming station & game-day operators
• Coach-to-player helmet communication system
• Athlete monitoring and performance data
• AI recruiting platform

I was not aware that NESCAC or even D3 programs allowed coach-to-player helmet communication. The advent of sideline tablets, performance trackers and AI recruiting aids really illustrates how advanced the game at the D3 level has become.

I suppose it should not be surprising, but it's good to see evidence that (at least some) NESCAC teams are not planning to merely accept their bid to the NCAA playoffs, but are proactively seeking the resources necessary to compete at the highest level nationally.

Quote from: Trin9-0 on January 07, 2026, 10:30:02 AMA few more NESCAC commits from the Nutmeg State:

Tyler Rebick, DE, Avon Old Farms (Simsbury) — Amherst
Quinn O'Neill, TE, Hall (West Hartford) — Bates
Cam Stewart, K, Avon Old Farms (Simsbury) — Hamilton
Kayden Davis, S, Northwest Catholic (West Hartford) — Wesleyan

A few more:

Sam Barrett, DB, Fairfield Prep — Bates
Daniel Batstone, LB/RB, Canterbury — Trinity
Conor Casagrande, LB, Hand — Trinity
Oliver Fricke, DB, Fairfield Prep — Wesleyan
Ryan Murray, DL, Fairfield Prep — Williams
Jake Zullo, OL, Notre Dame-West Haven — Middlebury

A name to watch here is Conor Casagrande who is the younger brother of Brian Casagrande who was a 3x All NESCAC LB at Trinity.

Quote from: GroundandPound on January 07, 2026, 12:57:40 PMhttps://www.ctinsider.com/projects/gametimect/football/93rd-new-haven-register-all-state-first-team-2025/

Also worth noting that former Wesleyan assistant coach John Capodice was named Coach of the Year in his first season back in the high school ranks after leading Berlin to a 13-0 finish and Class M state title.