The University of New Hampshire football team faces Old Dominion and Georgia State as Colonial Athletic Association rivals for the first time this fall.

In fact, the Wildcats face ODU and Georgia State for the first — and last — time as CAA rivals this fall.

Such is the state of college athletics these days.

Old Dominion and Georgia — 'We barely knew ye' — State are passing through the CAA on to what they hope are bigger and better things in the Football Bowl Subdivision of Division I.

UNH also plays in Division I, but is in the Football Championship Subdivision that allows fewer scholarships and offers less frills than the level at which the Auburns and Alabamas, Boston Colleges and Floridas play.

New Hampshire has no interest in stepping up to the more costly level, but there are schools that do and that's one of the factors that has the CAA — and as a result UNH's schedule going forward — in a state of flux.

The CAA, which had 12 teams in 2009, will have just eight in 2013 the way things stand at the moment.

That's not enough.

The league wants to have at least nine teams for football, allowing each team to have eight conference games, said commissioner Tom Yeager in a press conference a week and a half ago, the day Old Dominion announced it was leaving.

“This is a profound disappointment, but we will move on and go from there,” Yeager said. “We're going to move rapidly. But cautiously.”

The CAA, in short, is in the market for teams and will be discussing that matter in its annual meetings early next month.

“I don't think it's any secret that we'll be talking about future membership and talking about what the right numbers are,” said UNH director of athletics Marty Scarano, who will be representing the school. “Personally, I think anywhere between nine and 12 is good. I prefer to look at 12 teams and have them compete in North and South divisions. We'd need to rebuild the North and figure out who is stable in the South.”

The CAA had two six-team divisions in 2009. By next season, only New Hampshire and Maine will remain from the schools that were in the North in 2009.

The others went in assorted directions: Hofstra and Northeastern have dropped football, Massachusetts is playing its first FBS season this fall and Rhode Island is moving into the Northeast Conference, which offers fewer scholarships, for the 2013 season.

Stony Brook, which currently plays in the Big South, has been mentioned as a likely candidate for the CAA.

“I would advocate strongly for Stony Brook, of course,” Scarano said. “And I'd love for Rhode Island to reconsider and stay with us. But that's my personal opinion and it doesn't mean a hill of beans.”

Stony Brook and UNH both play basketball in America East. That conference, like every other, is also dealing with the possibility of teams going and coming.

Scarano has America East meetings, too, coming up in June, and they will be followed by Hockey East gatherings where athletic directors are expected to discuss officially inviting Connecticut to become the 12th team in the league.

“It is a little cuckoo,” Scarano said. “Some of it I control and some I don't and you try to take care of the things you can control. . . . Almost every single day the last two years, we've dealt with league affiliations, particularly with football. We're not just sitting here waiting for the dominos to fall and see what affects us. We've been very aggressive about this.”

The No. 1 priority, though, is to stay in the historically powerful CAA and work to keep it as strong as ever.

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UNH's football schedule is due for a major revamp for the 2013 season. Five of the first six teams the Wildcats play this fall will likely not be on the schedule next year.

They start this season with nonconference games at Holy Cross and Minnesota and home against Central Connecticut. They then are at Old Dominion, home against Delaware and at Georgia State.

Of that group, UNH will probably play only Delaware next year.

“It's scary, frankly,” Scarano said. “We worry about it all. We have to have people to play.”

Nonconference games are scheduled for 2013 at home against Colgate and at Rhode Island.

UNH is talking to a couple of Mid-American Conference teams for its FBS “money” game — the Wildcats usually get a guarantee of at least $300,000 to go out and play — for 2013, Scarano said “We've had a good affiliation with teams in that league,” he said.

Massachusetts is playing in the MAC starting this year. Scarano said there have not been any discussions with UMass about continuing that series.

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MELISSA GLOEKER, a 5-foot-4 forward from Bow, is one of eight incoming recruits to the UNH women's soccer team. Gloeker helped Bow to its first state championship last fall and has played five years with the Seacoast United program.


Allen Lessels covers UNH athletics for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. He may be reached at alessels@unionleader.com.