Blue Hens to get a new sports rival as CAA will expand again in 2023

The University of Delaware will gain another new sports rival.

The burgeoning Colonial Athletic Association has expanded further, announcing Wednesday morning that Campbell University with become an all-sports member in July of 2023.

The Camels, from Buies Creek, North Carolina, will push CAA full-time membership to 14 schools, following the addition earlier this year of Stony Brook, Monmouth, Hampton and North Carolina A & T.

QUESTIONS ASKED: Blue Hens need these 5 answers as football camp opens

Those three joined Delaware, Drexel, Hofstra, Northeastern, Towson, William & Mary, UNC-Wilmington, Elon and the College of Charleston in the NCAA Division I league beginning this summer. Long-time CAA school James Madison departed this summer for the Sun Belt Conference.

Campbell, which is presently a member of the Big South, does play FCS-level football.

That addition will give the CAA 15 football schools in 2023 — Delaware and seven other full-time CAA schools, plus football-only associate members Villanova of the Big East, New Hampshire, Maine and Albany of America East and the Atlantic 10’s Richmond and Rhode Island.

Campbell is a private school that had an undergraduate enrollment of just 3,325 in 2021-22 though graduate and professional students pushed total enrollment past 5,600.