Bridgewater, NJ — It’s been a fight to the finish between two perennial powers for the right to hoist the last two NEC football trophies, but the squad that has come out on top in each of those battles has again emerged as the team to win it all once again in 2026.
 
Central Connecticut, which transformed New Britain into the new “Title Town” of the NEC after nudging Duquesne’s seven regular season crowns and taking over as the most storied team in conference annals with eight championships, hauled in six first-place votes to finish atop of the rankings in the league’s annual preseason coaches’ poll. 
 
The final two remaining top tallies went to Duquesne, the last team to bring home the NEC regular season trophy prior to the start of CCSU’s current title spree.
 
A cluster of teams that finished in a three-way tie for third place in the 2025 regular season standings occupied the middle portion of the preseason poll. LIU, Wagner and Mercyhurst, which each closed out their league slates with identical 4-3 records, were voted third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the projected order-of-finish.
 
Following the threesome in the poll was Robert Morris in sixth and Stonehill in seventh, while New Haven rounded out the voting by taking the eighth slot in the preseason rankings.
  

 
Chicago State was not included on the annual preseason ballot because the FCS’s newest squad will not be playing a full NEC slate until the 2027 campaign. Announcing the addition of football as the University’s 16th NEC-sponsored sport and the first — and only — NCAA Division I program in the city of Chicago in December 2025, the Cougars’ inaugural season begins with an Opening Weekend matchup on Aug. 29 against Roosevelt University.
 
Under fourth-year head coach Adam Lechtenberg, the two-time reigning NEC Coach of the Year, CCSU will look to become the first NEC team to three-peat as regular season champs since Robert Morris’ dominant five-year run that featured four solo titles and stretched from 1996 to 2000.
 
Defense has been the calling card to the Blue Devils’ recent string of success, and that trend has high hopes of continuing in 2026 thanks to the return of defensive back Chris Jean (Rochester, NY/Rochester). The two-time All-NEC first teamer, 2025 Stats Perform All-American, 2026 Stats Perform Preseason All-American and 2026 Buck Buchanan Award Preseason Watch List member anchored a CCSU defense that limited league foes to just 17.0 points per game and topped the charts in NEC play in sacks (18) while ranking second in forced fumbles (1.14 per game) and fumbles recovered (0.57 per game).
 
CCSU’s offense, which scored the second-most touchdowns in conference play (26) and put up the second-most points on the circuit (28.1 per game), will reap the benefits of returning wide receivers Michael Trovarelli (Stratford, CT/Bunnell) and Donovan Wadley (Newark, NJ/Weequahic (Merrimack)), a tandem that occupied two of the three wideout slots on last year’s All-NEC Second Team. Wadley, who has NEC Offensive Player of the Year distinction inked on his résumé thanks to a stellar 2023 campaign at Merrimack, hauled in three touchdowns and averaged 53.1 yards per game against NEC squads while Trovarelli also caught for a trio of scores in 2025.
 
A Duquesne offense that has boasted the NEC’s top offense in each of the last three seasons under longtime head coach Jerry Schmitt has plenty of firepower for the upcoming 2026 campaign with the return of redshirt junior Ness Davis (Athens, GA/Athens Christian (Arkansas-Pine Bluff), an All-NEC Second Team running back who made the cut for the 2026 Walter Payton Award Preseason Watch List. 
 
A redshirt junior from Athens, GA, Davis was third in the NEC with 927 rushing yards. Nationally, he ranked 11th among FCS running backs in yards per carry (6.4) behind five 100-yard rushing performances. The Dukes, who reached the end zone a league-leading 27 times in conference play and 46 times on the year, lit up the scoreboard for 29.3 points per game against league foes.
 
New Haven, which enters its second season as a Division I member, is set to play a full NEC schedule for the first time in program history in 2026. 
 
The Lakers and Chargers will be ineligible for NCAA postseason competition due to their current statuses as reclassifying institutions.
 
The 31st season of NEC football gets underway with eight of the league's nine teams taking the gridiron during Week 1. 
 
Highlighting that stretch is a rare opening-weekend NEC matchup on Grymes Hill featuring Robert Morris and Wagner. 
 
LIU and Central Connecticut have two big matchups on the docket for Opening Weekend, as the Sharks are set to travel to North Dakota (Thurs., Aug. 27) and the Blue Devils hit the road for South Dakota (Sat., Aug. 29). Both FCS powerhouses finished in the top 15 of the final iteration of the Stats Perform FCS rankings, with the Coyotes checking in at No. 9 and the Fighting Hawks ranking No. 14 at season’s end. 
 
Mercyhurst begins its 2026 campaign on Thurs., Aug. 27 against Youngstown State, while New Haven opens its season against Marist for the second-straight year in a Friday night tilt on Aug. 28. Rounding out the action for Opening Weekend is Stonehill, which will play host to Bryant on Sat., Aug. 29.   
 
About the NEC

Now in its 46th season, the NEC is an NCAA Division I collegiate athletic association consisting of nine institutions of higher learning located throughout six states. Media coverage of the NEC extends to a number of the largest markets in the United States including New York (#1), Chicago (#3), Boston (#9). Hartford/New Haven (#32) and Syracuse (#88). Founded in 1981 as the basketball-only ECAC Metro Conference, the NEC has grown to sponsor 25 sports for men and women and now enjoys automatic access to 17 different NCAA Championships. NEC full member institutions include Central Connecticut, Chicago State, FDU, Le Moyne, LIU, Mercyhurst, New Haven, Stonehill and Wagner. For more information on the NEC, visit the league’s official website (www.necsports.com) and digital network (www.necfrontrow.com), or follow the league on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, all @NECsports.