Are the Black Bears finally back?

It’s taken baby steps, but after a 6-6, 5-3 record in the CAA a year ago, it appears as if Maine is finally ready to jump back in the ‘contender’ conversation in the ultra-competitive conference.

It’s been eight years since Maine won a CAA title, going 10-4 in 2018 under Joe Harasymiak, who is now the head coach at UMass. Since then, Maine’s best years were 6-6 in 2019 and 6-5 in 2021 before getting back to .500 in 2025.

This will be Jordan Stevens’ fifth year at the helm of the program in Orono. During Maine’s appearance at the first of two virtual CAA Media Days on Wednesday, Stevens talked about building off of last season.

“We’re fortunate to be here at the University of Maine with great alignment and leadership from our athletic director Jude Killy and our President Joan Ferrini-Mundy…the investment that we see continues to elevate our program,” he said. “We didn’t start (2025) the way we wanted, but it’s not about how you start it’s how you finish. I thought our guys stayed together and continued to stay focused on what we could control and we were able to have a good run there.

“We didn’t finish the way we wanted to, but I feel like we addressed a lot of those areas of finishing, having the competitive stamina throughout the entire season. That’s something we focused a lot on as a team and been able to address. That level of growth and maturity from our football team I’ve seen this offseason. Really excited about getting started this 2026 season.”

Offensive lineman Anthony lliano and defensive back Brayden Isaiah were also representing the program and spoke about taking the next steps towards contention.

“Acknowledging what happened last year and knowing that a sense of urgency is needed,” Isaiah said when asked specifically how Maine gets off to a better start this season. “Now that you acknowledge the situation, you have to act on it.”

“I’d say a big thing we’ve been doing with our leadership group, is when we’ve been doing our workouts and putting ourselves in adverse situations, we also like to put ourselves in like, a football state,” explained lliano. “Like, we’ll be at the end of a workout and be like ‘hey, we’re down seven right now.’ It puts you in a football mind where we’re still doing our workout, but still putting ourselves in the mindset of we’re playing a game right now.

“That’s been the biggest thing we’ve been doing this offseason to take those steps.”

The Black Bears dug themselves a hole last year in September with tough losses that was ultimately too deep to get out of. If the postseason is going to return to Orono, Stevens and the rest of the program know a fast start and sense of urgency is imperative.

“Yeah, it’s going to need to be there,” Stevens added. “We’re playing a conference game on game one. We really have to have answers and work through a lot of questions throughout training camp and into that first game. We want to make sure we have as many answers as we can. Like any first game, there’s going to be things we find out about our team throughout that football game.

“But, I certainly believe our players have an improved maturity towards our training, our lifting, our practicing. That will suit us and put us in a better position to start the season if you were to compare it from a year ago. I think the challenge for us is always embracing the start of our seasons. Four of our first five games are on the road, two are FBS teams.

“That’s a challenge we’re really excited about and we’re excited about taking that head on.”