Image courtesy of University of Maine

Schedule day is always fun for most football fans, no matter what team you root for.

CAA teams released their schedules for the 2023 season on Tuesday. Maine fans may not have liked the final record for the Black Bears in head coach Jordan Stevens’ first season, but there were clear signs of progress and Maine should be in a lot of games in year two.

Below is the schedule:

Sept. 2 – at Florida International
Sept. 9 – at North Dakota State
Sept. 16 – vs. Rhode Island
Sept. 23 – at William & Mary
Sept. 30 – vs. Stony Brook
Oct. 7 – at Richmond
Oct. 14 – vs. LIU
Oct. 21 – at Campbell
Oct. 28 – vs. UAlbany
Nov. 4 – vs. Hampton
Nov. 18 – at UNH

Two extremely tough road matchups to open the season before jumping head first into the home slate with a marquee league and rivalry matchup against URI. We’ll know quite a bit about this team very early if they’re able to steal a victory in one of those first two games. Very little needs to be said about the regular season finale against the Wildcats, especially after last year’s finish.

Maine might still be a year or two away from being legitimate conference title contenders again and a threat to make the FCS playoffs, but it’d be stunning if they weren’t competitive until the very end in just about every game.