The 2020 Robert Morris Colonials football team represented

Robert Morris University Robert Morris University (RMU) is a private university in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1921 and is named after Robert Morris, known as the "financier of the mericanrevolution." It enrolls nearly 5,000 students and offers 60 b ...

during the

2020–21 NCAA Division I FCS football season The 2020–21 NCAA Division I FCS football season, part of college football in the United States, was organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level. The regular ...

. They were led by third-year head coach

Bernard Clark Bernard "Tiger" Clark (born January 12, 1967) is an American football coach and former player. He is head football coach at Robert Morris University, a position he has held since the 2018 season. Clark played professionally as a linebacker in th ...

and played their home games at

Joe Walton Stadium Joe Walton Stadium is a 3,000-seat multi-purpose stadium in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. It is home to the Robert Morris University Colonials football team and men's and women's lacrosse team. The facility opened in 2005 and is named for Colonial ...

. On June 15, 2020, Robert Morris announced that it would be leaving the

Northeast Conference The Northeast Conference (NEC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Teams in the NEC compete in Division I for all sports; football competes in the Division I Foo ...

for the

Horizon League The Horizon League is an 11-school collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, whose members are located in and near the Great Lakes region. The Horizon League founded in 1979 as the Midw ...

in all sports except football, with the move officially taking place on July 1, 2020. The

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an all-s ...

originally planned to play as an FCS independent for the 2020 season before moving to the Big South Conference in 2021. Robert Morris's 2020 football schedule was initially unchanged, meaning that all NEC opponents would have lost a conference game. These plans would be upended by

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

, which led most FCS conferences to cancel their originally scheduled fall 2020 seasons. Most of these leagues, among them the Big South and NEC, eventually moved football to spring 2021. Of the eight schools that had planned to field teams in the Big South's 2020 fall season, only Campbell and North Alabama played in the fall, and Hampton chose not to play football at all in the 2020–21 school year. The Big South ultimately chose to hold a spring 2021 season with the remaining four teams plus RMU, with the Colonials eligible for the conference title.

Schedule

Robert Morris released their original football schedule on April 9, 2020. A game against Hawaii (scheduled for September 26) was added on July 14, to compensate for Hawaii having to cancel four non-conference games due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 15, Robert Morris's game against Bryant, scheduled for November 7, was canceled due to Robert Morris's reclassification as an independent. On July 27, Robert Morris's game against

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

was canceled due to the Pioneer Football League's decision to play a conference-only schedule due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. On November 9, 2020, the Big South announced a spring 2021 schedule, with RMU competing.

References

{{Robert Morris Colonials football navbox Robert Morris Robert Morris Colonials football seasons College football winless seasons

Robert Morris Colonials football : ''For information on all Robert Morris University sports, see Robert Morris Colonials'' The Robert Morris Colonials football program is the intercollegiate American football team for the Robert Morris University located in the U.S. state of Pe ...