Montreal Carabins football


The Montreal Carabins football team represents the University of Montreal in Montreal, Quebec in the sport of Canadian football in U Sports. The program has been in operation since its resurrection in 2002 and has established itself as a provincial and national powerhouse with three RSEQ conference championships and one national championship since 2014.

History

The team began its second incarnation in 2002 after over thirty years of being dormant. The Carabins first began play in 1966 in the Ontario Intercollegiate Football Conference and continued play for the next six seasons. The program was dropped after the 1971 season due to a shift in philosophy as many francophone universities placed an emphasis on community involvement and intramural athletic activities as opposed to intercollegiate athletics. That philosophy has shifted back to intercollegiate sports as Université Laval, Montréal and Université de Sherbrooke each began programs in 1996, 2002 and 2003, respectively.
The current program has seen marked success in the regular season, having qualified for the playoffs in every season since 2003. However, the program had difficulty winning their conference championship in the early years, with five losses in their first five appearances. That changed under the leadership of former head coach, Danny Maciocia, in 2014, as the Carabins defeated the Laval Rouge et Or to win their first Dunsmore Cup. The team then won the national semi-final Uteck Bowl against the Manitoba Bisons to qualify for the first Vanier Cup game in program history. In the 50th Vanier Cup, the Carabins defeated the McMaster Marauders by a score of 20–19 to win the first national championship in program history.
The team won two more Dunsmore Cups in 2015 and 2019, but eventually lost in the Vanier Cup games in both seasons. Maciocia resigned following the 2019 season to join the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes and was replaced by Marco Iadeluca on February 11, 2020.

Season-by-season record

Montreal Carabins in the CFL

As of March 31, 2020, 13 former Carabins players are on CFL teams' rosters: