They had formed a loose association with other public colleges in New England such as present day UConn and Rhode Island for the purpose of scheduling football matchups between the schools.
[1] In August 2010, the matchup was branded as the "Colonial Clash", coincident with an arrangement to have the game played at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, during the 2010 and 2011 seasons.
[4] The 2010 matchup, a 39–13 win by New Hampshire,[5] was the first college football game played at Gillette,[6] the home stadium of the NFL's New England Patriots.
The award is named after Bill Knight, long-time Sports Information Director at the University of New Hampshire, who died in November 1985.
In addition to his duties at UNH, Knight was a past President of the New England Sports Information Directors Association, a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee at the 1984 Winter Games, and a recipient of the Irving T. Marsh ECAC Service Bureau Award.
[8] First awarded to Tim Bryant of UMass in 1986, the Bill Knight Trophy has been given to the most outstanding player of each playing of the Colonial Clash since then.