Andy Young: A spooky month for certain Mainers

By Andy Young

This weekend is going to be a real treat.

For the first time since 2020, Halloween falls on a Saturday. And since Daylight Saving Time ends on the first Sunday in November, savvy trick-or-treaters know they’ll have an extra hour to sleep after bobbing for apples, carving pumpkins, and engaging in similar Halloween-themed activities.

This isn’t a trick. Two hours after midnight this coming Sunday morning, clocks in 48 of the 50 states will fall back an hour, making 2 a.m. magically become 1 a.m. That means Americans everywhere outside of Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Arizona (excluding the Navajo nation) will be treated to a 49-hour weekend.

Dedicated Halloweenies had better take advantage of this opportunity though, because their favorite holiday doesn’t fall on a Saturday again until 2037. By that time Congress may have decided to emulate Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Arizona (excluding the Navajo nation) and eliminate DST once and for all. Doing so would finally relieve people in every state not named Arizona or Hawaii of having to re-set their clocks twice a year. Enacting such legislation would permanently eliminate November’s annual 49–hour weekend, but it would also end the tragically short 47-hour weekend that occurs early each March.

Daylight Saving Time isn’t the only thing going away this weekend. Saturday is officially the last day of National Book Month, National Pizza Month, LGBTQ+ History Month and Italian American Heritage Month. It will also mark the end of National Chemistry Week, National Massage Therapy Week, National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, and National Magic Week.

But some people, specifically those connected with college football in Maine, probably can’t wait to see November arrive. October hasn’t been a particularly good month for our state’s collegiate gridders.

With this Saturday’s games still to be played, Maine’s five oldest college football programs are a combined 0-19 this month. Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, and Maine Maritime have all gone 0-4. The UMaine Black Bears are 0-3, but only because they didn’t have a game scheduled on the weekend of October 10th. The overall record of those five Maine schools so far this season is 1-32; UMaine’s 21-18 win over Towson University on Aug. 27 is, as this is written, the only victory any of that quintet has earned so far this year.

Maine’s two other college football teams, the University of New England and Husson University, are both 2-5 heading into this weekend. But UNE’s two victories came against Husson and Maine Maritime. Husson’s wins over New England College and Western New England University are, aside from UMaine’s long-ago triumph at Towson, the only two victories by a Maine college football team this season over an opponent from out of state.

Has there ever been a calendar month when every college football team in a state lost every game on its schedule? Well, yes. 

It happened in September 2026.

Last month Maine’s seven college-football-playing squads played 21 intercollegiate football games and lost them all, getting outscored 690-258 in the process. UMaine, UNE, and Husson each went 0-4, Maine Maritime lost all three of its games, and Colby, Bowdoin, and Bates were all 0-2.

It’s doubtful that any of the state’s five oldest collegiate football programs have all gone winless for two consecutive calendar months, and thankfully that won’t happen in Maine this year.

But only because college football games can no longer end with a tie. And while the rest of us are trick-or-treating Saturday night, Colby’s football team will be hosting Bates. <