2025 Season

[ST_Lawson]

As mentioned in the Future Football Schedules thread, our 2025 schedule has been released:



I'm not holding out a ton of hope for winning either of the FBS games. Northwestern isn't great for a Power-conference team, but they beat EIU 31-7 this past year. EIU beat us, but not by a ton...overall they were about even with us. If we can keep it close against Northwestern, I'd be pretty happy.

Looks like we don't have our bye week until November 1, which is a bit late, but isn't too bad. If we're able to keep our offense about where they were last year and improve the defense to somewhere in the middle of the OVC, I could see us winning both our FCS OOC games (Valpo and EWU). Eastern Washington had a 4-8 record this year, but is in a tougher conference. Massey says they're about equal to Tennessee Tech (who was 7-5, but we somehow beat by 16).

In-conference, we were fairly close in nearly every game except UT Martin and TN State. At this point, I think SEMO is tough; UT Martin, TN State, and TN Tech on the road will also be difficult. The rest of the games, we should absolutely be "in". 6-6, or even 7-5 are definately possible.

[ST_Lawson]

And always something I'm fond of seeing...last game of the year is away, so we don't have a game after all the students have left for Thanksgiving break and end up with 500 people in the stands.

[NewNeck]

this has to be the toughest 2 seasons to start a head coach regime in modern WIU football history.  4 FBS games (three power 4).  I hope they're rewarding coach for this with some serious facility or $$$ upgrades.  Hard to get ahead with not so smart scheduling like this...
 

[ST_Lawson]

this has to be the toughest 2 seasons to start a head coach regime in modern WIU football history.  4 FBS games (three power 4).  I hope they're rewarding coach for this with some serious facility or $$$ upgrades.  Hard to get ahead with not so smart scheduling like this...
 

2013 & 2014 were also both 12-game seasons to start the Bob Nielson era. We played three Big 10 teams (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Northwestern), plus another FBS (UNLV). Also played three FCS teams (Hampton, Valpo, and Drake), and one local D2 (Quincy).

Our conference games are easier now than they were then (lots of ranked teams in the MVFC).

For reference, we went 4-8 in 2013, then 5-7 in 2014. The following year, we (barely) made the playoffs.




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[Western_101]

Who has plans to go where?  Both the Northwestern and Illinois games will have a great gameday atmosphere. I don't think I will attend those (money or lack thereof). As an aside, I checked out Northwestern's temporary home right by the Lake last August. Cool, unusual capacity 25K or less, so tickets might be harder to come by. ILLINOIS is fine, I just don't want to see another ass whipping taking my Son. We went to the NIU game last year and he loved it. He declared that he was a Huskie fan...hoped it didn't hurt my feelings haha.

For me, I intend to travel to Nashville to watch our 'Necks take on Tennessee State in an NFL stadium. Maybe that will change my son's mind about the Leathernecks. (Full disclosure, my son is 9 so I still have time to influence him to root for my favorite team!)

[ST_Lawson]

Who has plans to go where?

Probably the game at Illinois. I'll have to miss the home games against EIU and Lindenwood, unfortunately.