Future Football Schedules

Leatherneck177
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Northern Arizona just posted their 2016 schedule. They come to Macomb on September 10th. Great quality home game. Nice non conference slate.

http://www.nauathletics.com/sports/fbal ... 0130pjkeiq
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ST_Lawson
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So, it looks like this will be our official schedule for next year...

Date VS Location
9/3/2016 Eastern Illinois, Charleston, IL
9/10/2016 Northern Arizona, Macomb, IL
9/17/2016 Bye
9/24/2016 Northern Illinois, Dekalb, IL
10/1/2016 South Dakota State, Brookings, SD
10/8/2016 Indiana State, Macomb, IL
10/15/2016 Missouri State, Springfield, MO
10/22/2016 North Dakota State, Macomb, IL
10/29/2016 South Dakota, Vermillion, SD
11/5/2016 Illinois State, Macomb, IL
11/12/2016 Northern Iowa, Macomb, IL
11/19/2016 Southern Illinois, Carbondale, IL

Again with the early bye week, but that's just how the conference schedule is this year. Everyone has a bye week in week 3 or 4 except for the ISU's who both have bye weeks as the last week of the regular season. That's great if you're heading into the playoffs and need a break to heal up, but if you aren't, you essentially don't get a break the entire season.

Five home games: 9/10 vs Northern Arizona, 10/8 vs Indiana State, 10/22 vs North Dakota State, 11/5 vs Illinois State, 11/12 vs Northern Iowa
So, no end of November home games, which is nice...should help with attendance (playing away over the first weekend of Thanksgiving break).
Also, all of our non-conference away games are within 3 1/2 hours of Macomb, so we should be able to get a decent amount of fans there...especially at Northern. I know I'm planning on trying to go to the games at Eastern and Northern (as well as all the home games).
A bit of a gap between home games early on though...9/10 to 10/8...4 weeks, but that's pretty much what we had this last season with games at Illinois, at Coastal Carolina, and then our bye all in a row. Swapping out Youngstown State for Missouri State should make things a bit easier this season, but we're still playing against all full-scholarship FCS or FBS teams, so it'll still be a very tough schedule.
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sealhall74
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I like the Bye week before the NIU game. Two weeks to prepare for it should give us a decent shot at upset.
Could be undefeated headed into conference play. When was the last time that happened?

The close proximity of these non-conf games screams out for Party Bus!
Embrace the pace of the race.
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ST_Lawson
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Missouri State has released their schedule now, so that pretty much finalizes the MVFC conference schedule other than one odd situation with NDSU.
You can view the whole schedule here:
All MVFC schools are playing full D1 schedules except for MSU who is playing an NAIA school that went 3-8 last year...Southwestern College (KS)... :roll:

NDSU's game with Eastern Washington is one of the ones being looked at by ESPN to be moved to the weekend before the regular season starts to be the ESPN Kickoff Game this year. If that happens, then NDSU will likely pay another team to come to the Fargodome on the 10th. So, they're kinda in a "holding pattern" until they hear back from ESPN on that.
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BobLovely
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Good work Scott!

Bob
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ST_Lawson
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With the slight adjustment of the season opener at Eastern being held on Thursday, September 1st (rather than Saturday the 3rd, like I'd originally guessed) the above posted schedule has now been officially confirmed: http://goleathernecks.com/schedule.aspx ... h=football
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ST_Lawson
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This kid gets it...

[tweet]697834345927725060[/tweet]
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ST_Lawson
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Western Illinois facing another strong schedule (Fox Sports)
http://www.foxsports.com/college-footba ... ule-021116
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LegalEagle
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Any word on the standing of Eastern Illinois with the state budget cuts? What the procedure would be to fill the slot?
LegalEagle out...
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ST_Lawson
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LegalEagle wrote:Any word on the standing of Eastern Illinois with the state budget cuts? What the procedure would be to fill the slot?
Not sure really. I would say that it's currently "unlikely" that EIU will close by next fall, but it's just hard to say for sure. If they do have to back out/cancel, we'll probably just have to scramble and bring in a DII or something to play unless there's a DI out there somewhere that REALLY needs another game that weekend. It'd be an extra home game, but would significantly drop our SOS for the season. Usually there's a "buyout" for a home and home agreement, although usually it's the team having to go play on the road that's doing the "buying out"...not the home team. Since we got the part of the agreement that is beneficial to us (a home game...and a fairly strong win too), I don't know if there'd be a penalty for EIU backing out of the game at their place.

Can't say it's something I've seen often, so I don't really know what the procedure would be.
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