Leatherneck Nation

The 2026 Schedule has been released: https://goleathernecks.com/news/2026/1/ ... edule.aspx
OOC games against Northwestern College (NAIA), Illinois State (defending FCS championship runner-up), at Wisconsin, back home against Morehead State, then on the road at North Alabama.

Three OOC home games, six total home games. Bye week is the middle of the season, October 10th. Homecoming is October 24th against UT Martin. Last game of the season is away (at Lindenwood). 
I don't like that we're playing an NAIA team, but I'll take what we can get at this point, and otherwise the schedule looks pretty good.

ST_Lawson wrote: Tue Jan 13, 2026 4:02 pm The 2026 Schedule has been released: https://goleathernecks.com/news/2026/1/ ... edule.aspx
OOC games against Northwestern College (NAIA), Illinois State (defending FCS championship runner-up), at Wisconsin, back home against Morehead State, then on the road at North Alabama.

Three OOC home games, six total home games. Bye week is the middle of the season, October 10th. Homecoming is October 24th against UT Martin. Last game of the season is away (at Lindenwood). 
I don't like that we're playing an NAIA team, but I'll take what we can get at this point, and otherwise the schedule looks pretty good.

 

agreed. Probably as favorable a schedule as WIU has had in recent memory.  With TSU being the conference opener, looks like starting 5-1 or 4-2 is a possibility.  UW and ISU will be tough.

I for one am kind of looking forward to seeing that NAIA team on Hanson Field:



 
 
 

Not starting the season with 2 Big Ten games will be an improvement over the 2025 schedule.

Northwestern College is a private Christian college in Orange City, Iowa.  Orange City is in the northwestern corner of Iowa -- 40 miles northeast of Sioux City, Iowa.

We will be starting the 2026 season with a Thursday night home game.
 

I'm a bit bored waiting to hear where our women's basketball team will be playing next week, so for the curious, here's what Massey is currently predicting for all our games this season (using the matchup predictor...they don't have the schedule loaded yet).
Numbers are "chance of a win", and "predicted score"

vs Northwestern College - 90%, 35-14
vs Illinois State - 15%, 38-21
at Wisconsin - 0%, 45-6
vs Morehead State - 86%, 34-17
at North Alabama - 38%, 33-28
vs Tennessee State - 65%, 27-21
at Southeast Missouri - 32%, 34-27
vs UT Martin - 32%, 31-27
at Charleston Southern - 42%, 27-24
at Eastern Illinois - 45%, 31-28
vs Gardner-Webb - 42%, 31-28
at Lindenwood - 40%, 31-27

Generally, I consider anything in the 40%-60% chance range to be a "toss-up", the next 20% on either side to be a "likely win/loss", and the remaining 20% on the ends to be "very likely win/loss".
So, of those, we have...
2 games in the "very likely win" category: Northwestern College and Morehead State.
1 game in the "likely win" category: Tennessee State
4 games in the "toss-up" category: Charleston Southern, Eastern Illinois, Gardner-Webb, and Lindenwood
3 games in the "likely loss" category: North Alabama, Southeast Missouri, UT Martin
2 games in the "very likely loss" category: Illinois State, Wisconsin

If we win the games over 60%, split the games in the 40%-60% range, and lose the games below 40%, then we finish 5-7. My "optimistic" prediction is we either win 3 out of 4 of the "toss-up" games or pull a win from one of the "likely loss" category games to finish 6-6. Since we finished 4-8 the last two years, I'd consider 6-6 a reasonable improvement. Obviously I hope we end up something more like 10-2, but I don't see that as being likely.

so 8 one score games...lot of nail biters on the way.