NOTES TO KNOW
• Eastern Illinois opens up what will be a most unique season as many teams from the FCS level compete during the spring for the 2020-21 season.  The Ohio Valley Conference will have eight team competing in a seven-game schedule.  EIU will host four of its seven games this season at O'Brien Field.

• When Eastern Illinois takes the field again on Feb. 21 at Graham Stadium in Martin, Tenn., it will be the first football game action for the Panthers since Nov. 23, 2019 - a span of 456 days.  The last time EIU had a gap that big or bigger between games was in the midst of World War II when EIU went 686 days between games (1942-44).

• The seven game schedule this season for the Panthers will be the fewest number of games EIU has played in a season since the 1945 season when EIU played seven games under head coach James "Pim" Goff.  EIU posted a 2-3-2 record that season playing a regional schedule.

• Eastern Illinois is coming off a 1-11 season last year as head coach Adam Cushing rebuilds the Panthers program.  The last time EIU won only one game during a season was in 1977 with the Panthers responding the next season and winning the 1978 NCAA Division II National Championship.

• Eastern Illinois had two players selected to the All-Ohio Valley Conference preseason football team for this year.  Defensive lineman/linebacker Dytarious Johnson and wide receiver Isaiah Hill both were named to the preseason All-OVC squad.  

• This will mark the sixth time that Eastern Illinois and UT Martin have met to open Ohio Valley Conference play for the Panthers.  EIU holds a 4-1 lead in the previous meetings.  The last was in 2010, a UT Martin win.   EIU won in 1996, 1997, 1999 & 2000.