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2025 OVC-Big South Football Association Schedule

On Tuesday afternoon the OVC-Big South Football Association released the 2025 conference schedule which includes eight games for all members of the conference.
 
Eastern Illinois will play eight straight conference games beginning on Sept. 27 on the road against in-state rival Western Illinois.
 
EIU's four home games will be on back-to-back weekends twice during the fall semester.  The Panthers host Tennessee State on October 4 and then Gardner-Webb on October 11.  The game against Gardner-Webb will be EIU's Homecoming Game.
 
EIU opens November at home as well hosting UT Martin on November 1 and Tennessee Tech on November 8.  The UT Martin game will be Family Weekend.
 
The additional three conference road games will be on Oct. 18 at Southeast Missouri, Oct. 25 at Charleston Southern and Nov. 15 at Lindenwood.
 
The non-conference portion of the Panthers 2025 schedule will be released in the coming weeks.
 
ABOUT THE OHIO VALLEY CONFERENCE-BIG SOUTH ASSOCIATION
In February 2022, the Big South Conference and Ohio Valley Conference announced the creation of an association of their football member institutions, which began in the 2023 NCAA Division I football season and has an initial term of at least four years. In June 2024 the Presidents and Chancellors solidified their commitment to each other with a new enhanced agreement that will provide an opportunity to extend the original partnership through 2030 and beyond.
 
This agreement, which strengthens the structure between the FCS-committed institutions, is intended to provide all members access to the automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Football Championship Playoffs, long-term stability, and a competitive league schedule. In creating the association, presidents from each of the multisport conferences pointed to the similarities of the OVC and the Big South, with their complementary geographies and intercollegiate athletic philosophies, as key to making this association possible.
 
Schools comprising the Association are Charleston Southern University (Charleston, SC), Eastern Illinois University (Charleston, IL), Gardner-Webb University (Boiling Springs, NC), Lindenwood University (St. Charles, MO), Southeast Missouri State University (Cape Girardeau, MO), Tennessee State University (Nashville, TN), Tennessee Technological University (Cookeville, TN), University of Tennessee at Martin (Martin, TN) and Western Illinois University (Macomb, IL).