BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – The OVC-Big South Football Association has announced its league schedule for the 2025 season.
The third year of the Association features nine league teams each playing an eight-game conference schedule. The league slate starts Saturday, September 13, and Association games will primarily take place between Weeks 5 and 13.
The opening league contest will be Saturday, September 13 with Charleston Southern hosting Lindenwood. Two weeks later, the four teams that shared the 2024 league crown – Southeast Missouri, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech and UT Martin – will each open defense of their titles. UT Martin will host Southeast Missouri while Tennessee State entertains Tennessee Tech.
Lindenwood will travel to Charleston Southern on September 13 to open conference play. After two non-conference games, Lindenwood will return to Association action on October 4, hosting UT Martin. Following a bye week, the Lions will welcome Tennessee Tech on October 18. The Black and Gold will close out a three-game homestand on October 25, hosting Gardner-Webb.
The Lions will hit the road for two-consecutive road matchups with Tennessee State on November 1 and Western Illinois on November 8. Lindenwood will conclude the home slate on November 15 with a game against Eastern Illinois. Lindenwood ends the regular season and Association play on the road at Southeast Missouri State on November 22 for the fourth-annual Game Ball Brawl.
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).
