Big Sky Conference News Release

The best-ever home schedule is school history is back.
 
Continuing the twists and turns created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Big Sky Conference announced Wednesday (Feb. 17) that the league's 2021 league football schedule will revert back to the 2020 schedules for all teams, meaning Eastern Washington University football fans will be extremely happy.
 
Eastern will now host Big Sky home games against the top three favorites of Eagle fans – Montana (Oct. 2), Idaho (Oct. 16) and Montana State (Nov. 6). The Eagles will also host reigning two-time league champion Weber State (Oct. 23) in a league counter.
 
Hosting Idaho, Montana and Montana State in the same year will be the first time in EWU history that will have taken place. Eastern will play road contests at Southern Utah (Sept. 25), Northern Colorado (Oct. 9), UC Davis (Nov. 13) and Portland State (Nov. 20).
 
Eastern originally announced the completion of its 2021 schedule back on Dec. 22, with the league games based previously on the announcement by the league in May 2019 of schedules from 2020 through 2023. But since then, Southern Utah announced it was leaving the conference, and that precipitated the change to revert back to the 2020 schedule for 2021. Schedules for 2022 and beyond will now be revised.
 
Eastern's 2021 non-conference schedule will remain the same. The Eagles will host Central Washington on Sept. 11, 2021, at Roos Field in Cheney, Wash. Eastern will also play first-ever non-conference meetings on the road versus UNLV on Thursday, Sept. 2, and at Western Illinois on Sept. 18.
 
Season ticket renewals for the fall 2021 season will begin in March, followed by sales to the general public. More information will be provided at a later date.
 
Eastern is scheduled to begin its winter/spring 2020-21 Big Sky Conference schedule on Feb. 27 at Idaho, followed by a March 6 home game at Roos Field versus Northern Arizona. That will be the first game on the new red Astroturf surface installed at "The Inferno" last summer. Eastern will also host Cal Poly March 27 and Idaho on April 10.
 
At this time, no spectators will be permitted to attend home football games due to institutional, regional, and state guidelines in regards to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although the region has been moved into phase 2 of the Healthy Washington—Roadmap to Recovery plan, capacity limitations are expected to be filled exclusively by competitors and event staff.
 
Eastern will also play road games at Idaho State (March 13) and UC Davis (April 3) as part of the abbreviated winter/spring schedule. The NCAA Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs – just 16 teams this year -- are slated to begin on April 24 and conclude on May 16.
 
 
 

2021 Schedule

 
Date - Opponent - Site - Series/Streak
Sept. 2 (Thursday) - at UNLV - Las Vegas, Nev. (Allegiant St.)  - First Meeting
Sept. 11 - Central Washington - Cheney, Wash.  - EWU 35-30-4/+2
Sept. 18 - at Western Illinois - Macomb, Ill.  - First Meeting
Sept. 25 - at Southern Utah* - Cedar City, Utah - TBA - EWU 7-3/+1
Oct. 2 - Montana* - Cheney, Wash. - UM 28-17-1/-1
Oct. 9 - at Northern Colorado* - Greeley, Colo. - EWU 13-1/+12
Oct. 16 - Idaho* - Cheney, Wash. - UI 16-7/-1
Oct. 23 - Weber State* - Cheney, Wash. - EWU 19-16/-2
Oct. 30 - Bye
Nov. 6 - Montana State* - Cheney, Wash. - EWU 32-10/+7
Nov. 13 - at UC Davis* - Davis, Calif. - EWU 8-0/+8
Nov. 20 - at Portland State* - Hillsboro, Ore. - EWU 21-20-1/+4
 
*Big Sky Conference Game.
 
 
 

More on the 2021 Schedule . . .

Eastern Washington University will visit Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2021 when the Eagle football team plays at the UNLV on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
 
Allegiant Stadium is located on about 62 acres of land west of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Interstate 15. Construction on the new domed stadium began on Nov. 13, 2017, and seats 65,000 people for football. It serves as the home stadium for the National Football League's Las Vegas Raiders, as well as UNLV. It is scheduled to host the Pac-12 Conference Championship games in 2021 (it was also scheduled to be there in 2020 but moved to the Los Angeles Coliseum), the NFL Pro Bowl in 2021 and the annual Las Vegas Bowl college game. The Raiders beat New Orleans on Sept. 21, 2020, in the first football game played in the stadium. The first college game was UNLV's loss to the rival Nevada Wolf Pack on Oct. 31, 2020.
 
The Rebels are a member of the Mountain West Conference and the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision. Eastern is 8-24 all-time against current members of the league, with 24 of those meetings coming versus former Big Sky Conference rivals Boise State and UNR (Nevada Reno).
 
Besides UNLV, Eastern has never played Mountain West members Colorado State, Hawaii, New Mexico, Wyoming and Fresno State. However, Eastern recently announced a game versus Fresno State scheduled for Sept. 9, 2023. The last time EWU played a team from that league came in 2010 when Eastern lost at UNR 49-24, but then won 13 of its last 14 to claim the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision title.
 
Although Eastern is 8-24 overall versus the league, just six of them (2-6 record) have come versus members of the FBS.  Eastern is 6-13 overall versus Boise State, but 1-2 since it moved to FBS in the mid-1990's. Nevada also left the Big Sky at that time, and EWU 1-7 versus UNR prior to that (1-8 overall). Eastern also lost to San Diego State in 2003, Air Force in 2004 and San Jose State in 2005, and defeated Utah State in 1994.
 
The Rebels recently completed the abbreviated 2020 season 0-6 – all Mountain West games -- and had two games canceled because of the pandemic. All three of their home games were played in Allegiant Stadium. They were 4-8 overall in 2019, including a season-opening 56-23 victory over Southern Utah of the Big Sky. UNLV was 2-6 in the Mountain West, and ended the season with victories over San Jose State (38-35) and UNR (33-30 in overtime).
 
Central Washington and Eastern were fierce rivals in the NAIA and Evergreen Conference prior to EWU becoming a member of NCAA Division I and the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly known as I-AA) in 1984. The Wildcats are now in NCAA Division II and a member of the Great Northwest Conference.
 
Eastern leads the all-time series 35-30-4, including a 10 victories in the last 11 meetings since 1978. Eastern is 7-1 versus the Wildcats since EWU moved to FCS, with Central beating Eastern in Cheney 21-14 in 2006. Eastern has won the two meetings since then – 35-32 in 2010 at Qwest Field (now Lumen Field) in Seattle, and 58-13 in 2018 in Cheney.
 
The Wildcats did not play in fall of 2020 and have not announced any games for the spring. They ended the 2019 season with a six-game winning streak and finished 7-4 overall and 5-1 in the GNAC. Central opened the season with a 41-31 loss at Idaho, and its lone GNAC loss was 36-26 to Eastern Oregon.
 
Eastern will also play its first-ever game against Western Illinois of the Missouri Valley Conference, with the game played Sept. 18 in Macomb, Ill. Eastern was scheduled to play the Leathernecks at Roos Field  in the fall of 2020, but the game was postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic and has yet to be re-scheduled.
 
Entering 2021, Eastern is 10-14 all-time versus current members of the Missouri Valley Conference, having also not played Indiana State and Missouri State. Five of those victories (and no losses) came versus North Dakota when it was a member of the Big Sky Conference. Eastern is 1-3 versus North Dakota State, which has won eight of the last nine titles in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision.
 
Eastern's last game versus a MVC foe was a 38-24 loss to NDSU on Jan. 5, 2019, in the 2018 NCAA Division I Championship Game. Eastern did beat North Dakota 35-20 on Sept. 28, 2019, in the final Big Sky match-up between the two schools.
 
Like Eastern, the Leathernecks did not play in the fall of 2020. But they will begin an eight-game league-only schedule on Friday, Feb. 19.
 
Before the revisions announced on Feb. 17, 2021, Eastern's 2021 schedule would have had Eastern's league schedule beginning on Sept. 25 versus Portland State, and would have also included home games against Southern Utah (Oct. 16), Sacramento State (Nov. 6) and Idaho State (Nov. 20). The four conference games on the road for EWU would have been at Montana State (Oct. 9), Cal Poly (Oct. 23), Idaho (Oct. 30) and Northern Arizona (Nov. 13).
 
 

More on Schedules Previously Announced in May 2019 . . .

The schedules announced in May 2019 after the addition of Idaho to the league had had all 13 Big Sky teams playing eight conference games with four at home and four on the road. Each team would have two "rivals" it will play each season, and EWU's would be Idaho and Portland State. Over the course of the four years, each Big Sky team will play each other a minimum of two times.
 
Montana, EWU's former rival prior to the return of Idaho, was in the rotation with the other 10 league schools. Thus, EWU was scheduled to host Montana just once in that four-year span (on Oct. 3, 2020), while going to UM on Oct. 8, 2022, and not playing the Griz in both 2021 and 2023. Thus, the way the 2020-23 seasons were scheduled by the league, EWU would have played Montana at Roos Field just once in a seven-year span from 2017 to 2023.