Reviewing one’s future non-conference football schedules is a lot like asking a team where it sees itself in 5-10 years from now. For one, these games really do get scheduled out that far in advance, but they also sort of show what the goals and management styles of these teams are.

The ultimate, unspecific goals of FBS football are for your teams to: 1. make a lot of money, and 2. win a lot of games.

But which games are you actually excited to see?

Everybody’s got their preferences, and each game has its own purpose. Competitively speaking, it’s been historically disadvantageous for Eastern Michigan to play Big Ten or SEC teams with obvious talent disparities. Yes, EMU had wins over Rutgers, Illinois, and Purdue last decade, but it’s been a while since then.

Is EMU actually ever going to be expected to beat Michigan or Indiana — the national championship winners of the 2023 and 2025 seasons? No. Will the $1 million+ sized checks help pay some bills across the school’s athletic department? They certainly do help with that.

But it’s unwise to load-up on a bunch of big paycheck games. Money’s great, but when can these teams conceivably see some potential wins on their schedules? And do they always have to come from hosting an FCS squad?

It’s all a balancing act that athletic directors like Scott Wetherbee have the pleasure to sort out.

Wetherbee’s more or less had a formula to use for EMU’s four non-conference spots. Each year, get a couple of mid-majors, an FCS home game, and a paycheck game (the more competitive, the better).

The non-MAC schedules for 2027, 2028, and 2030 are all filled out while the 2029 season has openings in Week 2 and Week 3, and there’s one game scheduled in each of the 2031, 2035 and 2036 seasons — none in 2032, 2033, or 2034.

Through an open records request, The Ypsilanti Eleven has obtained copies of contracts, contract changes, and cancellations for EMU football’s future non-MAC games.

Below is a detailed look at all 15 future non-league commitments EMU has for itself, and they’ve been ranked. Ranked how? There was no particular method here, I just asked myself a simple question: how exciting of a matchup is this?

We’ll start with the game that, to me, is the most exciting to look forward to, and we’ll end with the games that don’t seem particularly thrilling.

Any time a MAC team plays Marshall, I’m down. Marshall has a brief but very rich history in the MAC’s glory years with Randy Moss, Chad Pennington, and five league titles between 1997 and 2002.

EMU has a 1-3 all-time record against Marshall and the two have not played each other since 1998. EMU’s lone win in the series came in 1983 (7-3 final score).

In April 2024, EMU and Marshall agreed to a home-and-home series in the 2026 and 2028 seasons with Marshall hosting the first game and Eastern hosting the second. As game guarantees, both teams would pay each other $150,000. The agreement was finally signed off by both parties in June and July, but would ultimately be amended in December 2025 with some pretty big changes.

Why? Because the Atlantic Coast Conference, duh!

In September 2025, the ACC decided that its upper-crust football league would move from an 8-to 9-game conference schedule, leaving its teams to make some decisions about their respective non-league schedules. Pitt and Wisconsin, who will be playing in Dublin in 2027 anyway, decided to cancel their 2026 series. In November, Wisconsin, now with an opening on the schedule, reached out to and asked EMU if it wanted to fill-in. With some scheduling consultant help, this series of events took place:

In EMU and Marshall’s game addendum, the two agreed to the 5-year delay on Marshall’s home game. But here’s how the EMU-Marshall game guarantees can both go from $150,000 each way to $0. Since Wisconsin called EMU out of the blue to write a Big Ten-sized check to replace Pitt on the schedule, Marshall’s also going to get the chance to kick the can on EMU to play a payday game instead, too.

With this initial schedule change, Marshall is no longer on the hook for a game guarantee to EMU. Still, EMU must pay Marshall $50,000 no later than Sept. 26 — the date of the originally-scheduled game.

Anytime before March 23, 2027, Marshall has the ability to move its 2028 road game with Eastern to Sept. 2032 (or to a different date if they agree on something else), “if Marshall secures another opponent for 2028.” And if so, EMU, much like Marshall’s deal in all of this, won’t be responsible for paying Marshall a game guarantee for the 2032 (or other future) matchup.

Marshall replaced EMU with an FCS game, and EMU must replace Marshall with a different home game if it flexes out of the 2028 spot. If EMU can’t find a replacement game, then “the 2028 game shall remain as originally scheduled,” and “all original terms shall continue to apply.” If EMU is able to find a replacement opponent, then Marshall will pay EMU $50,000 no later than Sept. 23, 2028, and EMU will not have to pay a game guarantee in 2032.

This future series is #1 on the list even if there’s a waiting period for it because, well, it’s Marshall. The flexibility of the game in Huntington for EMU to get a bunch of money from the Big Ten’s apple tree is nice. Marshall could have the 2028 game punted by lining up a similar-sized game, but there’s also a chance that it won’t get moved either.

I don’t think nostalgia is the right word here, but getting a Marshall vs. MAC team event can get people thinking about what the conference was like 30 to 40 years ago (yikes). Marshall also has future non-conference dates scheduled against Toledo, Ohio, and Bowling Green.

This series has been on the books for a minute, and we still have to wait a year before we can get into this home-and-home with Georgia Southern. Signed in 2021, Georgia Southern and Eastern agreed to play games in 2027 (at GSU) and in 2029 (at EMU) and pay each other $150,000 in game guarantees.

The two have played each other just one time: the dramatic 2018 Camellia Bowl, which ended in a 23-21 loss for EMU.

Could either of the next two games be as exciting as that bowl game? I’d defintely welcome the experience. Georgia Southern’s a program that had a lot of success before it moved up to FBS play in 2014 (6 FCS and 10 Southern Conference titles since 1985). Those Eagles won the Sun Belt in the first year they moved up from the FCS, but not since.

San Jose State and EMU have played each other two times, and EMU won both contests. Once, in the 1987 Cal Bowl. The second, 35 years later, in the 2022 Idaho Potato Bowl.

A year before the rematch, though, the two sides agreed to a future home-and-home series. 29 years after the two first met in Fresno, Calif., EMU would host San Jose State, then would take a trip out West in 2029. Each team will pay each other $150,000 in game guarantees.

It sort of stinks that these two couldn’t maneuver things around have this game played in 2027, which would’ve marked exactly 40 years since these two first played in the Cal Bowl. But the 2027 season opener was already filled by, at the time of this game’s contract being made, another California-based Mountain West team (San Diego State, which is now in the new Pac-12).

Another former MAC team on EMU’s future schedules. Unlike Marshall though, Cincinnati was a founding member of the league in 1946. Cincy left the league (1952) way before EMU ever joined (1976). Cincinnati, at its very best in football, made the once four-team College Football Playoff in 2021, and then got scooped out of the American Conference and into the Big XII in 2023. Now that it’s leveled-up in the football world, it gets to write million-dollar checks to teams like EMU still cutting it up in the MAC.

Actually, the check is for $1.1 million.

In 2016, Eastern and Coastal Carolina initially agreed to a home-and-home series for the 2019 and 2020 seasons. Eastern won the first game at Coastal in 2019, 30-23.

Both teams initially agreed to pay each other $325,000 to play these games. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 caused the second game to eventually be rescheduled by April 2023. The new agreed-up dated for EMU to host Coastal would be Sept. 14, 2030.

EMU won the first game, and only time will if it should be favored in 2030 when this South Carolina-based school makes its trip up North. EMU has already played on all of the non-traditional non-green turf fields at the FBS level (EMU’s grey, Coastal’s teal, Boise State’s blue). Coastal, which only moved up to the FBS in 2017, still has a bucket list of destinations to get to.

The original home-and-home for this series was made in January 2015. The first contest was played, but the second was pushed to a much later date. After the athletic director chair was changed from Heather Lyke to Scott Wetherbee, EMU’s 2019 home game was pushed to the 2027 season opener.

SDSU won the 2018 game at home, 23-20.

While there’s not a lot of cultural crossover here, but this series accidentally turned into EMU hosting a school from a Power league for the first time since 2003 when Maryland, still an ACC team at the time, which finished the year 10-3 and a #17 ranking in the AP poll came to EMU. The Eagles lost 37-13. But get this: Maryland actually went to two MAC venues that year. Maryland opened the 2003 season with a 20-13 overtime loss at Northern Illinois.

(In 2007, EMU '“hosted” Northwestern, but the game was played at Ford Field in Detroit.)

At approximately 2,300 miles, SDSU will be the furthest-traveled team to get to Rynearson Stadium. In 2004, Idaho, which was in the Sun Belt, traveled ~2,100 miles to get to EMU and win 45-41 for its first win of the year (EMU went 4-7 under first-year head coach Jeff Genyk). In 1995, UNLV traveled roughly 2,000 miles to get to EMU, which EMU won the game 51-6.

Sacramento State, which is in the MAC, comes to EMU to open the 2026 season. The Hornets are only closer to EMU than SDSU is by about 15-20 miles. But it’ll be enough to hold the “We traveled the furthest to get to Rynearson Stadium” belt until the following year when SDSU takes that title.

While it’s not my favorite game to look forward to, I do appreciate that this suddenly turned into an improved situation just because we can now say that San Diego’s in the Pac-12 now.

I never did tell you what the game guarantee was for this sudden change in plans.

$1.4 million. Don’t spend it all in one place.

EMU and Wisconsin have played each other four times (1991, 1994, 1996, and 2021), and the Badgers have won all of them convincingly (combined score: 135-16). We’re definitely in the “take the check, take the losses” territory of this list, and sudden windfall of cash thrown in EMU’s direction certainly helps with the athletic department’s finances.

I don’t know if it’ll necessarily help with the football team’s record, since this means there are two Big Ten schools on the schedule, not just one.

In February 2023, the two agreed to a home-and-home series for the 2031 and 2032 seasons. Fourteen months later, they agreed to delay the far-out series another four years: EMU at MTSU from 2031 to Sept. 22, 2035, and MTSU at EMU from 2032 to Sept. 20, 2036.

In a botched attempt to expand the conference in 2021, Middle Tennessee held out from moving to the MAC, which also prevented its rival Western Kentucky from joining the league as a pair. The two remain Conference-USA members.

EMU and MTSU have never played each other before.

Honestly, I don’t know where to put MTSU on this list, so it goes right in the… middle.

In February 2021, EMU and Michigan State agreed to a single-game road trip to East Lansing that’ll bring $1.5 million back home to Ypsilanti.

The last time EMU went to Michigan State, Creighton was in his first year leading the Eagles. EMU walked out with a (/gulp) 73-14 loss, and one of the more nightmarish highlights committed against its quarterback Rob Bolden that day.

EMU and MSU have played each other 10 times in total with State having won all of tem; the first three meetings were between the 1898 and 1899 seasons (yes, they played each other twice in 1898).

This game contract was signed in May 2023, which was well before Curt Cignetti was hired in to lead Indiana’s into an immediate, never-before-seen turnaround of dominance in this game (defending national champions, 27-2 record in two seasons).

Will Indiana still be hot shit in 2028? Probably. Will Cignetti ever turn into the type that doesn’t run up the score? I doubt it.

Game guarantee of $1.3 million feels a little bit low, but only because Indiana just won a national championship in football — which still feels wild to say.

The only Indiana-EMU game to happen before was back in 1990. IU beat EMU 37-6.

Michigan and EMU agreed to a two-for-none deal in April 2024 to send EMU down the street to play in Michigan Stadium during the 2027 and 2030 seasons. Much like the MSU series, EMU is 0-10 against Michigan. EMU laid goose eggs in the first five matchups between 1896-1931, didn’t go back to Ann Arbor again until 1998 (59-20), got shut out for the sixth time in 2005, then lost the next three matchups in 2007, 2009, and 2011.

The history books aren’t nice to read here, but dollar bills are used to wipe tears away, right? How does $1.5 million in 2027 and $1.6 million in 2030 sound to you? See, hurts a little less, don’t it?

My open records request did not include any copies of the original game contracts between Army and EMU, but it did bring back the first of many changes made to this series, which was originally signed as a two-for-two. The first plans were that EMU would host Army to open the 2009 season, and in October 2012. Army would host EMU Sept. 11, 2010 and in Oct. 2013.

In October 2007, the first adjustment this series saw was that the 2010 game would instead be played at EMU, and five more games were added to the series: Octobers of 2008, 2015, and 2017 at Army, and Novembers of 2016 and 2018 at EMU.

The game guarantees were signed for $150,000, but that’s not the interesting nugget. As a part of this extended series, the agreement has a line that was later crossed out: “It is also agreed that Eastern Michigan will actively pursue the possibility of playing all five of its home games in this series games against Army at Ford Field.”

This new contract went into effect on Jan. 16, 2008, and was modified March 23, 2009, September 22, 2011, and then another time in July 2014 (now with Heather Lyke as EMU AD). As busy and probably really annoying as it was to make change after change with this series, these games were set to play out until the Covid-19 pandemic forced the two teams to reschedule its game in 2020, which, funny enough, was already a rescheduled event that was originally slated for 2016. Now, it’s been effectively punted to 2030.

The only other meeting between the two before all of this: Halloween 1992. Army rolled to a 40-point win in West Point that night, 57-17 was the final score.

I want to put this series up a little bit higher, but this loses some points for me for a couple of small reasons. One, the final game in West Point is going to happen and everybody who first signed off on this series in the mid-2000’s will either be doing something else with their lives or dead. For EMU, that was two athletic directors ago. They expanded the series because they got the idea of having EMU’s games played in Detroit, and that never happened. Secondly, EMU only has one win in the series. That’s way too many games for not enough victories.

In December, EMU and Mercyhurst agreed to a pair of one-game contracts for the Eagles to host this FCS team in 2027 and 2030. Mercyhurst, from Erie, Pa. is a recently-promoted FCS school in the Northeast Conference, that was a Division 3 school from 1981-1992 and was Division 2 from 1993-2023. As game guarantees, Mercyhurst will receive $325,000 for each trip.

There aren’t many EMU vs. FCS matchups that get me excited, and when the FCS team is a recently-promoted school from the D2, I immediately start to give EMU some future expectations on the football game.

These are games EMU better not lose.

In December 2022, EMU and FCS-level Lindenwood agreed to a single game to be played in 2026. Lindenwood’s set to receive $330,000 for its upcoming trip to EMU this year. Originally, EMU planned to see Lindenwood on Week 3 of this year, but between the ACC forcing its members to play nine, instead of eight, conference games and Sacramento State strongarming its way into FBS football by suddenly buying an invite to the MAC, Lindenwood’s place on EMU’s schedule gets a low-humming “Hmm…” out of me.

Not that EMU should be walking around with too much confidence after last year’s loss to Long Island, but Lindenwood was scheduled to come to EMU as a Week 3 FCS cool-down after Eastern’s Week 1 home opener vs. San Jose State, and Week 2 date at Michigan State. Ideally, EMU would have a good chance of winning at least the FCS game before a Week 4 home game vs. Marshall.

Instead, Sacramento State will be EMU’s Week 0 opening opponent, followed by SJSU at home, then MSU and Wisconsin both on the road, then Lindenwood comes to EMU as its fifth opponent on the year. As anybody who watches college football knows, teams suffer injuries, and some teams (especially at the MAC level) simply break down after seeing a Big Ten team or two. Sometimes, players just need a week or two in the middle of the season to heal their minor injuries. EMU will not have a bye week until Halloween — that means EMU won’t get a week off until after it’s played nine games on the year.

It’s a weird but simple question: Could the new timing of Lindenwood appearing on EMU’s schedule in 2026 be as (or more?) important than whatever talent each team has in its locker rooms?

Lindenwood’s a former NAIA and D2 school that made the leap-up to FCS football (Ohio Valley Conference) in 2022.

Here’s some good EMU bar trivia: In 2009, Lindenwood made it to the NAIA national championship where it lost to Sioux Falls 25-22. Does that game ring any bells? Maybe it should, because Sioux Falls was led by former EMU offensive coordinator and current Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer.

In April 2025, EMU and Long Island secured a MAC vs. NEC matchup three seasons out in advance. LIU will receive $350,000 as a game guarantee. LIU is still a relatively-new Division I team that classified-up in 2019. Last year, LIU’s 28-23 win over EMU was the first win over an FBS school in its program’s history. Personally, I wouldn’t want to see an FCS team that just beat me until the last upset is old enough to drive an automobile. And even then, EMU vs. Long Island is still going to an ick for me.