2026 OVC-Big South Schedule<\/a>
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n BRENTWOOD, Tenn. \u2013\u00a0The OVC-Big South Football Association has announced its league schedule for the 2026 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Southeast Missouri will play a seven-game conference schedule next fall.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
SEMO begins OVC-Big South action with the Game Ball Brawl at Lindenwood on Oct. 10. The Redhawks home conference opener is the following week vs. Western Illinois (Oct. 17). SEMO then travels to Eastern Illinois (Oct. 24) before hosting Gardner-Webb (Oct. 31) on Halloween. The Redhawks hit the road for back-to-back games at Tennessee State (Nov. 7) and Charleston Southern (Nov. 14), and close out their conference slate at home vs. UT Martin (Nov. 21).\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nThe first week of the season will see a league matchup when Charleston Southern travels to Lindenwood. The rest of the conference play begins on October 3 and goes until the final week of the regular season on November 21.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Below is the 2026 composite OVC-Big South schedule, which is subject to change.<\/p>\n
Thursday, August 27
\nCharleston Southern at Lindenwood<\/p>\n
Saturday, October 3
\nGardner-Webb at Charleston Southern
\nTennessee State at Western Illinois<\/p>\n
Saturday, October 10
\nEastern Illinois at Gardner-Webb
\nSoutheast Missouri at Lindenwood
\nUT Martin at Tennessee State<\/p>\n
Saturday, October 17
\nLindenwood at Eastern Illinois
\nGardner-Webb at UT Martin
\nWestern Illinois at Southeast Missouri<\/p>\n
Saturday, October 24
\nCharleston Southern at Tennessee State
\nSoutheast Missouri at Eastern Illinois
\nUT Martin at Western Illinois<\/p>\n
Saturday, October 31
\nWestern Illinois at Charleston Southern
\nEastern Illinois at UT Martin
\nGardner-Webb at Southeast Missouri
\nTennessee State at Lindenwood<\/p>\n
Saturday, November 7
\nUT Martin at Charleston Southern
\nWestern Illinois at Eastern Illinois
\nLindenwood at Gardner-Webb
\nSoutheast Missouri at Tennessee State<\/p>\n
Saturday, November 14
\nSoutheast Missouri at Charleston Southern
\nEastern Illinois at Tennessee State
\nGardner-Webb at Western Illinois
\nLindenwood at UT Martin<\/p>\n
Saturday, November 21
\nCharleston Southern at Eastern Illinois
\nTennessee State at Gardner-Webb
\nWestern Illinois at Lindenwood
\nUT Martin at Southeast Missouri
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nABOUT THE OHIO VALLEY CONFERENCE-BIG SOUTH ASSOCIATION
\nIn February 2022, the Ohio Valley Conference and the Big South 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.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nThis 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.
\n\u00a0
\nSchools 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), University of Tennessee at Martin (Martin, TN) and Western Illinois University (Macomb, IL).\u00a0
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Football
1\/13\/2026 11:58:00 AM
…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-410949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"OVC-Big](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/OVCBigSouthLogoBanner.jpg\")
<\/p>\n