The Northwestern Wildcats have added home contests against the Western Illinois Leathernecks and ULM Warhawks, which completes their 2025 football schedule, the school announced Wednesday.
Northwestern will host Western Illinois at Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium in Evanston, Ill., on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. The game will mark the second meeting between the two schools in football.
Western Illinois is a member of the Big South-OVC Football Association in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The Leathernecks finished the 2024 season 4-8 overall and 3-5 in conference play.
Four weeks later, Northwestern will welcome the ULM Warhawks of the Sun Belt Conference to Evanston. The game, which is slated for Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, will mark the first-ever meeting between the two schools in football.
The matchups with Western Illinois and ULM were announced in conjunction with the release of Northwestern’s complete Big Ten football schedule for the 2025 season. Northwestern is slated to open the 2025 season on the road against the Tulane Green Wave on Aug. 30.
Below is Northwestern’s complete schedule for the 2025 season, plus a link to its schedule page which will be updated with kickoff times and TV as they are announced:
2025 Northwestern Football Schedule
- 08/30 – at Tulane
- 09/06 – Western Illinois
- 09/13 – Oregon*
- 09/20 – OFF
- 09/27 – UCLA*
- 10/04 – ULM
- 10/11 – at Penn State*
- 10/18 – Purdue*
- 10/25 – at Nebraska*
- 11/01 – OFF
- 11/08 – at USC*
- 11/15 – Michigan* (at Wrigley Field)
- 11/22 – Minnesota* (at Wrigley Field)
- 11/29 – at Illinois*
* Big Ten contest.
My Michigan Wolverines & Minnesota Golden Gophers are fantastic Choices for games at 1060 West Addison (Wrigley Field).
Decent chance those Oregon tickets at the temporary lakefront stadium trade for a very handsome premium!
Shame on Northwestern for not including a single opponent from either the ACC, Big 12 or SEC on their schedule.
At least they play 9 conference games (which is the same number of power 4 games as the SEC who only play 8 conference games and 1 power 4 game except for a couple teams that play 2 p4 games).
Shame on Z-Man for being such a very, very mean person.
I am A Northwestern Fan they do not need SEC, Big 12 or ACC for OOC opponent they are excellent with two G5 & FCS for 2025 schedule.
If you do not like what happening in College Football go move to Birmingham, England.