The Eastern Illinois Panthers and the Indiana State Sycamores have scheduled a four-game, home-and-home football series, FBSchedules.com has learned.
Copies of contracts for the four games were obtained from Eastern Illinois University via a state Freedom of Information Act request.
Eastern Illinois will travel to take on Indiana State at Memorial Stadium in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Sept. 2, 2023 and then again two seasons later on Sept. 6, 2025. The Panthers will host the Sycamores at O’Brien Stadium in Charleston, Illinois, on Aug. 31, 2024 and then on Sept. 5, 2026.
Eastern Illinois and Indiana State first met on the gridiron in 1901 and have played a total of 85 contests. The two schools split a home-and-home series in 2017 and 2018, and Eastern Illinois leads the overall series 43-38-4.
EIU is scheduled to visit Indiana State this season on Sept. 21 and then will host the Sycamores on Sept. 5, 2020. At this point, it appears that the Panthers and Sycamores will take a two-year break in the series in 2021 and 2022 before resuming their matchup in 2023.
The addition of games against Indiana State gives Eastern Illinois two scheduled non-conference games in 2023 and 2024. The Panthers are also scheduled to host Illinois State in 2023 and travel to face Illinois in 2024.
Indiana State is the first scheduled non-conference opponent for EIU for both the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
The Sycamores now have two scheduled non-conference opponents for each season from 2023 through 2026. Indiana State’s other opponent for each season comes from the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
Indiana State is slated to play at Georgia in 2023, at Purdue in 2024, at Indiana in 2025, and at Purdue again in 2026.
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