The Missouri Tigers have added the Central Arkansas Bears to their 2025 football schedule, according to a report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Missouri will host Central Arkansas at Faurot Field in Columbia to open the 2025 season on Saturday, Aug. 30. The Tigers will pay the Bears a $500,000 guarantee for the game, according to a copy of the contract that was obtained from the University of Missouri.
Interestingly, we obtained a copy of the contract for the Missouri-Central Arkansas matchup back in December 2021, but apparently it was overlooked and we failed to report on it. The contract is dated April 19, 2021.
Central Arkansas is a member of the United Athletic Conference (UAC) in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The Bears finished the 2023 season 7-4 overall and 4-2 in UAC play.
Central Arkansas is a replacement contest for the Miami RedHawks on Missouri’s 2025 football schedule. Missouri was previously scheduled to play at Miami on Sept. 13, 2025, but the Tigers backed out of the game and paid the RedHawks a $750,000 cancellation fee in December, per Miami’s sports information department.
With the addition of Central Arkansas, all four of Missouri’s non-conference contests in 2025 will be played at home in Columbia. Other opponents scheduled to visit Faurot Field include the Kansas Jayhawks on Sept. 6, Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns on Oct. 4, and UMass Minutemen on Oct. 18.
Mizzou’s SEC opponents in 2025 will be the same as in 2024, but with the locations swapped. The Tigers will host Alabama, Mississippi State, South Carolina, and Texas A&M and will travel to Arkansas, Auburn, Oklahoma, and Vanderbilt.
Missouri is the fifth scheduled opponent for Central Arkansas in 2025, which means one other previously scheduled contest will have to be postponed or canceled. Those games include Samford at home (Sept. 13) and road tilts at Arkansas-Pine Bluff (Sept. 6), Idaho State (Sept. 20), and Lamar (Sept. 27).
Football Schedules