The Morgan State Bears have added the Central State Marauders to their 2025 football schedule, the school announced Tuesday.
Morgan State will host Central State at Hughes Stadium in Baltimore, Md., on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025. The game will mark the 14th overall meeting between the two schools on the gridiron.
Morgan State and Central State first met in football during the 1951 season. The Marauders have defeated the Bears in their last four meetings, including their most recent matchup in the 1996 Capital City Classic in Columbus, Ohio. Central State currently leads the series, 10-3.
Central State is a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) in NCAA Division II. The Marauders, currently led by head coach Tony Carter, finished the 2024 season 1-9 overall and 1-7 in conference action.
Morgan State previously announced its 2025 football schedule in March, which included 11 contests. The addition of Central State gives Morgan State 12 opponents total and five home games.
The Bears are scheduled to open the season on Saturday, Aug. 30 with a non-conference contest on the road against the South Alabama Jaguars. The following week on Saturday, Sept. 6, Morgan State opens its home slate at Hughes Stadium against the Towson Tigers.
Other non-league opponents include Toledo on the road on Sept. 13, Miles College in the Circle City Classic in Indianapolis, Ind., on Sept. 27, Georgetown on the road on Oct. 4, and Virginia-Lynchburg at home on Oct. 11.
Morgan State opens Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) action on Oct. 25 on the road against Howard. The Bears will also travel to face South Carolina State on Nov. 1 and Norfolk State on Nov. 15.
MEAC foes slated to visit Hughes Stadium this fall include Delaware State on Nov. 8 and North Carolina Central on Nov. 22.
Below is Morgan State’s complete schedule for the 2025 season, plus a link to their schedule page which will be updated with kickoff times and TV as they are announced:
2025 Morgan State Football Schedule
08/30 – at South Alabama
09/06 – Towson
09/13 – at Toledo
09/20 – Central State
09/27 – Miles College (in Indianapolis)
10/04 – at Georgetown
10/11 – Virginia-Lynchburg
10/18 – OFF
10/25 – at Howard*
11/01 – at SC State*
11/08 – Delaware State*
11/15 – at Norfolk State*
11/22 – NC Central*
* MEAC contest.
Wow, 3 D2 or lower schools for Morgan State this coming year.
Agreed Evan, hard to believe and it has to make you wonder if this isn’t the next program to slide down. Although the MEAC doesn’t too much worry about the FCS playoffs and concentrates on the Celebration Bowl bid, if you wanted a playoff spot with an at-large bid, you hamstring your program by only facing 9 D-I teams. They also play two FBS teams (what is that program trying to accomplish), so there is no way you get enough wins to even consider that at-large bid. Virginia-Lynchburg is in the NCCAA, not even D-III, but hey, they’ll win that one for sure since the Dragons play all but one of their scheduled games on the road.
Plus a non-scholarship FCS opponent. And two FBS opponents.
I wonder how that will work out when they get into the MEAC schedule. 5 games at the end of the season.
No FCS playoffs with that schedule even if the Bears went undefeated in the FCS.
@Jinzo 2400, if they go undefeated in the FCS (and a monkey flies out of my keester) they will play in the celebration bowl as the MEAC representative against the SWAC champion. This would be worth more to Morgan State than a playoff appearance, so they would love that, but there is no chance they make any of that. There is a lot more wrong with this than it appears on the face. I could go on for a while, but I point back to my prior post and VA-Lynchburg who year after year plays one or two home games and doesn’t give the kids a thing. The players are playing for the love of the game and the schools are raking in money and complaining they are losing out.
With the MEAC down to just six schools, I’m not sure what else Morgan State could do? I have to think, at some point, the MEAC will scatter. The SWAC won’t take all of them, but I can’t see the MEAC adding football schools. It gets tricky because it is an HBCU, and in basketball and the other sports, they have 8 total members. I’m not sure that’s enough going forward.
This will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Are there any D2 HBCUs near the footprint with an interest in moving up to FCS?
Or is that a geographic and/or financial non-starter?
It’s a financial non-starter. I don’t see any SIAC schools moving up.
@ Jesper there are no D-II teams that need to move up. There are no FCS teams that need to be looking at moving to FBS right now until the power conferences figure out what they are doing. College sports may die all together at this point because it has gotten so greedy and everyone wants more money. TV, the schools, the athletes, they are ruining a pure thing. What’s wrong with going to school to get a degree and being lucky enough to play sports and have all those bills paid for? There was money going to the athletes for less than legit means for a long time. When I was at school, at a then I-AA football school, in the early to mid 1980’s, I had a friend on the basketball team who got paid to go out and watch the janitor turn the sprinkler on at the football practice field. He clocked in when the water went on and came back a few hours later to clock out when the water was shut off. I didn’t have that kind of money in my pocket and I worked 24 hours a week at a retail store. These kids weren’t suffering and if they came from an under privileged family, how was the family going without with one less mouth to feed with all else being equal. All we needed to do with NIL was shut off the schools using the kids. I’m not at all for the non-scholarship schools using these kids and making money on the games, but let’s not be blind to the fact that the student athlete had money and access to food as part of their participation.
Glad for that Dan! If facts bother you, don’t blame history.
MEAC & SWAC teams do not participate in FCS Playoffs. They only participate in the Celebration Bowl for HBCU’s at the end of the year. The schedule is irrelevant.
@FB1 – Wrong. I believe the last team in the playoffs between the SWAC and MEAC was Florida A&M who took an at-large bid in 2021. They are eligible and do participate in the playoffs, but their participation in the Celebration Bowl is a worth more than a playoff game. The schedule is very relevant unless you go out and play two FBS and three lower division teams.
Incidentally, no SWAC team has ever won an FCS playoff game, and before and claims FAMU won the I-AA championship in 1978, they were an independent at that time. The SWAC is 0-20 all-time in the 1-AA/FCS post season.
FB1 I really would like to see MEAC & SWAC participate in FCS postseason in order to create equal opportunities for HBCU Schools.
Dan, how is that that the SWAC and MEAC don’t have equal opportunities? Again, they make more out of the bowl game than they do with the playoffs, and the game is on national television (I believe NBC had for the 2024 season), so it has exposure. It costs a lot for the schools that participate in the playoffs, and in a lot of cases, the gate doesn’t cover the costs. This was a major reason that James Madison. The SWAC and MEAC can participate in the playoff, but they choose to forfeit their automatic bid to play the Celebration Bowl, and the teams that don’t participate in the SWAC championship and the Celebration Bowl are given consideration for at large bids like the rest of the FCS.
And, when Florida A&M won, it was a four team event
To me, SWAC and MEAC is Division 2 quality.
Ohio State hosts Grambling this year
Why?
John, there were only 41 teams in Div I-AA in 1978, so how many teams should have been in that? Div I-A was deciding the champion by the polls, so at least there was a playoff and it had to start somewhere.
As for Ohio State, a lot of FBS teams play those types of games. I don’t see the difference between that game and Alabama playing Eastern Illinois.
John, in 1978 there were only 41 teams in Div !-AA. Four teams in the playoffs was almost 10% of the total. How many more teams should they have had in the playoffs then? Not sure what your point is, but the number of teams had to start at some point and the college football playoff started at that number for 120 plus teams or however many it was the first year for that.
Also, a lot of FBS teams play games like Ohio State v. Grambling. I don’t see the difference, for example, between that matchup and Alabama v. Eastern Illinois. For that matter, your comment seems to say for instance, Michigan should never have played Appalachian State in 2007.
I am by no means saying Grambling will win their game at Ohio State, but who expected App State to pull that win off. It’s just a big pay day for the FCS team, and in all honesty, probably every Freshman on the Ohio State roster will earn their letter on September 6 in Columbus.
JM Good News I have zero concerns about your post Have a safe & happy day.
11/8 Delaware State at Morgan State.