The Sacred Heart Pioneers have announced their 2025 football schedule, which includes new contests against Howard and Mercyhurst.
The 2025 season will be the second for Sacred Heart as a Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) Independent following its departure from the Northeast Conference (NEC).
Sacred Heart opens the 2025 season with a home contest at Campus Field in Fairfield, Conn., on Saturday, Aug. 30 against the Stonehill Skyhawks. SHU then packs its bags for three consecutive weekends, trekking to face the Lehigh Mountain Hawks on Sept. 6, LIU Sharks on Sept. 13, and Norfolk State Spartans on Sept. 20.
The Pioneers then return home to host the Delaware State Hornets on Sept. 27 before traveling to clash with the Central Connecticut Blue Devils on Oct. 4.
The Howard Bison will visit Fairfield on Oct. 11 for a matchup that was previously unannounced. Two road games follow with an open date sandwiched in between — at the Montana Grizzlies on Oct. 18 and at the Mercyhurst Lakers on Nov. 1, the latter of which was also previously unannounced.
Consecutive home tilts are up next as the Pioneers welcome the Virginia-Lynchburg Dragons and Merrimack Warriors to Campus Field on Nov. 8 and Nov. 15, respectively.
Sacred Heart closes out the 2025 season with a road matchup against the Villanova Wildcats on Nov. 22.
Below is Sacred Heart’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 Sacred Heart Football Schedule
08/30 – Stonehill
09/06 – at Lehigh
09/13 – at LIU
09/20 – at Norfolk State
09/27 – Delaware State
10/04 – at Central Connecticut
10/11 – Howard
10/18 – at Montana
11/01 – at Mercyhurst
11/08 – Virginia-Lynchburg
11/15 – Merrimack
11/22 – at Villanova
Sacred Heart finished the 2024 season 5-6 overall. The 2025 season will be the 14th for the Pioneers under head coach Mark Nofri, who has a 74-68 overall record at the school.
I’m pleasantly surprised that SHU was able to schedule 12 games for next year, including 5 home games.
Now, Merrimack still needs to schedule 2-3 more games.
Also, Howard will only have 3 on-campus home games next year (3 home, 6 road, 3 neutral).
They don’t have one non-conference home game and their first on-campus game is not until Oct. 25! Wow!!
Especially the season ending non conference game against Villanova. Not very often do you see a finale non conference game against another FCS school.
@ Evan The neutral site games have become quite the trend for HBCUs these past few years. By my very rough count, there will be 10 proposed neutral site games played between HBCU schools. Can’t remember a year off the top that matches or exceeds that number from previous seasons
In Vanessa Williams song “Save The Best For Last” you can say about for Sacred Heart at Villanova & speaking of Villanova as a Fan of Super Bowl LIX Champions Philadelphia Eagles & Should Eagles go for Cornerback in upcoming late April NFL Draft Eagles should select Isas Waxter.
@ Evan
Looking at open dates, I would think Merrimack either has a scheduled game, or is working on it, October 18 with Harvard.
I would think so too.