It didn’t take long for Jacksonville State to put its stamp on Conference USA. And the Gamecocks did it with authority. In its second season in the league, Jax State won the CUSA crown after knocking off Western Kentucky 52-12 in the league championship game.
The Gamecocks had a bumpy start to the season, beginning 0-3 but rallied and avenged their only conference loss of the season. We won’t see Jax State and WKU meet again until the final week of the regular season, and hopefully the wait is worthwhile.
Here are some other takeaways from the 2025 CUSA football schedule.
Delaware & Missouri State’s First Season
There’s some new faces in the league this season with Delaware and Missouri State making the transition from the FCS. Neither team will be eligible to compete for the conference championship because of NCAA rules, but it’ll be a lot of fun seeing how competitive they’ll be.
I think Delaware has the tougher conference schedule, but the Bears will have a nice welcome to the FBS when they face USC and SMU in two of the first three weeks of the season.
Exciting Week 0 Matchup
Who wants to watch Kansas State and Iowa State play in Dublin when you can watch Sam Houston and WKU play in Bowling Green, Kentucky? Really, though. There’s hardly a better way for a conference slate to get started than with two of the top three finishers from a year ago playing when only three other FBS games will be taking place.
It’ll be an excellent opportunity for eyes to be on the conference, and hopefully it’ll meet the hype.
No Liberty-WKU Matchup
While WKU will play Jax State in an anticipated matchup, the Hilltoppers won’t have to play Liberty, meaning two of the favorites to win the conference won’t play in the regular season. Liberty also doesn’t play SHSU and doesn’t face a Power Four program. I think the Flames have arguably the lightest schedule in the league.
Weeknight CUSA
There’s really no shortage of entertainment when it comes to CUSA football, especially on a Wednesday night in October.
This will be the third year in a row where we’ll be treated to weekday CUSA contests, and there was plenty of excitement during last year’s matchups, which included six one-score games.
Rivalry Week?
It seems like a lot of leagues are getting away from having rivalry games on rivalry week. Realignment probably has something to do with it. There are some great rivalries in this league including WKU and Middle Tennessee, JSU and Kennesaw State, and UTEP and New Mexico State, but the games won’t be played during rivalry week.
Bye Week Shenanigans
The placement for bye weeks is interesting for most of the teams. Seven programs will have a game sandwiched between bye weeks and most of them will be in October. I know this is one of the consequences of the weekday CUSA contests, but I imagine these programs would appreciate bye weeks that aren’t so close together.
