UMHB Football releases 2025 schedule featuring high-caliber non-conference matchups

BELTON — After an improbable 2024 playoff run that featured a trip to the national quarterfinals and a pair of Top 15 wins, UMHB Football is not shying away from any challenge heading into 2025. 

A stacked four-game non-conference slate, released with the complete schedule on Tuesday morning, features opponents from the Division II, Division III, and NAIA ranks. UMHB, who finished its 2024 campaign ranked No. 12 in the D3football.com Top 25, enters this fall with momentum, seeking to take back the ASC title after last winning it in 2022.

Two of the matchups are familiar for UMHB, the second leg in home-and-home agreements that began last fall. 

On Sept. 6, The Cru kicks off its fall season under the lights of Crusader Stadium, hosting NAIA Bethel University (TN) at 6 p.m. CT. The two met for the first time in McKenzie, Tennessee last season, battling in a tight game that saw Bethel pull away midway through the fourth quarter in a 20-10 win. 

Two weeks later on Sept. 20, UW-Whitewater travels to Belton for the second time in three years, marking UMHB’s lone non-conference matchup against a D-III opponent this season. The 11 a.m. contest is the latest in a long line of duels between the Crusaders and Warhawks, with the 2025 edition being the seventh meeting since 2018. UMHB made a statement last year, winning 35-17 on the road, though The Cru hasn’t won at home since 2018. 

There are also two new opponents, highlighting what promises to be one of the most difficult non-league schedules in the country this fall. 

A week after getting UW-Whitewater at home, UMHB heads east, facing Division II Mars Hill University in western North Carolina on Sept. 27. In a town of just over 2,000, MHU’s campus sits 20 minutes north of Asheville and to the west of the Pisgah National Forest, notably identified as the oldest college or university in the western part of the state. On the gridiron, the Lions compete in the South Atlantic Conference of D2, having finished third in the SAC Mountain Division standings last fall. MHU went 5-4 overall, and 5-3 in the league, marking the program’s fourth consecutive season with a winning record. Over the last three years, MHU is 11-4 in its home games at Meares Field, a beautiful venue beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains that has been the program’s home since 1965. 

The fourth and final non-conference tilt for The Cru will come on Oct. 18 at home, exactly a week after playing at ASC rival Hardin-Simmons. UMHB is hosting Texas Wesleyan in its 2 p.m. homecoming game at Crusader Stadium, facing a powerhouse NAIA program that went 10-1 in 2024. The Rams finished last fall ranked No. 7 nationally in the final NAIA Top 25 of the regular season, going 2-0 against ranked opponents, along with an appearance in the NAIA playoffs. 

In the hours after its release, UMHB’s non-league slate has turned heads nationwide. Logan Hansen, a numbers guru who has provided analytical insight on D3 Football for years, posted to X on Tuesday afternoon with an especially notable tidbit:

“Ran some numbers on the Cru’s non-conf schedule,” Hansen wrote. “[Non-Conference Strength of Schedule]: 0.976. This very likely could be best #d3fb on-conf schedule since ’97 for a team w/ 4 non-conf games. For reference, the rightfully ballyhooed Johns Hopkins non-conf schedule in 2025 is sitting at 0.955, with only 3 games.”

The conference slate, in a double round-robin format for the second straight year, begins on Oct. 4 at ETBU in Marshall. That contest, along with the road duel at Hardin-Simmons, forms a a stretch of three consecutive games away from home between Sept. 27 and Oct. 11, before The Cru returns to Belton for homecoming against Texas Wesleyan. ASC play resumes on Oct. 25 against Howard Payne at home, followed by home duels with ETBU and Hardin-Simmons. The regular season wraps up on Nov. 15 in Brownwood, facing Howard Payne.