UNI adds Nicholls State to Schedule

[HI54UNI]

Panthers land 12th football game for 2008
By DOUG NEWHOFF, Sports Editor
CEDAR FALLS --- Make it an even dozen.

After months of exploratory discussions and negotiations, the University of Northern Iowa has secured a 12th football game for the 2008 season. The Panthers will play Nicholls State of the Southland Conference Oct. 4 in the UNI-Dome.

"We've been dealing with this since February, and through all the different possibilities this is the one that both programs felt like was a good game," said UNI head coach and interim athletic director Mark Farley. "I'm pleased with it."

Nicholls State returns 44 letterwinners from a 6-5 team that opened its season with a victory over Rice of the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision. The Colonels lost three games by a touchdown or less.

The Nicholls State game, which is a one-year agreement with no return game in Thibodeaux, Texas, gives UNI a 12-game regular-season schedule for the first time in history, and it gives the Panthers six home dates after a 12-1 campaign that included the first undefeated regular season in the school's Football Championship Subdivision history.

"There was so much excitement last season, we felt like if we could get a sixth home game we should take it," said Farley. "Plus, it's another event that can help us as a program and as an athletic department."

Farley wanted an FCS opponent to offset games against FBS Brigham Young and Division II South Dakota. He satisfied all his program's needs with the Nicholls State deal.

"To get six home games and try to build off the excitement of last year was the purpose of this," he said. "We all found out how much fun it was to fill the Dome and do all the tailgating and those things. This is the year to expand on that and grow from that.

"I think it's also exciting for our players. It gives them another opportunity to line up and play, and that's kind of the reward for all the hard work they do."

http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2008 ... 359668.txt

[BigApp]

y'know, I saw this the other day. Isn't it a little late to be adding games to a schedule?

[dbackjon]

Great match-up.

Well done!

[HI54UNI]

y'know, I saw this the other day. Isn't it a little late to be adding games to a schedule?

Probably, but they really wanted to add a 6th home game.

[dakotadan]

This at least gives me the slightest sliver of hope that UND can still find another game. But I won't hold my breath.