Bulk of 2024 Valpo Football Schedule Revealed as PFL Announces League Slate
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Bulk of 2024 Valpo Football Schedule Revealed as PFL Announces League Slate
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The majority of the 2024 Valparaiso University football schedule was revealed on Tuesday, as the Pioneer Football League announced the 2024 league docket and the Beacons disclosed three of their four nonconference games.

A fourth nonconference game and 12th overall contest is expected to be added to the schedule. That game will be announced when details are finalized.

The season will start with a pair of road nonconference trips to Missouri Valley Football Conference opponents as Valpo visits UNI on Aug. 31 and Youngstown State on Sept. 7. The game at UNI in Cedar Falls, Iowa will mark Valpo’s first matchup with the Panthers on the gridiron. The Penguins are a more familiar opponent as the two teams will face off in Youngstown, Ohio for the fifth time since 2011 and the second straight season. Youngstown State finished the 2023 season ranked No. 19 nationally by Stats Perform FCS and No. 21 by the FCS Coaches’ Poll. UNI received 41 votes in the final Stats Perform FCS poll and would have been ranked 29th if the rankings extended past 25.

Valpo will host Indiana Wesleyan on Sept. 14 at Brown Field. This will represent the fourth consecutive season in which the Beacons and Wildcats have faced off. Each of the last two showdowns have been cliffhangers decided by three points or fewer.

Valpo will face the same eight Pioneer Football League opponents as last season with the locations flipped. League play kicks off on Sept. 28 with a trip to Morehead, Ky. to take on Morehead State, and other PFL road opponents include Stetson in DeLand, Fla. (Oct. 12), Marist in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (Oct. 26) and Dayton in Dayton, Ohio (Nov. 16). The Brown Field PFL slate includes defending league champion Drake (Oct. 5), St. Thomas (Oct. 19), the Hoosier Helmet rivalry game against Butler (Nov. 9) and the regular-season finale vs. Davidson (Nov. 23).

Valpo has won 14 Pioneer Football League games over the last four seasons, the most in a four-year period in program history. This stretch marks Valpo’s most league wins in a four-year period in any conference since 1961-1964. The 2023 Beacons boasted the team’s best total defense and scoring defense in a traditional fall season since 2000. The team thrived academically as well, equaling a program record for PFL Honor Roll members, including the program’s first PFL Scholar-Athlete of the Year, Evan Annis.