Audio By Carbonatix
Washington State has the weirdest schedule in college football for 2025. The Cougars currently compete in a conference with only two members so they had to get creative to book 12 games.
They will play some of the most bizarre road games in recent history after Ole Miss ducked Louisville.
Wazzu was one of the two remaining college football programs in the “Pac-12” after schools like UCLA, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, Stanford, etc. bailed on the conference for the Big Ten, ACC and Big 12. It and Oregon State were stranded alone on an island with just two years to figure out their future.
Fortunately, they were able to revive a conference that was dead in the water. San Diego State, Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State, Utah State and a school yet to be named will join the new-look Pac-12 in 2026. Things will stay as they are for 2025.
Thus, the Cougars and the Beavers are not able to book a full slate of conference games with nonexistent conference opponents. They were forced to look elsewhere to schedule 12 games.
One of those games fell into Washington State’s lap. Wake Forest bailed on a two-year, home-and-home agreement with Ole Miss after the Rebels stomped the Demon Deacons in Winston-Salem last season. Lane Kiffin was furious.
"Kind of an unwritten rule not to do that actually"
— Grace Ybarra (@gnybarra) September 16, 2024
Lane Kiffin expressed his frustration with Wake Forest for cancelling their 2025 matchup in Oxford: pic.twitter.com/dAtZ1w8WF4
Ironically, Wake replaced Ole Miss with Oregon State while Ole Miss replaced Wake with Washington State. Louisville reportedly tried to get in the mix but the College Football Playoff Committee showed last year that it does not care about signature wins so there was no reason for the Rebels to book what would be considered a “more challenging” game on paper.
Despite Louisville having future home/home series w/Georgia, Texas A&M & Notre Dame, the Cards tried to add games vs. Tennessee & Ole Miss but the SEC schools weren’t interested. When the Tennessee-Nebraska & Ole Miss-Wake Forest series were canceled, UL wanted to schedule the Vols & Rebels, but instead they signed deals w/Georgia Tech (Tennessee) & Washington State (Ole Miss)
— Brett McMurphy
The Cougars will travel to Oxford in the middle of October, when they would typically play a conference game against an opponent already on the West Coast. It is one of the weirdest games on their college football schedule, which says a lot. They are all over the place at random times.
- Aug 30 — vs. Idaho
- Sept. 6 — vs. San Diego State (Homecoming)
- Sept. 13 — at North Texas
- Sept. 20 — vs. Washington
- Sept. 27 — at Colorado State
- Oct. 11 — at Ole Miss
- Oct. 18 — at Virginia
- Oct. 25 — vs. Toledo
- Nov. 1 — at Oregon State
- Nov. 15 — vs. Louisiana Tech
- Nov. 22 — at James Madison
- Nov. 29 — vs. Oregon State
To be on the road at Ole Miss and Virginia in the middle of October is bizarre. To travel to James Madison in late November is even more so. Homecoming is the second week of the season. Washington State and Oregon State play twice in four weeks. It is the strangest schedule in college football.