By Kyle Roberts
RUSTON, La. — A tale as old as time: a top-to-bottom difficult schedule for a football team coached by Jerrod Baugh with the hopes of another run in the upcoming postseason.
And 2025 will be no different, as this year will be a run-back of the same opponents as last year — only with home and away flipped.
“(With this schedule), it will for sure give us an indication of where we stand with thing,” Baugh said, who will be entering his ninth season as head coach for the Bearcats. “All of the teams are really good. So we’ll have our work cut out for us.
“It’s good to try to get the kids acquainted with what the possibilities could be in the playoffs. I mean, we’ve been very, very fortunate the past three years to play all of our playoff games at home, and being realistic, I don’t know that you should plan on that year in and year out.”
Ruston will be away from Hoss Garrett Stadium for four of the five non-district matchups, including three of those games located out-of-state. The Bearcats will then have three out of five district games back at home.
To start, the yearly August scrimmage with Byrd will be in Ruston this year in Thursday, Aug. 21, and the Bearcats will then face Neville Friday, Aug. 29, in the 2025 Bayou Jamb to be held at Malone Stadium at UL-Monroe.
The Bearcats open the 2025 season with a road matchup at Acadiana, who finished as the No. 3 seed heading into the 2024 Division I, Select playoffs before losing in the second round.
Following Acadiana, Ruston will travel to Cabot, Ark., for the third straight year to play the Panthers in a return game back to Cabot High on Friday, Sept. 12.
In the lone home district game on the schedule, Ruston will host the Longview Lobos at The Hoss Friday, Sept. 19, in another return game.
The Bearcats will then have a Thursday night game on the schedule on Sept. 25 — the first time in several years a game has been set for a Thursday night. Ruston will make a five-hour trek that night to get to Alvarado, Texas, for a neutral site contest against Midland Legacy.
Baugh said finalizing the logistics of the Thursday night game against Midland Legacy was the last thing needed to be completed before the schedule could be released.
“(Our staff and Midland Legacy) agreed that if we played on a Saturday like we did last year, then we’d have to play it at four or five o’clock to keep it from being as hot as it was last year,” Baugh said. “But the problem is that we have a game on Friday the following week, and I didn’t want to play a late Saturday game with that the next week.
“Their coach happened to know the administration at Alvarado High, and they’ve been really good to us trying to accommodate us on that Thursday. It worked out well for us.”
Ruston will then play Stephenville again in Longview, just like last season to close out non-district play on Friday, Oct. 3.
The Bearcats will then host Ouachita for Homecoming on Friday, Oct. 10, to open the District 2-5A portion of the schedule and will follow with a trip to Bill Ruple Stadium in Monroe to take on Neville for the 100th meeting between the two teams.
Ruston will then host ASH at home on Friday, Oct. 17, before traveling to Pineville on Friday, Oct. 24.
Finally, Ruston will end the regular season with a home matchup against West Monroe, a team they’ve beaten for the last three seasons.
See the full schedule below.
2025 Schedule (Home games in ALL CAPS, *-district games)
Thursday, Aug. 21, Scrimmage BYRD
Friday, Aug. 29, Bayou Jamb Neville
Friday, Sept. 5, @ Acadiana
Friday, Sept. 12, @ Cabot, Ark.
Friday, Sept. 19, LONGVIEW
Thursday, Sept. 25, vs. Midland Legacy (to be played in Alvarado, Texas)
Friday, Oct. 3, @ Stephenville (to be played in Longview, Texas)
Friday, Oct. 10, OUACHITA* (Homecoming)
Friday, Oct. 17, @ Neville*
Friday, Oct. 24, ALEXANDRIA SENIOR HIGH*
Friday, Oct. 31, @ Pineville*
Friday, Nov. 7, WEST MONROE*
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