Missouri State football coach Ryan Beard reviews offseason
Missouri State head footblal coach Ryan Beard talked about his team’s performance following its final scrimmage of fall camp.
Missouri State football’s first game as an FBS program won’t be against Arkansas.
The university confirmed Missouri State and Arkansas agreed to cancel their Aug. 30, 2025, date that would have put head coach Ryan Beard against his father-in-law and former Bears head coach Bobby Petrino, who returned to Fayetteville as the Razorbacks offensive coordinator.
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WholeHogSports.com was the first to report the cancelation of the game. The Razorbacks have replaced Missouri State with a contest against Alabama A&M.
Missouri State spokesperson Rick Kindhart told the News-Leader that the Bears opted to cancel the deal after trying to renegotiate the guaranteed payment of the game. With Missouri State moving to FBS, the cost of such non-conference games is set to go up.
More: All of our 2024 Missouri State, high school football preseason coverage in one place
Arkansas declined to budge off the previously negotiated $500,000 payment that was agreed to long before the Bears moved subdivisions, Kindhart said. He added the Bears will pay Arkansas around $150,000 but will soon announce a game that includes a higher guarantee payment, making the buyout worth it.
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Who could Missouri State football open against in 2025?
A handful of power conference programs have available dates on the weekend of Aug. 30 including:
Iowa
USC
Florida
Vanderbilt
BYU
Kansas
Stanford
Pittsburgh
Miami (Florida)
Duke
There is reason to believe Missouri State will continue to attempt to renegotiate its guarantee payments for future non-conference games against FBS opponents that were previously agreed to. The Bears have multiple contracts in place for the future including against Kansas (2027), Texas Tech (2028), Mizzou (2029 and 2033) and Tulsa (2030 and 2032).
Missouri State football 2025 schedule
Missouri State’s 2025 schedule will be its first as a member of Conference USA. Currently, scheduled non-conference matchups include a road trip to Marshall, a home game against SMU and a home game against FCS UT Martin.
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas and Missouri State have canceled a 2025 football game and the Razorbacks have replaced the game with Alabama A&M, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Both records are dated Aug. 9.
The Arkansas-Alabama A&M game is scheduled to be played Aug. 30, 2025, at Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.
Arkansas was scheduled to host Missouri State on the same date, but that game was scheduled in March 2021, well before the Bears accepted an invitation to join Conference USA beginning in 2025.
According to the canceled game contract, Missouri State will pay Arkansas to cancel the game. That amount is redacted.
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Missouri State would have served as the Razorbacks’ annual opponent from the Football Championship Subdivision in 2025. Alabama A&M competes in the FCS as a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
In addition to the Alabama A&M game, Arkansas is scheduled to play nonconference games in 2025 vs. Arkansas State in Little Rock, Notre Dame in Fayetteville and at Memphis.
BETHPAGE, N.Y. (KCTV) – The residents of Long Island, New York, have been spending a lot more time talking about Missouri politics this week than usual, but not for any reason you would guess.
Within the last week, yard signs campaigning for Missouri Representative Aaron McMullen have started to appear all across the island.
The strangest part of this mystery is twofold—not only does McMullen have no apparent ties to Long Island, the signs are promoting his bid for the Missouri Senate that ended after the Aug. 6 primaries.
McMullen ran to be the Republican candidate for the 2024 Missouri State Senate District 11 race but came in second place to opponent Joe Nicola. This makes the sudden appearance of the signs, which read “Vote Andrew MucMullen Missouri State Senate” all the more strange.
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Aaron McMullen campaign signs pictured in different areas of Bethpage.(Michelle Levine)
Michelle Levine lives on Long Island and said the universal feeling amongst residents is “confusion.”
“I started seeing these signs 5 days ago, and didn’t think anything of it when I saw the first couple,” Levine told KCTV5. “Then, when it got to the level where I was seeing more Aaron McMullen signs than Trump, Harris, and all other yard signs COMBINED- my reaction shifted to extreme confusion.”
She said it’s been the talk of the town all week—“Everyone with eyes is talking about it.”
“I find myself talking with my friends and neighbors about it almost every day. We share photos in group chats, and one of my friends even took a sign and put it in their backyard,” Levine said.
She explained a few different theories she’s seen as to why the signs are popping up.
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For one, about 1,300 miles away from Bethpage, New York, in the far southwest corner of the state, is Bethpage, Missouri. Levine said some people think that’s where the mixup happened.
One commenter in the Long Island subreddit agreed, saying it was probably a mistake to have them shipped to Bethpage but that there was nothing else to do with them but put them up.
Levine said other people think it’s a strategic move by the Missouri Representative’s campaign, and “that McMullen is trying to reach high income citizens that would be open to donating to his campaign.” What campaign that would be is unclear.
Another Reddit user, responding to the question “Does anyone know why this is here?” perhaps put it best:
KCTV5 reached out to McMullen for comment but has not yet heard back.
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