The 2025 Mountaineer football season starts on August 30th with a first-time matchup between Robert Morris University and West Virginia. The Colonials will make the trek from Moon Township, Pennsylvania, aiming to spoil the long-awaited return of Rich Rodriguez at the helm for the Mountaineers. Read More: Tale of the Tape: 2025 WVU Football Opponent #1 – Robert Morris.w
About Robert Morris University Football
The Colonials of Robert Morris are members of the FCS subdivision in the NCAA. RMU is the lone FCS opponent on the Mountaineers’ schedule this season, coming off a 7-5 season in 2024. Robert Morris is a member of the Northeast football conference, a group that also includes Duquesne, Mercyhurst, and Central Connecticut, among others.
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The RMU football program is no stranger to success, having won the Northeast Conference title six times, including an incredible five-peat from 1996 to 2000. The Colonials’ most recent conference title came in 2010, in a season where RMU faced the FCS dynasty, North Dakota State University, in the playoffs. While the Colonials fell short against NDSU, the team had its best season in a decade.
Following the successful 2010 campaign, the program took a major step back and struggled mightily for several years, finishing with a losing record each season between 2011 and 2018. The streak finally ended with a 7-5 season in 2019. The winning season was a sight for sore eyes, as in the seven straight years of finishing below .500, the Colonials held a combined record of 22-66 in that timespan.
Since the 2019 season, RMU has only had one more winning season, finishing 7-5 in 2024. With things looking up after this past season, the Colonials will make the 78-mile trek down I-79 South on opening weekend to face WVU at Milan Puskar Stadium.
What to Expect
It is not uncommon for WVU to play host to an FCS opponent early on in the season, as it typically serves as a chance to tune up the Mountaineers before Big 12 Conference action.
In 2024, it was the University at Albany, another first-time opponent for WVU. As expected, the Mountaineers ran all over the smaller opposition in a dominant 49-14 showing. WVU is no stranger to the Northeast Conference, as Duquesne came into a stormy Morgantown in 2023, only to eventually fall to the Mountaineers, 56-17. While it may not always look pretty for FCS teams when they have to travel to FBS schools to try and take down a much larger team, there are some upsides.
Exposure and Payout
In a game such as WVU versus Robert Morris, the Colonials will not leave Morgantown empty-handed. Not only does a game against an FBS program put RMU in front of a large audience, but it also pays well, too. The private university will earn $475,000 to play WVU, according to Hero Sports. Regardless of the score, RMU will be rewarded with guaranteed money for filling a gap in the Mountaineers’ schedule. At worst for RMU, WVU blows out the Colonials, and the FCS competitor has a great payday. At best, the Colonials get paid to shock the world.
2025 WVU Football Opponent #1 – Robert Morris: The Matchup
The 2025 football season for the West Virginia Mountaineers gets underway at 2 p.m. on Saturday, August 30th. The first-time matchup between WVU and the RMU Colonials is slated to stream on ESPN+ that afternoon. For more matchup histories and previews, stay up to date each Friday, leading up to the season opener, by following the “Tale of the Tape” series. The Ohio edition of this new series will be uploaded on Friday, June 20th.
