The majority of the 2025 Valparaiso University football schedule was revealed on Thursday, as the Pioneer Football League announced the 2025 league docket and the Beacons disclosed three of their four nonconference games.
 
A fourth nonconference game and 12^th overall contest is expected to be added to the schedule. That game will be announced when details are finalized.
 
The Andy Waddle head coaching era will begin on Saturday, Aug. 30 as the Beacons host Virginia Lynchburg, the first-ever matchup between the two programs.
 
The Beacons will face off with FCS scholarship opponents in back-to-back weeks starting on Sept. 13, traveling to Macomb, Ill. to play Western Illinois of the Big South-Ohio Valley Conference Football Association. This will mark the third time Valpo has played Western Illinois, with all three matchups coming in years with Valpo under a first-year head coach. The Leathernecks were the opponent for Dale Carlson's first-ever game in 2010 and Dave Cecchini's first-ever game in 2014.
 
The Sept. 20 game will occur at North Dakota, a member of the Missouri Valley Football Conference. This game was originally scheduled to take place in 2020 but was postponed five years due to COVID-19. Valpo beat North Dakota 20-10 on Nov. 25, 1920 in a game that took place in Gary, Ind. The only modern meeting between the two schools was the 2013 season opener.
 
The Beacons will face defending Pioneer Football League champion Drake to open league play on Oct. 4 in Des Moines before hosting Dayton at Brown Field on Oct. 11 in the first league home game. Valpo will make the trip to St. Paul, Minn. to face St. Thomas on Oct. 18. Presbyterian (road, Nov. 1) and San Diego (Nov. 8) both return to the schedule this season after a two-year hiatus. Valpo will not face Davidson or Marist this season.
 
Homecoming Weekend will feature a matchup with Morehead State on Oct. 25 at Brown Field, while the final home game of the season is set for Nov. 15 against Stetson. The regular season will conclude with the league's longest-running matchup and only instate rivalry, Valpo and Butler on Nov. 22 in Indianapolis in the Battle for the Hoosier Helmet.
 
The 2025 campaign will mark the beginning of a new era as Andy Waddle enters his first season as the program's head football coach. A two-time Ohio Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, Waddle possesses over two decades of collegiate coaching experience including the last 12 years as the head coach at Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio. The Pioneers started the 2024 season 8-0, the first 8-0 start in program history. The program enjoyed a 13-game winning streak that spanned the end of the 2023 season and start of the 2024 campaign, tied for the longest in program history and the program's longest since 1920. The 13-game winning streak was at the time tied with Army for the second longest active winning streak in all of NCAA college football, behind only Division-III SUNY-Cortland's 20-game streak.