With another football season on the horizon, it’s a good time to overview the 2026 schedule and look at what the Spiders need to do to return to the FCS playoffs. This post is less about each individual opponent (that will be the focus in game previews) and more about the general structure of our schedule.

2026 Schedule

Here’s the 2026 schedule with the win probabilities from Massey Ratings included.

Massey is one of four sites used by the FCS playoff committee in determining metrics to evaluate playoff teams, but keep in mind preseason predictions can be all over the board. Some teams will overperform, some will underperform. Still, the preseason numbers give us a good idea of what our overall schedule looks like.

August/September

Unlike last year, we have highly favorable early season schedule. Three of our first four FCS games are at home with the Spiders likely favorites in all four matchups. Howard is a tricky team and Furman is a high level non-conference game, but overall this is a great opportunity to break our trend of early season struggles. Snelsire will get a shot at redemption against Bucknell in the opener and I’m hoping that spurs on a hot start for the 2026 Spiders. At a minimum, we need to enter Week 5 with zero FCS losses, something we haven’t done since 2022.

October

Things start to toughen in October. Long road trips to Lafayette and Fordham in consecutive weeks kick off a daunting Patriot League road schedule. Thankfully a well-timed bye week afterwards helps to break things up, but flying up to Holy Cross to play in front of 15k+ fans won’t be a Halloween treat.

After a travel friendly September, October will feature plenty of miles on the road. In the first five weeks the team will travel less than 300 miles (two nearby road games). In the next six weeks, travel jumps to nearly 1,500 miles thanks to four road games up north. This is another reason why a clean September is important, as it won’t be easy to claw back from an early loss.

November

There’s no hiding from November’s schedule – an FCS semifinalist, the two-time defending Patriot League champs, and William & Mary. We’ll face Villanova for the first time since 2022 but there’s no re-introduction needed with Lehigh and William & Mary. Richmond needs to flip the script after two disappointing losses to Lehigh while keeping our momentum in the Capital Cup. We’ve been a solid November team during Huesman’s time but this could be the hardest three game closing stretch we’ve seen in 15+ years.

Playoff odds

I’m excluding NC State from all of these numbers. An upset win would be a huge boost however FBS losses don’t impact your resume.

The new multi-bid Patriot League will be fun to watch and there is absolutely a chance the Spiders can make the field at 8-4 (3 FCS losses). A solid non-conference game, plus six opponents that could realistically finish in top 50, mean an 8-4 record could include multiple good wins and zero bad losses (plus a solid Strength of Schedule). 9-3 (or better) will ensure our spot in the field but there will be scenarios that have an 8-4 Richmond on the right side of the bubble.

Fast start

Pretty obvious from the win probabilities that stacking wins early is imperative. Looking at our first seven FCS games, the Spiders have an 8% chance to go 7-0 and a 27% chance to go 6-1. That’s roughly a 1/3 chance to have 1-loss or less entering the hardest part of schedule, and it’s a mark we simply MUST achieve.

Given how difficult the final stretch of our schedule is, our playoff odds nearly evaporate if we start any worse than 6-1 against FCS competition. Again, things could change and maybe one of our November matchups isn’t as difficult as projected, however it’s unlikely we can dig out of dropping multiple September/October games. We don’t want to be in a spot where we need to finish 3-1 against a handful of playoff hopefuls.

Defining stretch

For as much attention as our final four games will receive, I think how the Spiders perform in this two game stretch will define 2026.

Furman is a potential top 50 opponent that had a nice run to the quarterfinals in 2023 and will boost our non-conference metrics. Lafayette is no easy road game, continually towards the top of the Patriot League after winning 8+ games in two of the last three seasons.

In six of seven full seasons since 2018, the Spiders have dropped a game during this part of the schedule (last week of September/ first week of October). Going 2-0 would put us in the driver’s seat with two quality wins. We’re going to have to win at least one big game against a great opponent in November to return to the postseason, but none of that matters if we can’t win find wins during this critical early season stretch.

Next Post

Fall camp should open in late July so position group previews will start going out then. Looking forward to seeing the 2026 Spiders soon!