The Lakeland University football team continues its string of three straight road games to start the 2026 season when it faces Greenville University Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. in southern Illinois.
Once regular rivals in conference play, Lakeland and Greenville met last year for the first time in 18 years, with the Panthers edging the Muskies 29-28 at Taylor Field on Sept. 13, 2025 to snap Lakeland's seven-game winning streak in the series. In a back-and-forth game Lakeland took the lead with 5:49 left in the fourth quarter on a 33-yard touchdown pass from
Robby Michael to
Lamarious Liggins, but Greenville came back with a one-yard touchdown run from Terrel Graves with 2:42 left and then Max Lynch ran in the two-point conversion for the go-ahead points.
The Muskies' last win over the Panthers came Sept. 22, 2007, in a 36-21 victory on the road in Greenville, Ill., as Brad Wilk passed for 254 yards and four touchdowns and Benjamin Lombardi ran for 105 yards. That game marked the final meeting between the two schools as members of the Illini-Badger Football Conference, which ended operations after the 2007 season when the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference began sponsoring football. It also was the final meeting between the teams after playing for 20 straight years from 1988-2007, a series that started Nov. 12, 1988 with the Panthers defeating the Muskies 16-6.
Lakeland last time out: Lost at Carthage 23-14 Sept. 4
Lakeland got off to a slow start in its opener last week Friday, falling behind 23-0 early in the third quarter before a second half rally came up short. The Firebirds led 16-0 at halftime and then returned the second half kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, but the Muskies largely controlled the second half and received touchdown passes from first-year starting quarterback
Carson Glosny of 20 yards to
Caleb Besaw and 26 yards to
Braylon Reece. Lakeland also saw three drives end inside the Carthage 15-yard line without points and was hurt by a pair of turnovers in the game. The Muskies finished outgaining the Firebirds 421-260 with Glosny completing 25 of 43 passes for 277 yards and Besaw catching 12 passes for 115 yards.
Greenville last time out: Lost at Lake Forest (Ill.) 77-14 last week
The Panthers had a long day in their opener on the road against the Foresters. Lake Forest scored 21 points in each of the first three quarters, taking a 63-0 lead after three periods. Greenville got on the board twice in the final quater, with Jashaun McKinley rushing for a 72-yard touchdown and Brayden Huber connecting with Jaden Barth for a 32-yard touchdown pass. The Panthers never stopped the Foresters in the entire game; Lake Forest scored touchdowns on all 11 of its drives, piling up 629 yards of offense for the game. Three quarterbacks saw action for Greenville, while McKinley rushed for 109 yards.
About Greenville: The Panthers finished 4-5 last season and posted a 3-4 mark in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference. Greenville played a seven-game UMAC schedule that included a pair of opponents faced twice, and it split its games against both conference teams it faced last year, winning the first and losing the second against both Westminster (Mo.) and Northwestern (Minn.). The Panthers are led ably by Robbie Schomaker, in his 14th year as head coach at Greenville and the winningest coach in program history with 68 wins in his career.
Besaw returns: Caleb Besaw missed last year while recovering from injury, but the senior picked up where he left off and then some. Besaw's 12 catches against Carthage were a career high, and he also posted his sixth career 100-yard game receiving. A second team all-NACC selection as a junior in 2024, he has caught 117 passes for 1,374 yards and 12 touchdowns thus far in his Lakeland career.
Good second half for the defense: Carthage built a 16-0 lead by halftime of the season opener, but the Muskies defense was strong in the final 30 minutes of the game. Lakeland limited Carthage to 78 yards of offense after halftime, though the hosts did gain enough first downs to hog the ball for more than 17 minutes in the second half.
Norrye Evans and
Trayvonne Roberts both posted eight tackles and Evans also registered a sack.
Looking for a non-conference win: Lakeland is going for its first non-conference win since a 2023 victory over Buena Vista (Iowa). The Muskies have regularly faced difficult non-conference schedules over the years and are 14-38 in out-of-conference regular season games since joining the NACC in 2008. Lakeland has been much better in conference play in that period, with a 77-45 record all-time in the NACC including at least a share of six conference championships.
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