FAYETTEVILLE — It’s finally happening.

For the first time ever, Arkansas and Arkansas State will meet on the gridiron in 2025, the UA announced Wednesday. The historic matchup, which is scheduled for Sept. 6, 2025, will be played at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

That game is part of an amendment to Arkansas’ agreement with the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, which runs the venue in the state capital.

Instead of playing Missouri at War Memorial Stadium in 2021 and 2023, those games will be moved to Fayetteville and replaced by matchups with UAPB in 2021 and 2024, Western Carolina in 2023 and Arkansas State in 2025.

“The Razorback program belongs to our entire state and as we have shown in many of our sports, it is important that we continue to maintain a presence in Central Arkansas,” Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek said in a statement. “It is also essential we provide our coaching staff the opportunity to showcase our campus during SEC games to potential student-athletes.”

Those moves prevent the Razorbacks from playing only two SEC games in Reynolds Razorback Stadium, its on-campus stadium, in 2021 and 2023, as they’re also scheduled to be the “home” team against Texas A&M at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, those seasons.

The original contract with War Memorial Stadium also called for Arkansas to play its spring football game at the venue in 2022 and 2024, but that has been eliminated. All spring games will be played on campus.

The game against UAPB this season will be the first time Arkansas has played a football game against an in-state opponent since World War II. Its last such matchup was a 41-0 win over Arkansas A&M - now UA-Monticello - in 1944.

The Razorbacks famously avoided playing in-state foes in all sports for the next seven decades until Yurachek loosened the restrictions a couple of years ago by allowing games against schools within the UA system.

At the Division I level, that included only UAPB and Little Rock, with the latter not fielding a football program. Yurachek recently allowed games against Arkansas State and Central Arkansas in all sports except football, but Wednesday’s news knocks down that final barrier.

Arkansas also revealed a previously unannounced non-conference game against UAB for the 2024 season.

ARKANSAS’ FUTURE NON-CONFERENCE SCHEDULES

2021

Sept. 4 - Rice

Sept. 11 - Texas

Sept. 18 - Georgia Southern

Oct. 23 - UAPB (Little Rock)

2022

Sept. 3 - Cincinnati

Sept. 17 - Missouri State

Oct. 15 - at BYU

Nov. 5 - vs. Liberty

2023

Sept. 2 - Western Carolina (Little Rock)

Sept. 9 - Kent State

Sept. 23 - BYU

Nov. 18 - Florida International

2024

Aug. 31 - UAPB (Little Rock)

Sept. 7 - at Oklahoma State

Sept. 14 - UAB

Nov. 23 - Louisiana Tech

2025

Sept. 6 - Arkansas State (Little Rock)

Sept. 20 - at Memphis

Oct. 4 - Notre Dame

2026

Sept. 12 - at Utah

Sept. 19 - Memphis

Nov. 21 - Tulsa

2027

Sept. 4 - at Tulsa

Sept. 11 - Oklahoma State

2028

Sept. 9 - Memphis

Sept. 16 - Utah

2029

Sept. 1 - Tulsa

2032

Sept. 18 - at Oklahoma State

2033

Sept. 10 - Oklahoma State