CIAA football starts in September, but Virginia Union University fans won’t see their Panthers at home until October.

VUU Coach Alvin Parker will begin his third season with four straight road games, starting with Saturday, Sept. 5, at Hampton University on Labor Day Weekend.

The Hampton Pirates will be looking for revenge after losing to VUU in the opening 2019 campaign.

From Hampton, VUU will travel to Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, N.C., for a game on Sept. 12. Lenoir-Rhyne was 13-1 last season, including a 28-11 victory over the Panthers.

In an oddity, VUU will play Elizabeth City State University twice—first in the Down East Viking Classic in Rocky Mount, N.C, Sept. 19, and again Oct. 31 in Richmond.

After the long road trip in September, the Panthers will play five of its final six games on the VUU campus on the university’s newly installed artificial field.

The new playing facility will be called the Willie Lanier Field at Hovey Stadium, honoring the NFL Hall of Famer who played at Hovey Field for Maggie Walker High School next door in the 1960s.

Virginia State University will open and close its 2020 football regular season just as it did 2019.

Coach Reggie Barlow’s Trojans will open at Norfolk State University and close with I-95 rival Virginia Union University.

A new addition to the schedule is a trip to Tuskegee University in Alabama to play the Golden Tigers on Sept. 12. The Golden Tigers of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference were 5-5 last season.

Tuskegee replaces the University of North Carolina-Pembroke as VSU’s other non-CIAA op- ponent, along with Norfolk State of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.

VSU is 31-10 overall and 22-6 under Coach Barlow in the last four seasons. The Trojans were 8-2 a year ago and 6-1 in the CIAA, finishing as runner-up to Bowie State University in the CIAA Northern Division.

VSU lost 44-21 to NSU at Dick Price Stadium to open last fall’s campaign and finished with a thrilling 27-24 overtime win over VUU on Nick “The Kick” Woolfolk’s 34-yard field goal.