Chicago State launches football in 2026, becomes Chicago's only FCS team

Chicago State is building the city’s only FCS program as a startup, not a stunt. The Cougars have a 55-student-athlete inaugural signing class, a first-year coach in Bobby Rome II and a debut date set for Aug. 29, 2026, when Roosevelt comes to SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Illinois.

The launch is the result of more than three years of preparation. Chicago State’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved football on Dec. 18, 2025, and the university says the move makes Chicago State the only NCAA Division I football program in Chicago. That matters in a city where the University of Chicago last fielded top-level football in 1939, leaving a major market without a Division I foothold for generations.

Rome, hired in April 2025, has been handed the hardest kind of build in college sports: create the roster, staff, identity and calendar all at once. Chicago State Athletics says he has already built the coaching staff, recruited the first class, overseen enrollment and taken part in fundraising and community outreach. In other words, the job is bigger than wins and losses. It is a full-scale brand launch for a program trying to claim space in Chicago, on the South Side and across the Midwest recruiting map.

The schedule shows that ambition. Chicago State unveiled a 10-game inaugural slate on Feb. 19, 2026, and it stretches far beyond a novelty opener. After Roosevelt, the Cougars are set to face UT Martin, Kentucky Christian, Butler, Norfolk State, Tarleton State, North Carolina A&T, Lindenwood, Fort Lauderdale and Virginia Lynchburg. That mix gives Rome’s first team a chance to test itself against a wide range of opponents while operating as an FCS independent in 2026.

That independent year is only the first step. Chicago State is scheduled to join the Northeast Conference in 2027, giving the program a conference home after its launch season and a clearer path for recruiting, scheduling and visibility. For a school that had no football program at all when its exploratory committee was formed in 2023, the pace has been striking.

The early business case is just as clear. SeatGeek Stadium gives the program an immediate home, while Chicago provides a massive brand and talent base that few FCS schools can match. If Rome can turn the 55-player foundation into a functional roster, Chicago State will not just add football. It will change the FCS map in one of America’s biggest sports cities.