The gist
- Final: Fort Hays State 13, Emporia State 7. The Hornets close 2025 at home with a defensive slog they couldn’t quite pry open.
- Third straight home MIAA loss. After Pittsburg State and Northwest Missouri State earlier in the year, Welch just wasn’t a fortress in league play.
- Season ends 5-6. One game short of a winning record — a finale W would’ve completely changed the offseason mood.
- 7 points is a season low. The defense actually held its best MIAA opponent to 13. The offense picked a bad Saturday to disappear.
The finale that got away
Emporia State walked into the finale at 5-5 with a real chance to send the seniors out on a winning year. Instead the Hornets ran headfirst into a 13-7 rock fight and came out the wrong side of it. Fort Hays State 13, Emporia State 7. That’s the whole box score you need — and honestly, it’s the whole story.
This wasn’t the offense that hung 50 on Missouri Western back in October, or the group that dropped 45 at Washburn a week earlier to get back to .500. This was a version that couldn’t find a second score. When you only put up seven, you almost always lose — and the Hornets did.
Credit where it’s due: the defense actually turned in one of its best MIAA showings of the year. Thirteen points allowed at home is a number ESU would’ve gladly taken against Pitt State (42), Northwest Missouri (41), or Central Oklahoma (56). The math just never met in the middle.
What people are saying
The box score did the talking this week. No live reaction feed to lean on for a D2 finale in mid-November — but 13-7 in your own building on senior day speaks for itself.
Our take
Here’s our read: 5-6 sells this team short. When ESU was on, they were on. Fifty on Missouri Western. Forty-five at Washburn. Thirty-one on Central Missouri on the road. That’s three genuinely fun football games from a program that a lot of preseason previews had penciled in for a rebuild year.
Hot take: the finale is the tape you rip up, not the one you re-watch all offseason. The pattern of this team was inconsistent offense — feast or famine — and a defense that quietly got better week over week (54, 41, 56, 27, 41, 17, 13 in MIAA play… that trend line is real). If the 2026 staff figures out how to keep the offense out of the ditch on the flat weeks, this record flips fast.
The Hornets didn’t lose the season on Saturday. They lost the finale. Those are different things.
Also: losing a home MIAA game 13-7 is the kind of ugly that recruits well. “Come play defense here” is a real pitch when the tape shows you smothering a divisional opponent in November.
Next up
The 2026 opener is already on the calendar: August 27 at Minot State. That’s a rematch of the 2025 opener — the one Emporia State won 27-7 at Welch to start the year 1-0. Long summer between now and then, but the Hornets get first crack at a mulligan on the road.
Until then, this one stings — but the defense showed up, the schedule turns over, and the Hornets get to try again in nine months. And if you’d rather back your reads than just shout them, that’s literally the game.