The gist
- Final: Emporia State 36, Minot State 30. Road W in Minot, North Dakota to open 2026.
- 1-0 to start the year. Not comfortable, but a road win over a scholarship program counts every time.
- Pittsburg State is next. The MIAA rivalry lands in Week 1 — and the Hornets are on the road again.
Road win to open the year
Emporia State opened the 2026 season the way any MIAA team would take it if you offered it up front: on the road, six points to the good, one in the win column. The Hornets went into Minot on Thursday, August 27, and came out with a 36-30 win over Minot State to start the year 1-0.
The D-II box score for this one hasn't landed in full detail on the wire yet — the stat feed we pulled has the final and the result and not much else, and we're not going to invent yardage or a scoring sequence just to pad the recap. What we know is what matters: Emporia scored 36, Minot scored 30, and the road team walked. Six-point road games are a certain flavor. Some drives had to matter more than others. The scoreboard is the one that goes on the record.
Emporia, Kansas gets its MIAA slate underway in a hurry — and it does so at 1-0 with the biggest game of the young season already on deck.
What people are saying
The MIAA chatter over on d2football.com's MIAA board has largely skipped ahead. Fans are trading takes on the Game 2 Pitt State vs Emporia State thread more than they're re-litigating the Minot game, which honestly tells you something — when a road W in Week 0 turns into “yeah but what about next week,” the base rate on winning this one was pretty high in the fanbase's head. The Hornets delivered.
Our take
Here's our read: a six-point margin isn't the number Hornets fans wanted, but 1-0 on the road against a scholarship opponent is exactly the box you needed to check. This is a program that has to earn its way into MIAA relevance every single week, and Week 0 was a check on we're capable of finishing a close road game. That's the box every good team checks before they start checking bigger ones.
Ugly road wins in August cash the same as pretty ones in November.
Hot take: the 36 on the board is the part we should be talking about, not the six-point margin. Emporia hung 36 on a D-II defense that won't be the worst one they see this year. If the offense is a real thing, the Hornets' ceiling in the MIAA is a lot higher than the preseason hedge on this team would have you believe.
Next up
Next up: at Pittsburg State on Saturday, September 5. The MIAA rivalry, and the swing game that tells us what this Emporia team actually is. Pitt State has been one of the most consistent D-II programs of the last decade-plus, and the Hornets draw them in Week 1 with everyone healthy. The MIAA board is already lit on it — this is the one the whole conference will be watching.
1-0 is 1-0. Now go make it 2-0 — and if you'd rather back your reads than just shout them, that's literally the game.