The Cardinals will be road-tested to start the 2020 football season.

Unlike this past season when seven of nine regular season games were at the friendly confines of Bruce Field, the Cardinals will play four straight road games to begin the season. The home opener on the schedule released today is Saturday, Sept. 26, against highly-regarded Georgia Military.

The Cardinals are scheduled to kick off the season Thursday, Aug. 20, with a trip to Kansas to face Dodge City. They will also be out of state in Week 2, opening Southwest Junior College Football Conference action against Northeastern Oklahoma A&M.

"We definitely upped the ante with the non-conference games," said Sherard Poteete, who will begin his third season as head coach. "We added two really good programs to strengthen our schedule."

Before the Cardinals, finally play at home, they'll get a Saturday off after the two opening out-of state games and then travel to Tyler and Cisco for conference clashes.

Poteete addressed heavy travel schedule.

"Half of our team will be freshmen, so they won't know any difference," Poteete said. "Seriously, we know it will be a challenge, but feel our kids can handle it."

On the back side of the schedule, four of the remaining five games are at home. The lone road game is Saturday, Oct. 10 at Navarro.

Family Day is scheduled the week before the Navarro game on Oct. 3 against Bill.

The Hall of Fame game is Saturday, Oct. 17, against Kilgore.

Homecoming is Saturday, Oct. 24,  versus New Mexico Military.

There are no night home games on the schedule, all kickoffs being either 1 or 3 p.m.

The Cardinals, 7-4, finished the 2019 season ranked No. 16.