The Ashland University football team will play its first four games in 2011 under the lights. Two of those games will be played at home. All told, Ashland will play five night games.

AU will host home night games against Indianapolis Sept. 10 (7 p.m.) and Sept. 24 (7 p.m.) against Northern Michigan. Both of those are GLIAC games. This will be the last year Indianapolis will be in the GLIAC. This will be the first trip to the Dwight Schar Athletic Complex for the NMU Wildcats.

Ashland’s other three night games come Thursday, Sept. 1, Saturday, Sept. 17, and Saturday Oct.22.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Eagles will play Bloomsburg in the season opener. In 2010 in Ashland, the Eagles knocked off the Huskies, 24-14. Bloomsburg leads the series, 2-1. The Huskies went 10-3 in 2010 and advanced to the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference championship game where they lost to Mercyhurst. The Bloomsburg game is AU’s only non-conference game in 2011.

“This has been a great series,” said AU head coach Lee Owens. “All three of the games have been competitive and all three could have gone either way. Bloomsburg has a good program and this is a good test for us.”

Sept. 17, the Eagles will visit Hillsdale. The game with the Chargers will begin at 7 p.m. A year ago, Ashland lost to Indianapolis, Hillsdale and Northern Michigan after opening the season with a win over Bloomsburg.

“It’s tough out of the gate,” Owens said. “We didn’t do a good job with it last year. It will be a point of emphasis for us this year. There isn’t an easy one in the bunch. We have to do a better job handling it.”

Ashland’s fifth night game will come on Oct. 22 at Saginaw Valley State. This is the first year the Cards will have lights at their home field. A year ago, AU edged the Cardinals, 30-24.

In addition to Indy and NMU, AU’s other home games will come against Wayne State (Oct. 15, 2 p.m.), Findlay (Oct. 29, 1 p.m.) and Ohio Dominican (Nov. 5, 1 p.m.). All three schools will be playing at the Schar Athletic Complex for the first time. The date with Wayne State is the annual homecoming game. That game will kick off at 2 p.m., which is a change from past years when the games began at 1 p.m.