WISE - - UVA Wise announced its 2023 football schedule Thursday. The Highland Cavaliers will play 11 consecutive weeks this fall, including nine consecutive South Atlantic Conference contests starting in week three when the team travels to Barton. Overall, Dane Damron's team will play at home six times as UVA Wise finishes the season with three of its final four games at Carl Smith Stadium.

The season kicks off under the lights on Sept. 2 when former Mid-South Conference rival Union College (Ky.) visits Wise for a 7 p.m. kickoff. The Cavs will then be on the road for back-to-back games, traveling to Thomas Moore on Sept. 9 before heading to Barton College for the league opener on Sept. 16.

A week later, UVA entertains Limestone in the school's home SAC opener. A year ago, the Saints won eight games and qualified for the NCAA Division II playoffs. It will be the first of two consecutive games against opponents who won eight games in 2022. Damron will take his club to Lenoir-Rhyne Sept. 30 to face a Bears team that won eight games last fall and has won at least eight games every season since 2018 (the COVID-shortened spring season of 2020 only featured four games and is excluded from this statistic.)

Local rival Emory & Henry will be in town Oct. 7 for Homecoming 2023. This will mark the Wasps' first visit to Smith Stadium since "The Play" which propelled the Cavs to a shocking 33-30 victory in 2011.

The back half of the schedule features trips to Tusculum (Oct. 14) and Mars Hill (Oct. 28) while former UVA Wise Defensive Coordinator Shap Boyd brings his Erskine College Flying Fleet to Smith Stadium on Oct. 21 along with home games against Carson-Newman (Nov. 4) and Wingate (Nov. 11) to close out the year.

Season tickets and single game tickets will go on sale in the coming weeks via uvawisecavs.com