Next year’s Eastern Washington football schedule is complete, and includes a trip to New York City, athletic director Bill Chaves said Friday.

The Eagles will play Fordham on Sept. 16, 2017, at 7,000-seat Jack Coffey Stadium in the Bronx.

“We had a couple of potential options but when this particular opportunity to play Fordham presented itself, Coach (Beau) Baldwin and I thought that the ability to expose our student-athletes to New York City was too good to pass up,” Chaves said.

To accommodate the one-game series against the Rams, Eastern’s home game against North Dakota State will be moved up a week, to Sept. 9.

Eastern has never played Fordham, let alone any current member of the Patriot League. In fact, Eastern has only played seven games east of the Mississippi River. The last time came in 2013 in Ohio when Eastern fell at Toledo 33-21.

Fordham is 5-2 this season, and has advanced to the FCS playoffs in each of the last three seasons and five times overall (2002-07-13-14-15).

Eastern’s nonleague schedule next year also includes a season-opening road trip to Texas Tech on Sept. 2.

The Eagles open Big Sky Conference play the week after the Fordham game by playing at Montana on Sept. 23.