The SMU Mustangs appear to be adding a home game against the Montana State Bobcats in 2013, The Dickinson Press has reported.
Montana State, which was scheduled to play at North Dakota State on Sept. 7, 2013, is buying out of that game for $100,000. Indications are that they are canceling NDSU to play at SMU on the same date.
SMU and Montana State have never met in football. The Bobcats are a member of the Big Sky Conference in the Football Championship Subdivision.
If SMU does finalize the match-up against Montana State, the Mustangs will have to cancel or postpone a game as they already have four non-conference games scheduled in 2013 (Texas Tech, Baylor, at Texas A&M, at TCU).
SMU message boards have lit up at the notion of canceling one of their four high-profile games in 2013. And most people seem to think that the game targeted for cancellation is Baylor. The Bears are slated to travel to SMU on Sept. 14.
Neither Baylor or SMU have made a statement on the status of their 2013 game. The two schools are currently scheduled to play every season through 2019.
Update (2/19/13)
Montana State athletic director Peter Fields confirmed to KBZK-7 that the Bobcats will travel to play SMU on Sept. 7, 2013 and will receive $300,000 for the game.
The contest is also listed on Montana State’s 2013 football schedule.
Football Schedules
Maybe SMU wants to lessen a tough OOC schedule….no harm in doing that.
True, but they shouldn’t have waited so long. Now Baylor (or one of the others) will have to seek out another game which will surely be FCS.
They could also try Syracuse or WKU
Sounds like North Dakota State is available.
would love to see bison vs baylor.we open at ksu which will be very interesting since they lost 37 seniors,17 starters and qb klein.remember bison beat ku in 2010 !!!
we are down to 10 games now.including only 5 at home. fans would be ok w/baylor level game on road for the payday and sacrifice a home game.
This will not help there season ticket sales. Dropping a matchup with either of the old SWC foes is a bad idea. These games are the only real draw in purchasing season tickets.
?
Would you rather see a home slate of
(a) UCF, Connecticut, Rutgers, Temple, Texas Tech, and Baylor/Montana State.
or
(b) Houston, Memphis, Southern Miss, Tulane, Stephen F. Austin, Texas A&M, and TCU.
Keep in mind, SMU needs to get to at least six wins, think they can win six conference games if they play Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, and Texas A&M in non conference?
Maize in Spartyland
I understand that SMU is dropping Baylor because they are almost guaranteed an 0-4 start this next season. As a season ticket holder of SMU this last season I can tell you that I was only interested in going to three games. They were Texas A&M, TCU and Houston. Old SWC conference matchups. A&M and TCU were the only games last season that SMU had with the attendance over 25K. By looking at the projected upcoming schedule I can only see two games that has a chance to bring in crowds over 25,000 and that is Texas Tech and Baylor. No one from Dallas cares about going to see games against Temple, Rutgers or UConn. SMU will struggle winning six games regardless if they drop this game or not next season. If your going to schedule a FCS to replace Baylor then at lease find a school from the state of Texas. Sad part about that is Sam Houston St. would kick there arse too.
Jason,
As a TCU fan that was in the WAC, MWC and C-USA I completely agree. The only home games that raised attention on TCU’s schedule in the MWC were BYU, Utah, Texas Tech, Baylor and SMU. No one in Texas cares to watch teams from the Big East or Mountain West (minus the perennial top 25 Utah schools or maybe a top 25 Louisville or Cinci). We would have killed to play Texas or Aggie at Amon Carter in the MWC days.
sam houston state would give SMU a much better game.SHS beat msu in 2012 playoffs in close game.SHS would beat most if not all big sky teams however vs missouri valley teams,they would lose to all but maybe 3 teams.MVC level football is far better than all other FCS conferences.
like bison vs baylor on 14th sept !!! see ya there !!!
oh, by the way. bison have piss pounded SHS in the last 2 FSC title games !!! they quit at halftime in both games !!!!
Montana state won’t be as easy as every one thinks they will be
Seriously. Montana State is one of the best teams in FCS. They could move up to FBS and easily win 5-6 games if they went into the C-USA, MAC, or Sun Belt. The Big Sky is one of the best conferences in FCS. Eastern Washington is great and so was Montana the last couple of years.
second time in 6 years that MSU has dumped on ndsu.hope ad gene taylor never schedules them again in regular season then kick the crap out of them in playoffs. georgia southern did this to bison last year and they paid for it in playoffs.thanks to msu cancel,as of today,we only have 10 games in 2013.bison are also open sept 14,maybe we should call baylor ???
Not a bad idea!
Baylor v. Syracuse on 9/14 will work…….just need to decide who hosts, etc…….
Maybe, maybe not. Syracuse may have been told by the ACC that they have a conference game that day.
Let us not forget, the only reason SMU has this option is because Baylor dropped SMU in 2011 for an FCS team.