The Arizona Wildcats and the Virginia Tech Hokies have scheduled a home-and-home football series for 2029 and 2030, both schools announced on Wednesday.
In the first game of the series, Arizona will host Virginia Tech at Arizona Stadium in Tucson on Sept. 8, 2029. The Wildcats will then travel to take on the Hokies at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Va. on Aug. 30, 2030.
If Arizona and Virginia Tech don’t meet in a post-season bowl game before 2029, the contest in Tucson will be the first-ever meeting between the two schools on the gridiron.
“Even though this series is 13 years away, we felt it was a unique opportunity to schedule a Pac-12 team home and home,” Virginia Tech Director of Athletics Whit Babcock said. “Strength of schedule and securing high-quality, Power 5 opponents will continue to be paramount in the College Football Playoff era. Arizona AD Greg Byrne and I have a good relationship and we started this discussion back in the offseason.
“This series should provide a nice travel destination for our fans and alumni who can make it to Tucson and provide a wonderful experience for our student-athletes who haven’t seen that part of the country. We will continue to work on and tweak our non-conference schedule for the near term and the long term in a manner that is in the best interest of Virginia Tech. We are excited to announce this series with a high-quality opponent.”
Virginia Tech is also scheduled to host Maryland in 2029. Arizona is the Hokies’ first scheduled opponent for 2030, while Virginia Tech is the first announced for Arizona for both the 2029 and 2030 seasons.
Football Schedules
Arizona OOC schedule lacks a P5 program for the next three seasons,and same last season (unless you consider BYU). Is this weak scheduling done on purpose to give RichRod extra time to build his program? Or is Arizona just having difficult bringing in P5 programs to Tucson? Or just a bad job by a previous Arizona AD? I see in future years the Wildcats have home-and-homes scheduled with Texas Tech, Miss St, Kansas St and Nebraska,
Home-and-homes with Houston and UTEP, and also Texas Tech in 2019-20. They need games in Texas for recruiting
So the game at VPI will be on a Friday? That is what day August 30th falls on in 2030.
Arizona OOC schedules:
2013 @UNLV / UTSA / No Arizona
2014 Nevada / UNLV / @UTSA
2015 @Nevada / UTSA / No Arizona
2016 @BYU (Glendale) / Hawaii / Grambling St
2017 Houston / @UTEP / TBA
2018 @Houston / BYU / UTEP
Recruiting aside, Arizona’s SOS is getting hurt by not scheduling a P5 program. But lucky for Arizona, Houston has became relevant once again. But will they be in 2017-18? Or maybe Arizona just doesn’t think they’ll ever be in position for the CFP and so SOS doesn’t matter?
And if B12 expands and takes Houston and BYU (which I’m betting on) Arizona’s future OOC schedule could be in for big changes. But expansion probably won;t happen until 2019 season, at its earliest.
Is an Alabama-Arizona at Arlington game still in the cards for 2020?
Again Arizona needs a P5 OOC opponent in 2017. So how about a Arizona-TCU neutral site game in Houston or at Arlington in 2017?
Or is UA going to settle for a FCS opponent and go without a P5 opponent in 2017 just like Miss St, WSU, Utah, Colorado, and Kansas?
Illinois is not playing a P5 OOC opponent 2017-20 and same with Wisconsin in 2017-19.
Conference bottomfeeders schedule like bottomfeeders. But does Wisconsin really want to become irrelevant again?