The Mississippi State Bulldogs and the UMass Minutemen have scheduled a three-game football series for 2016, 2017, and 2020, Gazettenet.com has reported.
In the first game of the series on Sept. 24, 2016, UMass will host Mississippi State at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. This will be only the second time that UMass has hosted a team from the SEC following a visit from Vanderbilt in 2013.
The second and third games of the series will both be played at Mississippi State’s Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville. The two schools will meet there on Sept. 23, 2017 and Oct. 17, 2020.
UMass, which will be an FBS Independent in 2016, now has four home games scheduled and only needs one more to meet the NCAA minimum of five. The game will most likely be against an FCS opponent.
Home games for the Minutemen in 2016 include UConn (Sept. 10), Mississippi State (Sept. 24), Tulane (Oct. 1), and Louisiana Tech (Oct. 15).
UMass will visit Florida (Sept. 3), Boston College (Sept. 17), Old Dominion (Oct. 8), Appalachian State (Oct. 29), Troy (Nov. 5), BYU (Nov. 19), and Hawaii (Nov. 26).
Since the Minutemen play at Hawaii in 2016, they are allowed to schedule a 13th regular-season game under NCAA rules. However, new athletics director Ryan Bamford tweeted over the weekend that a 13th game is “not happening.”
In 2017, UMass only needs one more game to complete their schedule. Currently, they have five home games and six road games. A trip to Indiana was previously scheduled for Sept. 23, but Mississippi State now occupies that date.
Mississippi State has now tentatively completed their 2016 non-conference schedule. The Bulldogs are also slated to host South Alabama (Sept. 3) and Samford (date TBA) and travel to BYU (Oct. 15).
In 2017, the home game against UMass joins a game vs. BYU (Oct. 14) and a trip to Louisiana Tech (Sept. 9). The Bulldogs have one other game currently scheduled in 2020 — a Sept. 12 trip to NC State.
Football Schedules