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Mississippi State cancels series with Texas Tech football
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- Mississippi State cancels series with Texas Tech football
The Southeastern Conference's decision to increase each team's conference football schedule from eight games to nine games will impact the Texas Tech football program .
Mississippi State has canceled games against the Red Raiders in 2028 and 2029, Tech athletics director Kirby Hocutt said. The SEC announced in August a long-discussed plan to go to a nine-game conference schedule starting in 2026.
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"Mississippi State, to accommodate that, has canceled our agreement," Hocutt said, "so we are in the market for a home-and-home with a Power Four school in '28 and '29.
"The market is limited that soon. We've got a couple of conversations we're juggling, but ... nothing is around first base right now."
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The games were scheduled for Sept. 9, 2028, in Starkville, Mississippi, and Sept. 8, 2029, in Lubbock. The Red Raiders' 2028 non-conference schedule now has home games Sept. 2 against Stephen F. Austin and Sept. 16 against Wyoming. The Red Raiders' 2029 non-conference schedule now has home games Sept. 1 against Incarnate Word and Sept. 15 against Missouri State.
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With the expansion of the College Football Playoff and the opening of the Jones Stadium south end zone building, Hocutt has said the Red Raiders playing seven home games a year is one of his scheduling principles, to maximize revenue and the team's chances of making the CFP.
He's making an exception for 2027 when Tech, because of its large alumni base in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, will consider a road game at North Texas as a quasi-seventh home game.
Mississippi State's Rara Thomas (84) scores a touchdown during the Liberty Bowl NCAA college football game on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021, in Memphis, Tenn.
SEC teams had played eight conference games a year since 1992.
Tech and Mississippi State officials signed the contract in the spring of 2017. MSU doesn't owe a buyout, which would have been $1 million otherwise. Forward-looking language in the contract made an exception for "a conference mandated change in the required number of league opponents."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: SEC change makes Mississippi State cancel series with Texas Tech football
