It’s official: on Tuesday, January 27th at 5:30 PM EST on Big Ten Network, the conference will announce the dates for all of its football conference games.
Michigan State’s non-conference schedule dates are already set.
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The Spartans will open the season on September 5th at Spartan Stadium against the Toledo Rockets. The following week, on Saturday, September 12th, Michigan State will remain at home to face Eastern Michigan. Then comes the biggest test of the season to date, as the Spartans head to South Bend to take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who currently rank inside the top five of most “way too early” preseason polls.
All three games will be hard-fought. Michigan State will have an early opportunity to show the college football world what they’re made of in Pat Fitzgerald’s first season as head coach. Getting through two MAC opponents won’t be easy, and the matchup against Notre Dame has all the makings of an epic early-season showdown.
After that, the Spartans’ Big Ten schedule will kick off.
Michigan State will have four conference road games: at Rutgers in New Jersey, at Wisconsin in Madison, at UCLA in the Rose Bowl, and at Michigan in Ann Arbor. None of these games will be easy, but all things considered, these are about as manageable as road matchups get in the Big Ten.
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The Spartans will host five conference opponents at Spartan Stadium: Illinois, Nebraska, Northwestern, Oregon, and Washington. Two games immediately stand out. The first is Northwestern. You can bet Fitzgerald has this one circled darker and deeper than any other. Northwestern is where Fitzgerald coached for 17 years before being let go a couple of seasons ago. After stepping away from college coaching, he returned to the Big Ten by taking the Michigan State head coaching job, making this a clear revenge spot.
The second marquee home game is Oregon. The Ducks also sit inside the top five of most “way too early” rankings, giving Michigan State two projected top-five opponents on its schedule this season.
Perhaps just as notable as who the Spartans will play is who they won’t. Michigan State will not face Ohio State or Indiana. For a program working to climb back into national relevance, avoiding the defending conference champions from the last two seasons is certainly helpful.
The Spartans will also face three former Michigan State quarterbacks this year. That starts in the Eastern Michigan game, where Noah Kim is expected to lead the Eagles into Spartan Stadium. In the highly anticipated Northwestern matchup, it won’t just be Fitzgerald seeking revenge — Aidan Chiles will be on the opposite sideline, now leading the Wildcats and looking for his own form of payback after his turbulent exit from East Lansing. Finally, Katin Houser will be under center for Illinois when the Spartans face the Fighting Illini.
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It’s a season filled with revenge storylines, marquee matchups, and real opportunities for Michigan State to shock the college football world. We’ll find out how the dominoes line up this Tuesday — and then watch them fall this fall.
