Mississippi State Bulldogs

Mississippi State vs. UMass Point Spread Announced

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

Mississippi State will play UMass on September 24, 2016 in Foxboro, MA.

Mississippi State opened as a 24.5 point favorite vs. UMass.

The game will kickoff at 2:30 Central and will be broadcast on ESPN 3 / Watch ESPN.

It’s somewhat odd for MSU to be playing a team like UMass at their home stadium (which is also the New England Patriots’ stadium) but this happened to be a case of trying to find an opponent to play ASAP when Tulane dropped out of the contract with MSU to play a game in Starkville this season.

While Tulane did that much to the chagrin of Scott Stricklin, he went ahead and scheduled the Green Wave again for a home game in 2020 and a return trip to New Orleans in 2023. He cited two reasons as to why he did this: the Tulane administration that canceled on MSU is no longer in charge and he didn’t want to hold it against the new one, and he considers New Orleans a destination city for State fans.

He must really have New Orleans on his sights for road games, and with good reason, as he recently scheduled Louisiana Lafayette for a pair of games in 2018 and 2019 with the latter being in the Superdome. If Mark Hudspeth is still the head coach at that time it’ll be an interesting match-up as he coached at MSU under Dan Mullen from 2009-2010.

Back to UMass – they are an independent, and are 1-2 this year. After losing to Florida and Boston College they beat Florida International in Week 3, 21-13. The Bulldogs are the second of three SEC teams the Minutemen will face this year with South Carolina being the third on October 22nd.