Michigan State football schedule: Spartans seeking new opponent after losing Louisiana
Editor's note: Story updated to more accurately reflect why the two teams are not playing each other in 2024 season.
Michigan State’s 2024 schedule has been altered because of a ripple effect across the college football landscape.
Louisiana and MSU mutually agreed to not play on Sept. 14 in East Lansing due to other scheduling conflicts, now leaving the Spartans with an open date for Week 3 of the season.
Two MSU sources said a replacement opponent is being finalized and will be announced once the contract is signed. Typically, contracts are agreed upon multiple years in advance – for example, the MSU-Louisiana game was agreed to in May 2021 – which adds some complexity for the Spartans to change their schedule nine months out.
The Ragin Cajuns added a Sept. 28 game at Wake Forest on Wednesday morning, which replaced the Demon Deacons' game against Army that originally was scheduled for Nov. 16. Army joining the American Athletic Conference forced the service academy to alter its 2024 schedule and previously signed contracts.
MSU is scheduled to open the Jonathan Smith era Saturday, Aug. 31 against Florida Atlantic, though that is a game that typically gets moved to a Friday game to kick off Labor Day weekend.
The Spartans travel to Maryland the following week for their Big Ten opener and also have a nonconference road game Sept. 21 at Boston College. With the conference expanding to 18 teams – adding USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington – MSU also has two bye weeks scheduled for Oct. 12 and Nov. 9.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football has hole in 2024 schedule, Louisiana off board
