Middle Tennessee State to play at Army in September

After the MAC suspended its college football season on Saturday, the independent Army Black Knights had a 2020 schedule of just five games.

On Monday morning, Jeff Monken’s side gained a game back.

Army will host the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders at West Point on either Sept. 4 or 5 (the actual date and time is up to the television network that will broadcast the game).

This will be the first-ever meeting between Army and MTSU, which plays in Conference USA. The Blue Raiders weren’t yet a member of CUSA when Army was briefly in the conference from 1998 to 2004.

“We are excited to open the season with a national opponent and this match up should generate a lot of interest,” MTSU AD Chris Massaro said in a statement. “It will be great for our program. As one would expect the administration at Army West Point and we look forward to the return game in Murfreesboro in the future.”

For MTSU, setting up a game with Army fills out its schedule for the 2020 season. MTSU will play the Black Knights, eight CUSA teams, and twice against Sun Belt side Troy.

The Blue Raiders were originally supposed to open their season at Duke but — as we know from Navy’s situation with Notre Dame — the ACC is allowing its member institutions to schedule just one out of conference game and it has to be in the state of an ACC school. Duke opted to play a different CUSA team, hosting in-state opponent Charlotte.

MTSU is the second CUSA team Army has scheduled this season, as the Black Knights will travel to Rice on Sept. 12.

As its schedule currently stands, Army has six games and will not play between Sept. 13 and Nov. 6. The Black Knights lost three games when the MAC suspended its season, the Oklahoma game when the Big 12 set its restrictions on non-conference games, the UConn game when the Huskies suspended their season, and the Bucknell and Princeton games when the FCS Patriot and Ivy leagues suspended their seasons.