Michigan Announces Home-And-Home With Texas Comment Count

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As rumored last week, Michigan will play a home-and-home series with Texas. The athletic department officially announced the dates a few minutes ago; here are the pertinent details from the release:

The athletic departments at the University of Michigan and the University of Texas have reached an agreement in principle to play the first-ever home-and-home football series between two of college football's most recognizable programs. The two schools rank first (Michigan, 912) and third (Texas, 876) in all-time victories.

The Wolverines will host the Longhorns at Michigan Stadium on Aug. 31, 2024. The return trip by Michigan to Austin will take place on Sept. 4, 2027.

"A match-up of this magnitude doesn't come along all that often, and when it does it's special for both programs and the great fans that support each institution," said Brady Hoke, U-M's J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach. "This also is a special series for all fans of college football, and I anticipate great games just like the first contest played between the two programs."

The only prior matchup between the two programs came in the 2005 Rose Bowl, which you may remember as a remarkably fun game with a far less fun ending. Let us all hope Texas hasn't figured out a way to clone Vince Young by the time 2024 comes around.

Anyway, the upshot: excellent work, Dave Brandon. This is the type of home-and-home series that everyone loves to see, even if both programs are currently mired in a historically anomalous funk. Going to a game in Austin will be checking a box off the sports bucket list, and it's tough to ask for much more when scheduling games a decade in advance.

Comments

bronxblue

September 17th, 2014 at 1:27 PM ^

My newborn-ish daughter will be entering HS when they play the first game, then nearly graduating for the second.  Roadtrip with petulant teenage girl here I come!

5th and Long

September 17th, 2014 at 4:25 PM ^

Well at least she'll get to see, Tom Brady, in his first game as Michigan's head coach.  With his promise of instituting the radically new up tempo wishbone offense -- the most popular new offense -- you and your daughter could be in for a good game.  Of course, if coach Nick Saban has anything to say about it, Texas will win.  In his 3rd year after being lured out of retirement by Billionaire Texas Boosters for a 3-year $100 million dollar deal, he's definitely on the hot seat to finally win a national championship for Texas.   If you can't make it to the game you can watch in on BTN - since it's now an in-conference game after Delaney swallowed up the Big XII and shut down the Longhorn Network.  Either way you're daughter won't want to miss the National Anthem by multi-platinum music sensation JDK & Rey.  Probably the biggest surprise will be seeing U.S. Congressman Vince Young doing the honors for the coin toss, though.

UMForLife

September 17th, 2014 at 1:31 PM ^

Let us hope the playoffs are successful and both teams are good and we have an opportunity to get to the playoff and SOS actually matters.

DB- Good job.

Hoping for another great matchup in the open spots in the next 5 years.

Hagen

September 17th, 2014 at 1:31 PM ^

Michigan has secured future home-and-home series with some of the nation's top programs: Arkansas (2018-19), Washington (2020-21), Virginia Tech (2020-21), UCLA (2022-23), Oklahoma (2025-26) and Texas.

I'm impressed.  For the all the terribleness in this year's schedule (and maybe a few in the next 4 years), we should have some quality out of confense opponents each year.  

Ali G Bomaye

September 17th, 2014 at 1:38 PM ^

Even in the next few years, the situation isn't that bad.

  • 2015: at Utah, Oregon State, UNLV, BYU
  • 2016: Hawaii, UCF, Colorado, [TBD]
  • 2017: Florida (in Dallas), Cincinnati, Air Force, [TBD]

While we don't have a marquee opponent at home during that stretch, it's nice to see that the non-marquee opponents feature a lot of decent teams like Oregon State, BYU, UCF, and Cincinnati.  That's better than loading up on MAC snacks or FCS teams.

cutter

September 18th, 2014 at 9:00 AM ^

As you point out, Michigan is opening 2015 at Utah and 2017 is the neutral site game with Florida.

UM is opening the 2018/9 seasons with Arkansas.  The 2020 season opens with the game at Washington and 2023 opens at UCLA.  2024 (Texas) and 2027 (at Texas) also are season openers.  The 2021 season has the game at Virginia Tech in Week 2 and it appears the same thing is happening for the two years with Oklahoma (2025/6).  It looks like Brandon wants to have Michigan leading off the season with the better non-conference opponents more often than not.

It'll also be interesting to see if Brandon decides to double up on Power 5 teams in the non-conference portion of the schedule like he did with Virginia Tech and Washington in 2020/1.  If he does have a second home-and-home non-conference series, it means alternating years of six and seven home games because the Big Ten starts the nine-game conference schedule in 2016.  Is he trying to counter soft ticket demand for football tickets by upgrading the non-conference schedule?  Is this a reflection of what the strength of schedule may mean for the post-season?  Is this being driven by what the networks broadcasting college football want to see?

 

Space Coyote

September 17th, 2014 at 1:38 PM ^

I am friends with quite a few Texas fans, so that should be interesting. The one thing I don't like is it appears to be the first week of the season. That can be good (you can surprise the opponent), but it also means that it will likely be sloppy in many ways. It just isn't an accurate guage for both teams at that point, because scouting is somewhat limited, kids haven't played a real game in 9 months, etc. Would like to see it week 2 or week 3 like the ND series has been.

But I'll take the match-up and worry about that any day.

Ali G Bomaye

September 17th, 2014 at 1:40 PM ^

Does it really make that much of a difference?  If we play a tough team in week 2, then we're inevitably going to play week 1 against some hopelessly overmatched team.  It's nice to have a beatdown on the record, but as we've found out the last couple years, it doesn't seem to matter much as far as how sloppy we are against the first real opponent of the season.

Space Coyote

September 17th, 2014 at 1:57 PM ^

It gets the players in a game again. It gets them back in the flow of the season for at least a week, back to doing their standard prep work. It gets some stuff on film, both for the opponent, and for teaching points for the players. It just overall knocks a lot of the off-season rust off and makes the game better, IMO.

Alton

September 17th, 2014 at 4:42 PM ^

You don't have to schedule Eastern Michigan 13 years in advance.  I'm sure that 2027 schedule will have a MAC team or equivalent on it.

The strange thing is that 2027 will be after the current "playoff" system expires.  The system in place starting this year runs from 2014 to 2025.  So expect 2027 to be the second year of the 8-team playoff.

mgolund

September 17th, 2014 at 2:07 PM ^

Assuming I still live in Texas in 2027, my son will be at the age where it's appropriate to be looking at high schools. This sounds like a great excuse to look at Texas while taking in my favorite football club.

Second, and perhaps I'm really late to the party on this, why in the holy hell is head coach position now a named position? I didn't realize the program needed to be pimped out that much.

KodiakGT

September 17th, 2014 at 2:24 PM ^

As a longtime MGoBlog user, you should know that the first rule of caring about college football is to never miss out on a branding opportunity.  As a matter of fact, I nominate this post for the inaugural Tom VanHaaren and Heiko Yang Memorial Post of the Week™

readyourguard

September 17th, 2014 at 2:10 PM ^

I saw one of the most attractive girls I've ever seen in person at the 05 Rose Bowl.  She was a 10 on any scale, wearing a skin-tight burnt orange cocktail dress, 5 inch stilettos, and so drunk she literally cound not walk to the stadium.  I felt sorry for her.

I may have gloated to the Texas fans around me after we took a late lead.  Then Vince Young happened.  Bevo's handlers flipped me off as they hauled that giant animal away and all I could think about was that drunk girl.  We went to dinner and my old man consumed more Belevedere Vodka than any man should be allowed to.

Good times.

Tater

September 17th, 2014 at 2:26 PM ^

I am guessing that neither Brandon nor Hoke will be in their current positions when the games actually happen.  Brandon will be long gone, retired or being overpaid by somebody else.  Hoke will either be gone or will have been promoted to AD.  Since I don't like discord and don't want to see another few years sacrificed, I am hoping for the latter with Hoke.

turtleboy

September 17th, 2014 at 2:46 PM ^

Well, the good news is by the time these games are actually played I can either use my flying car or my teleporter to get there. If I'm feeling adventurous I'll just run to austin using my robotic legs. I take comfort knowing that all the players who'll play in this series in the 24th1/2 century were at least already born...