STARKVILLE — The Mississippi State football team will start the post-Dak Prescott era with two home games.
MSU will open the 2016 season Sept. 3 at home against South Alabama and will face Southeastern Conference rival South Carolina Sept. 10 at Davis Wade Stadium, according to the SEC’s release of all of the 2016 football schedules on Thursday afternoon.
MSU most likely will turn to Nick Fitzgerald and Elijah Staley next season when MSU moves on after losing Prescott to graduation.
After the first two home games, MSU will play Sept. 17 at LSU. Also in September, MSU will play Massachusetts on Sept. 24 at Foxborough, Massachusetts, at Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots.
The Bulldogs’ open week will be Oct. 1.
After the bye week, MSU will play host to Auburn (Oct. 8), travel to Provo, Utah for a game against Brigham Young (Oct. 15), travel to Kentucky (Oct. 22), play host to Samford (Oct. 29) and Texas A&M (Nov. 5), travel to Alabama (Nov. 12), play host to Arkansas (Nov. 19), and face off against Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl (Nov. 26) in Oxford.
MSU was supposed to have seven home games and five road games, but Tulane backed out of a contract in the spring and MSU had to add UMass. The Minutemen will travel to Davis Wade Stadium Sept. 23, 2017, and Oct. 17, 2020, as part of the deal.
n In related news, MSU senior cornerback Taveze Calhoun was named Thursday a National Scholar-Athlete and finalist for the 26th William V. Campbell Trophy, the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame (NFF) announced.
The Campbell Trophy recognizes an individual as the absolute best football scholar-athlete in the nation.
The Morton native will receive an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship as a member of the NFF National Scholar-Athlete Class and a finalist for the “Academic Heisman.”
“I am very thankful for this special opportunity,” Calhoun said in a school release. “I have given it my all in the classroom and on the football field during my career here at Mississippi State. I’ve always said football is not forever. I’ve worked just as hard in the classroom as I have on the field in pursuing my academic degrees. I did not want to be the guy to come back one day and say, ‘I wish I would have done this.’ I wanted to give 100 percent in everything.”
A three-time Southeastern Conference Academic Honor Roll member, Calhoun is the only student-athlete in the SEC receiving the honor and one of only 12 NFF National Scholar-Athletes in the country in all NCAA divisions. After having earned his undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies in May 2015 with a 3.51 GPA, Calhoun is now working towards his graduate degree in workforce leadership.
Calhoun and the 12 other finalists will travel to New York City for the 58th NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 8, where their accomplishments will be highlighted in front of one of the most powerful audiences in all of sports at the Waldorf Astoria. At the event, one member of the class will be declared the winner of the Campbell Trophy and have his postgraduate scholarship increased to $25,000.
Calhoun is the fourth Mississippi State player to be selected as a NFF National Scholar-Athlete since the program’s inception 56 years ago and the first since Derek Sherrod in 2010.
n Ole Miss will open 2016 football season against Florida State: At Birmingham, Alabama, the Ole Miss football team will open its 2016 season with a neutral-site season opener against Florida State on Monday, Sept. 5, in Orlando, Florida.
Home SEC games that will be played on Hemingway Field’s new natural grass surface will be Alabama (Sept. 17), Georgia (Sept. 24), Auburn (Oct. 29), and MSU (Nov. 26).
Other home games include Wofford (Sept. 10), Memphis (Oct. 1), and Georgia Southern (Nov. 5).
Ole Miss’ SEC road games are at Arkansas (Oct. 15), LSU (Oct. 22), Texas A&M (Nov. 12), and Vanderbilt (Nov. 19).
With 13 playing weekends, the 2016 schedule includes one open date for each team (Oct. 8 for Ole Miss).
n Alabama football team will have seven home games in 2016: At Birmingham, Alabama, the Alabama football team will play seven games at Bryant-Denny Stadium and a neutral-site contest against Southern California and four Southeastern Conference road games in 2016.
Alabama will open the season against Southern California at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It marks the second-straight year Alabama has opened the season in Arlington, and the third time since 2012.
Alabama will play will host to Kentucky, Texas A&M, Mississippi State, and Auburn and will travel to Ole Miss, Arkansas, Tennessee, and LSU next season.
Alabama will play Western Kentucky (Sept. 10), Kent State (Sept. 24), and Chattanooga (Nov. 19) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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