Should MSU Schedule Future Early-Season Big-Time Non-Conference Matchup?

Many programs are scheduling blockbuster non-conference contests early in the season. Should the Spartans follow suit and face an elite opponent early on in the future?

Nov 30, 2024; East Lansing, Michigan, USA; Michigan State Spartans mascot Sparty relaxes at midfield during a game against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at Spartan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Young-Imagn Images | Dale Young-Imagn Images

Over the years, elite college football programs utilize their three non-conference games at the beginning of the season to feature a big-time matchup of two schools that do not normally play each other for a sort of one-off matchup, most of the time playing another top school.

Should the Spartans get back to playing a marquee matchup at the beginning of the year against another notable program? They have been fairly uninvolved in that trend over the past decade, and this year is no different.

Looking at the college football landscape, bitter rival Michigan took on Texas last year in Ann Arbor and will face Oklahoma this season. The Longhorns open up the season against the defending national champion Ohio State Buckeyes. It is a fun, exciting trend that is continuing to grow.

The last time I can really think of the Spartans doing something like this is when they battled the Oregon Ducks in a top-10 matchup at Spartan Stadium back in Week 2 of the 2015 season. Michigan State earned a 31-28 win with "College GameDay" on campus and was a major highlight of the year.

In the past 10 years, maybe the home-and-home series against Arizona State (2018-19) and Notre Dame (2016-17) are really the only two others that somewhat meet that criteria. It may hurt their overall record if they play a top-10 team and lose, but it will bring in a large some of money.

The Spartans' non conference schedule for this upcoming season is fairly bland, taking on Western Michigan, Boston College and Youngstown State in the first three weeks of the season. They have not played a preseason ranked team outside of the conference since No. 8 Washington in 2023.

To create more revenue for the program, playing big-time schools in those exclusive matchups helps in many ways, and it is something Michigan State needs to do again. Who knows, maybe it can pull off a major upset at home or in a ruckus road environment to help put this program back on the national map.

My top choices for an early-season non-conference matchup include LSU, BYU and Florida State. Three big market programs with an enormous fan base that many Spartan fans have never seen play more than a handful of times. It would be a fun wrinkle to how Michigan State is operating right now.

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