West Virginia and Missouri Agree to Future Home-and-Home Football Series

Over 20 years after their last regular-season meeting, West Virginia and Missouri have agreed to a home-and-home football series to be played in 2016 and 2019.

The Mountaineers broke the announcement on their official Twitter page:

Morgantown will host the first meeting on Sept. 3, 2016, while Columbia will have the honors on Sept. 7, 2019.

Unless the two schools meet in an upcoming bowl game, the 2016 contest will be the first regular-season head-to-head clash between West Virginia and Missouri since 1994 (a 34-10 win by the Mountaineers). The two also met in the Insight Bowl in 1998, with the Tigers winning 34-31.

Missouri holds a 3-2 lead in the series.

“I believe this home-and-home series with Missouri will be great for both schools,” West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck said, per a release on the school’s athletic website. “Each program will benefit from playing a non-conference game against a team from a highly visible conference, and the fans will be entertained from what I think will be two highly competitive games.”

Missouri athletic director Bryan Maggard shared Luck’s excitement.

“We are very pleased to add a team of the caliber of West Virginia to our schedule,” he said, via a release on the school’s athletic website. “We’re excited to have a chance to work together, and [we] appreciate everyone coming together to make this happen on all sides.”

It’s a start for Missouri, who is currently trying to toughen up its nonconference schedule in future years. As of now, West Virginia is the toughest nonconference foe on the Tigers schedule going up to 2021.

Meanwhile, it’s par for the course for the Mountaineers, who just finished a series with Alabama. The team also has Maryland, Virginia Tech, NC State and Penn State on its nonconference schedule going up to 2024.

In general, both conferences have gone out of their way to beef up their nonconference schedules with the new College Football Playoff system in place. Some key fixtures are Notre Dame-Georgia, Oklahoma-LSU and UCLA-Texas, among others.

Both programs have made sweeping turnarounds in recent years.

After finishing in the cellar of the SEC in 2012, Missouri wound up winning the SEC East title last season. The school is currently sitting in the division lead. On the other hand, West Virginia has had somewhat of a breakout year in the Big 12. They currently sit at 6-3 and are just two games out of the Big 12 lead.

With both programs on the rise, these games should do a good job getting fans excited.

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