The Southern Miss Golden Eagles have added the Texas State Bobcats to their 2013 football schedule, the Hattiesburg American has reported.
Southern Miss will host Texas State at M.M. Roberts Stadium in Hattiesburg to open the season on Aug. 31. The game will be the first ever meeting between the two schools.
Texas State is currently a member of the WAC but will join the Sun Belt Conference on July 1, 2013.
The remaining three non-conference games for the Golden Eagles will each be road games. USM was scheduled to host Nebraska on Sept. 7, but the game has been moved to Lincoln with Southern Miss receiving a payment of $2,125,000.
USM’s athletic department is facing a budget deficit of about $1.2 million, plus owes a $2.1 million buyout to former head coach Ellis Johnson, who was fired on Tuesday.
“Certainly, it will be the greatest revenue on any football game that (USM) has ever played,” USM athletic director Jeff Hammond said.
“In the end, the Nebraska option in Lincoln provided us the greatest financial opportunity to help us set future conditions for this program,” Hammond said. “This is not something that I wanted to do. No one wanted to do this.”
After visiting Nebraska, Southern Miss will travel to Fayetteville to take on Arkansas (Sept. 14) followed by a trip to Boise State (Sept. 28).
Southern Miss’ 2013 Conference USA schedule will be released around March.
Football Schedules
USM might win a game vs. TX State or FIU next week.