UTRGV football drops to five home games in 2026 after schedule change
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The UTRGV football team has officially announced a big schedule change for 2026.
Sacramento State has been removed from the Vaqueros schedule. The two teams were originally scheduled to play on September 26. Due to Sacramento State changing conferences and subdivisions, the two teams will no longer play this fall and that date will become UTRGV’s bye week.
UTRGV will now play Central Arkansas on October 24, which was originally when UTRGV scheduled its bye week.
"Going back, strength of schedule probably kept us out of the playoff last year," UTRGV head coach Travis Bush said. "We want to make sure we're scheduling good football teams, we're scheduling FCS teams. Especially high caliber FCS teams. That was the plan with Sacramento State. Now, when they left, we had some options. Central Arkansas is a good football team... Excited about the opportunity."
The resulting change means UTRGV will only have five home game dates this season in Edinburg: August 29 vs. UT Permian Basin, September 19 vs. McNeese, October 10 vs. Southeastern, October 31 vs. Lamar, and November 14 vs. Stephen F. Austin.
"Sometimes it's just the way the schedule works out," Coach Bush said. "We had seven at home last year, somehow we'll have five and then we'll get back on to six and six here I think for the next few years."
Coach Bush explained that with nine conference opponents each year, that adds to the challenge of balancing home and away games.
"You aim for six [home] and six [away] every year, but it depends on how many games you get from the conference," he said. "We've got five [conference games] on the road this year versus four at home. There's always gonna be an imbalance there."
UTRGV Senior VP and Director of Athletics Chasse Conque said earlier this week via a statement that the school is disappointed to lose the home date, but also excited to add a home game against Central Arkansas in 2028 as part of the scheduling agreement.
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