UTEP Miners Football Team Will Play USF in 2011; Kansas Game Moved?

[Note by Adrian Mac, 10/19/10 5:06 PM CDT ] Update: Turn Up the Orange's Jay Koester confirms that UTEP is not on the Kansas Jayhawks 2011 schedule leaving only NMSU and South Florida.

Voodoo Five, SBNation's South Florida site, is reporting that the UTEP Miners have scheduled a road game against the Bulls next season. Voodoo Five has all the details, including the note that South Florida will not make a return trip to El Paso and the fact that UTEP will make about $650,000 for this game. El Paso football fans should be familiar with South Florida who played in the 2007 Sun Bowl against the Oregon Ducks.

Interestingly, the game is scheduled for September 24, 2011, which is the same date that UTEP was set to take on the Kansas Jayhawks in Lawrence. UTEP, of course, owes the Jayhawks a return visit after they came down to El Paso last season. I'm starting to think that the Kansas game will be moved because the addition of South Florida will give UTEP three road games in the non-conference schedule which is something I don't see Bob Stull doing. The third is a date at New Mexico State.

Mike Price has remarked in the past that he wants UTEP to play one BCS conference opponent, NMSU, one FCS squad, and one non-BCS (but FCS) school. For example, this season UTEP plays BCS foe Arkansas, FBS Arkansas Pine Bluff, New Mexico State, and the MWC's New Mexico. All signs point to the KU game being moved but that is pure speculation on my part.

Note that changes in the Big 12's scheduling, caused by Nebraska and Colorado's departures from the league, have already caused UTEP's 2012 game at Texas to be moved to 2016. UTEP replaced the 2012 road date against Texas with a road game at Camp Randall against the Wisconsin Badgers.

It is possible that the change to a nine game conference schedule has caused Kansas and UTEP to move their 2011 bout to either a different date or a different season. KU's final 2011 non-conference schedule has not been released yet, but you can see their Big 12 slate here.

If any of you guys have any notes on UTEP's future non-conference football schedules, I'd appreciate it if your remind me. Right now, thanks partly to FBS Schedules.com, I have this:

2011

at South Florida

at Kansas (Game moved, but to when?)

at New Mexico State

2012

at Wisconsin

vs. New Mexico State

vs. New Mexico Lobos

2013

at Colorado State

2014

at New Mexico State

vs. Colorado State

2015

vs. New Mexico State

New Mexico Lobos

2016

at Texas

at New Mexico State