UTEP Football: 2017 schedule officially released

It starts on the road, and ends on the road as UTEP’s 2017 football schedule was released by Conference USA this morning.

UTEP will open the season with Oklahoma on the road on September 2nd among seven road games for the second time in three seasons. The Miners will also host Arizona as the lone marquee home game, and will end the 2017 regular season with UAB who returns to the C-USA in 2017.

The Miners open conference play on September 9th at home against Rice, then host Arizona on September 16th before back-to-back road games at NMSU then Army.

UTEP will host WKU for the first time ever on October 7th, then go back on the road October 14th at Southern Miss.

For the second straight year, UTEP will get a bye week before playing UTSA on October 28th. Three of the final four games on the season will be on the road with back-to-back road trips to Middle Tennessee then North Texas, followed up by a home game with LA Tech, then the season finale at UAB.

The 2017 C-USA alignment will feature seven teams in the East Division and seven teams in the West Division. Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, Southern Miss, UAB, UTEP and UTSA make up the West Division.

Each school will play every team in its division once for six games, while playing two cross-over opponents from the opposite division. After having stand-alone schedules for the past four seasons due to realignment, the 2017 season marks the return to a multi-year schedule rotation that will be in place for the next several seasons.

Due to the move from 13 teams to 14 teams for 2017, a couple of teams will play division opponents at the same location as 2016, a situation that was unavoidable with the West Division moving from six teams to seven. The 2017 schedule complies with C-USA scheduling policies as approved by the Board of Directors.

In addition, the schedule provides the following:

• All teams finish their Conference schedule with two games of one at home and one away.
• Nearly all teams have two home games and two away games in the first half of the Conference schedule as well as the second half of the Conference schedule; and

All bye weeks take place between weeks four and nine.

Times and dates may change with the television schedule expected to be released later this spring.

2017 UTEP football schedule

• Sept. 2 at Oklahoma
• Sept. 9 vs. Rice
• Sept. 16 vs. Arizona
• Sept. 23 at New Mexico State
• Sept. 30 at Army
• Oct. 7 vs. Western Kentucky
• Oct. 14 at Southern Miss
• Oct. 21 bye
• Oct. 28 vs. UTSA
• Nov. 4 at Middle Tennessee
• Nov. 11 at North Texas
• Nov. 18 vs. Louisiana Tech
• Nov. 25 at UAB