It’s not yet officially official, but the long-rumored LSU-Wisconsin series is coming closer to fruition.
Earlier in the afternoon, Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver confirmed that the Hokies’ series with the Badgers, scheduled for 2016 and 2017, has been pushed back to 2019 and 2020. The former game will be played in Madison, the latter in Blacksburg.
The reason for the schedule change, multiple media outlets reported, is for a two-game series between the Big Ten and SEC schools.
On Sept. 3, 2016, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, UW will host LSU at historic Lambeau Field in Green Bay. The two football programs would first meet, though, Aug. 30, 2014, in Houston. Both games would mark the season openers for the respective teams.
The venerable home of the Green Bay Packers has never played host to a major college football game in the stadium’s 56-year history, although a benefit game featuring the legendary Vince Lombardi‘s alma mater Fordham was played there. The UW hockey team also played a game at Lambeau in 2006 against Ohio State.
Just when the two schools will make the “home-and-home” series official at both neutral-site venues is unclear, although a school official told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that the two sides “still have some small details to work out but the contracts should be done next week.”
As for the Hokies, Weaver added that the athletic department is in the process of lining up a “major conference opponent” as a replacement for the Badgers on the 2016 and 2017 slates.