A couple of old Big East rivals are reuniting in a few years. The scheduling announcement seemingly leaves UCLA out of the mix after Rutgers arranged to schedule a home-and-home series with Syracuse.
Rutgers has withdrawn from scheduled football games against UCLA in 2020 and 2021...after already pushing back original dates of those games.
— Ben Bolch (@latbbolch) February 1, 2018
According to a report from NJ.com on Thursday, Rutgers will play a home-and-home series with Syracuse in 2020 and 2021, with the Scarlet Knights of the Big Ten hosting the ACC’s Orange in 2020 and Syracuse welcoming Rutgers to their place the following season. Exact dates of the games have not been confirmed as of yet, although a previous home-and-home deal Rutgers had with UCLA could be used to slot the games into place.
Rutgers previously had a scheduling agreement in place to play at UCLA on Sept. 5, 2020 and host the Bruins on Sept. 11, 2021. It is likely those dates could be used to slot in the Syracuse games. Syracuse previously had vacancies to fill those weeks. And it would seem to make sense to have a school from New York and a school form New Jersey meet on Sept. 11, 2021 on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York City.
The reported home-and-home series between Rutgers and Syracuse will satisfy each school’s scheduling commitment to their respective conferences that require a non-conference game against another power conference opponent.
The scheduling adjustment will leave UCLA with a couple of vacancies to fill in the upcoming years. The Bruins currently only have one non-conference game scheduled in 2020 (San Diego State on the road) but will have LSU and Fresno State at home in 2021.