West Virginia fans have some good game sot look forward to in 2024. The latest addition to the schedule probably won’t be one of them.
The University of Albany announced today they have added a future road game against the Mountaineers for the 2024 season. The game will be played on Sept. 7, 2024 in Morgantown. According to a report from The Times Union, Albany will receive a guaranteed payment of $475,000 for the game.
With a nine-game conference schedule in the Big 12, the addition of Albany completes West Virginia’s schedules through the 2024 season.
It will be the first time the FCS program has played a team from the Big 12, although the school has played an FBS opponent every year since 2015 and has more on the schedule. Albany will play at Central Michigan this fall, at UMass in 2020, at Syracuse in 2021, and at Hawaii in 2023. There is currently no FBS opponent lined up for 2022.
West Virginia has not officially announced the addition of Albany to the schedule and may be waiting to lump the news in with some other scheduling notes once they are confirmed. The date of the Albany game will fill a gap on the WVU schedule that sees West Virginia open the 2024 season at home against Penn State (Aug. 31, 2024) and visit Pitt on Sept. 14, 2024 as the Mountaineers rekindle some old regional rivalries. West Virginia renews their rivalry with Pitt beginning in 2022 with the first of four games, and WVU will begin a two-game home-and-home series with the Nittany Lions in Happy Valley in 2023.
West Virginia has also filled the gap between games against Penn State and Pitt in their 2023 schedule with a home game against another FCS opponent, Duquesne. They will do a similar scheduling setup in 2020 by hosting Eastern Kentucky between games against Florida State (in Atlanta) and a home game against Maryland in 2025, and by hosting Indiana State between a road game at Maryland and a home game against Virginia Tech in 2021.
