SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The 2020 Southern Conference football season kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 3, as Chattanooga and Western Carolina get the campaign started with nonconference road games before the league’s seven other squads get under way Saturday, Sept. 5.
 
The Mocs and Catamounts will both open the season in the Bluegrass State, with Chattanooga visiting FBS Western Kentucky and Western Carolina heading to Eastern Kentucky.
 
A pair of ranked-on-ranked SoCon games highlight the first two weeks of the season, with Furman hosting Wofford on Sept. 5 in a clash of rivals before the Terriers host The Citadel on Sept. 12. After consecutive games against ranked opponents to open the season, Wofford faces Mercer and Samford to complete a run of four straight conference contests to open the 2020 campaign.
 
Several marquee games dot the opening weekend’s schedule. In addition to the Furman-Wofford tilt, Samford hosts Tennessee Tech in a rematch of a contest the Golden Eagles won 59-58 in two overtimes last season, while Mercer takes on the SoCon’s first Power 5 opponent of the season when it visits Vanderbilt in Bear coach Drew Cronic’s debut with the program. The Citadel hosts former SoCon member Elon, which is receiving votes in the national rankings.
 
The following week sees SoCon squads face three more Power 5 opponents, as ETSU visits Georgia, VMI heads to Virginia and Samford takes on Florida State. Chattanooga, which received votes in the HERO Sports FCS Preseason Top 25, visits 2019 FCS runner-up James Madison, and two league games are on the schedule, with Western Carolina visiting Mercer in addition to Wofford hosting The Citadel.
 
VMI hosts a nationally ranked Princeton squad on Sept. 19, while Furman visits Tennessee that day.
 
On Sept. 26, ETSU visits defending Ohio Valley Conference champion and nationally ranked Austin Peay, an FCS playoff team from last year. The Bucs handed the Governors one of their four losses last season in the squads’ first meeting since 1978.
 
Samford visits nationally ranked Kennesaw State on Oct. 3 in the middle game of a tough three-game stretch against 2019 FCS playoff participants bookended by contests against Wofford and Furman.
 
SoCon squads play only conference games from Oct. 10-31, with Furman visiting The Citadel on Oct. 24 in a battle of preseason ranked squads. Wofford steps out of conference at Gardner-Webb on Nov. 7 before the final two weekends of the regular season see league teams face three FBS opponents, highlighted by The Citadel visiting 2019 FBS runner-up Clemson and Western Carolina taking on Liberty on Nov. 14. Wofford wraps its regular season at South Carolina on Nov. 21, while the other eight league teams finish SoCon play.
 
Full broadcast schedules will be announced later, but all nine schools’ home games will air on either ESPN3 or ESPN+ if not selected for national or regional broadcast. The conference will also select and produce a game each week that will air in a variety of conference markets, with those designations also to be announced later.
 
For the full composite schedule, click here.