SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Thirty-six league games and nine contests against FBS opponents, including one at defending national champion Georgia, highlight the 2022 Southern Conference football schedule.
 
Mercer gets the SoCon season underway when it hosts Morehead State on Saturday, Aug. 27. The Bears, who are 17th in the Athlon Sports Preseason FCS Top 25 and received votes in the HERO Sports poll, enter the 2022 campaign with a preseason ranking for the first time in program history.
 
The league’s remaining eight teams open their seasons the following week. Four games are set for Thursday, Sept. 1, with defending SoCon champion ETSU getting the George Quarles era started by hosting Mars Hill that evening. The Bucs enter the 2022 campaign ranked No. 5 in the HERO Sports preseason poll and No. 18 in the Athlon Sports poll.
 
Samford hosts 2021 Big South champion Kennesaw State – ranked No. 8 by HERO Sports and No. 9 by Athlon and now a member of the ASUN – on Sept. 1, nine days before heading to Athens to visit the Georgia Bulldogs, who downed No. 1 Alabama 33-18 in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game last season.
 
Also on Sept. 1, VMI opens its 2022 campaign at defending ACC Atlantic Division champion Wake Forest and Furman hosts North Greenville.
 
The other four SoCon squads open their seasons on Saturday, Sept. 3, with Chattanooga, ranked 12th in the preseason by Athlon and 16th by HERO Sports, hosting Wofford to lift the lid on the league slate. Western Carolina visits Charleston Southern and The Citadel heads to Campbell that day, while Mercer visits Auburn.
 
ETSU visits The Citadel on Saturday, Sept. 10, for the lone SoCon game that week, with the Bucs hosting Furman and Mercer welcoming The Citadel the following weekend. After Samford hosts Western Carolina for the week’s only league game on Sept. 24, SoCon play will be in full swing the following weekend with four conference games on the slate.
 
Samford’s game at Georgia, VMI’s contest at Wake Forest and Mercer’s visit to Auburn account for three of the nine FBS games on the schedule for SoCon squads this season, as each league team will take on an opponent from the top subdivision. Eight of those games are against Power 5 conference programs, as ETSU faces Mississippi State (Nov. 19), Furman is at Clemson (Sept. 10), Chattanooga takes on Illinois (Sept. 22), Western Carolina is at Georgia Tech (Sept. 10) and Wofford visits Virginia Tech (Sept. 17). The Citadel visits former SoCon rival and defending Sun Belt East Division champion App State on Oct. 1.
 
One week after facing Virginia Tech, Wofford heads to Kennesaw, Georgia, for a date with the KSU Owls. The Terriers faced Kennesaw State in the NCAA Division I Football Championship in 2018 and 2019.
 
Regular-season play wraps up for all nine SoCon squads on Saturday, Nov. 19, with the opening round of the FCS playoffs starting the following weekend.
 
Full broadcast schedules will be announced later, but all nine schools’ home games will air on ESPN+ if not selected for national or regional broadcast.
 
For the composite league schedule, click here.