After having already faced its former Big East nemesis on the basketball court two years ago at Madison Square Garden, Boston College will play the University of Connecticut in football next season, marking a new era for New England college football.
Although it has not officially been announced, BC and UConn sources confirmed Wednesday that the schools have agreed to a four-game football series, beginning with a game at Alumni Stadium on Nov. 19, 2016.
The Eagles travel to UConn on Nov. 18, 2017, and resume the series after a five-year hiatus at home in 2022 and on the road in 2023.
UMass helped broker a three-way deal with BC and UConn by dropping its 2016 and 2017 games against the Huskies, paving the way for BC and UConn to strike an agreement on a four-game series. UMass, in return, will get four future games against BC (2017, 2018, and a home-and-home in the early 2020s) and four against UConn (2018-21), creating a true regular-season round robin among the three Football Bowl Subdivision teams from New England.
Instead of playing UMass in Chestnut Hill, the Eagles will play the Minutemen on Sept. 17, 2016, at Gillette Stadium, while Florida International replaces UConn on UMass’ 2016 schedule.
The agreement seemed to signal a truce in the cold war between UConn and BC, whose officials vowed never to play UConn again after their nasty split in 2005 when the Eagles departed the Big East to join the ACC.
BC is 10-0-2 in the overall series, scoring a 27-7 victory over UConn in the last meeting in 2004.