Aggie football adds home-and-home series with 10-time national champion North Dakota State
Bison will make first appearance at UC Davis Health Stadium in 2029
In the very week that UC Davis will meet its first-ever Big Ten opponent Saturday night at the University of Washington in Seattle, I've learned that the Aggies have also scheduled future dates against both Washington State and long-ago rival North Dakota State.
I don't know about you, but I'm positively thrilled about the home-and-home with FCS super power North Dakota State that will bring the Mighty Bison to UC Davis Health Stadium in 2029 after the two meet in the 19,000-seat Fargodome in 2028.
After Saturday's date in Seattle, the Aggies will wrap up their four-game 2025 non-conference schedule September 20 at home against Southern Utah.
Then, peeking ahead to 2026, UC Davis has a game against emerging FBS power Southern Methodist, which earned a berth last season in the College Football Playoff.
Also on tap in 2026 are Stetson, out of DeLand, Florida, and the University of San Diego.
The Aggies will head to the Rose Bowl to play UCLA of the Big Ten in both 2027 and 2029, while the Washington State game is scheduled for September 2, 2028 in Pullman.
When all is said and done, the Aggies will have played seven of the eight members who made up the old Pacific Coast Conference, which eventually became the Pac-10 and now the Pac-12, even though it will have only eight football-playing members in 2026.
The eighth member of the old PCC, USC, was scheduled to meet the Aggies in 2021 before the prospect of playing an FCS opponent did not sit well with a number of prominent Trojan boosters. Thus, USC canceled the game, but still had to pay UCD a $725,000 guarantee to remain the only FBS team never to have played an FCS opponent.
The Aggies added FBS Tulsa as a last-minute replacement for USC and picked up another $400,000 paycheck, plus an upset victory over the Golden Hurricane. That $1.125 million payoff came in handy, no doubt. Getting a win out of the deal was an added bonus.