Chris Solari

Detroit Free Press

EAST LANSING – Michigan State’s tradition of opening its football season Labor Day weekend will continue.

And athletic director Mark Hollis also managed to rearrange the Spartans’ 2017 schedule to push back their open date by a week.

MSU is now scheduled to host Bowling Green on Saturday, Sept. 2 at Spartan Stadium, which was initially planned for the following week. The school also announced it will move its home game against Western Michigan up a week to Sept. 9, which means the Spartans’ bye week now will be in the third week of the season (Sept. 16).

MSU did not have a game scheduled for the first week of the college football season next year, and the Falcons pushed their game against South Dakota back a week to accommodate the move.

The Spartans have opened their season with a Friday night game over Labor Day weekend for the past six seasons. Hollis, in a text message, said the Bowling Green game is contracted for a Saturday, and MSU requires Big Ten approval to move it to a Friday.

MSU initially was scheduled to open the 2017 season against Alabama, but the Crimson Tide canceled the two-game, home-and-home arrangement in 2013 “due to the uncertainty of the conference football schedule in those years,” their athletic director Bill Battle said at the time.

The Spartans’ bye week this season came after it hosted Furman in the opener on Friday, Sept. 2.

MSU last played Bowling Green in coach Mark Dantonio’s first season, a 28-17 win in 2007. The Spartans also defeated the Falcons 10-7 in 1981 in their only other meeting.

The Spartans are 12-2 all-time against Western Michigan in a series that dates back to 1908. Mark Dantonio is 4-0 against the Broncos, including a 37-24 win to open the 2015 season – a Friday night game at Waldo Stadium, the only MSU road game in Kalamazoo.

It’ll be the first time since 2002 the Spartans will open with four straight home games.

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Michigan State 2017 football schedule

(home games in caps):

Sept. 2: BOWLING GREEN

Sept. 9: WESTERN MICHIGAN

Sept. 16: Bye

Sept. 23: NOTRE DAME

Sept. 30: IOWA

Oct. 7: at Michigan

Oct. 14: at Minnesota

Oct. 21: INDIANA (Homecoming)

Oct. 27: at Northwestern

Nov. 4: PENN STATE

Nov. 11: at Ohio State

Nov. 18: MARYLAND

Nov. 25: at Rutgers

Contact Chris Solari:csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Titter@chrissolari.

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