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Weber State and McNeese State are scheduled to play a football home-and-home series beginning in 2012.

The Wildcats and newly hired football coach John L. Smith will open the 2012 season at home against the Cowboys of the Southland Conference. Weber State will make the return trip to McNeese State, located in Lake Charles, La.

"We are excited to finalize a series with McNeese State and are looking forward to our games with the Cowboys," WSU athletic director Jerry Bovee said. "We have been trying hard to schedule a home-and-home series with another FCS school and we feel this will be a great series for both teams."

The two schools have split the previous two meetings.

The 2012 Weber State football schedule is now finalized. The Wildcats will open the season Sept. 1 at Fresno State. They will follow that game up with a Sept. 8 game at BYU before opening the home schedule with McNeese State the following week.

Weber State opens Big Sky Conference play Sept. 22 when they host Eastern Washington.

Beginning next season the Big Sky will expand to 13 football members with the addition of Cal Poly, North Dakota, Southern Utah and UC Davis. WSU will also play home conference games with Cal Poly (Oct. 6), Montana (Nov. 3) and Northern Colorado (Nov. 10). They will face road conference games at UC Davis (Sept. 29), Sacramento State (Oct. 13), Southern Utah (Oct. 20) and Idaho State (Nov. 17). The Wildcats will not play Montana State, North Dakota, Northern Arizona and Portland State next season.