Five years ago, the UMass football program scheduled a series with a Missouri team that was less than a decade into its membership in the SEC and looking to save some money on its non-conference schedule.

Instead of Missouri paying UMass seven figures to travel to Columbia, Mo., the two schools scheduled a home-and-home series to be played in 2024 and 2025. 

Five years later, Missouri is the defending Cotton Bowl champs and the No. 6 team in the AP Top 25 at 2-0. The Tigers’ date with the Minutemen is only a month away, set for Oct. 12 at a time still to be determined. UMass Director of Athletics Ryan Bamford anticipates it to be UMass’ first home sellout since moving up to FBS in 2012.

“Everything is pointing toward a sellout and that’s certainly our goal,” Bamford said. “I think we may even get there before the week of the game.”

While the Minutemen played fellow SEC opponent Mississippi State in 2016 at Gillette Stadium, and Missouri had interest in playing in an NFL facility, Bamford was firm in his desire for UMass to host its first SEC opponent at McGuirk Alumni Stadium on campus. 

The game initially came about because of a connection between UMass and Nick Joos, then the Tigers’ deputy athletic director. Joos led the media relations team at UMass from 2000-2003 and wanted to schedule a game with his former school.

Since UMass is hosting the first matchup of the home-and-home series, they generated the contract, and stated that the game would be played in Amherst, not Foxborough. In the years after the game was scheduled, Missouri administrators called Bamford multiple times to gauge his interest in moving it, but he wanted to keep it in Amherst.

“Playing at Gillette was great, and the [Kraft Family] have been unbelievable partners in our past, but college football from my standpoint is meant to be played on campus,” Bamford said. “I made that abundantly clear to Nick and those administrators after that called and said ‘hey, is there a chance we could play at Fenway or at Gillette?’”

After eight straight seasons between four and eight wins, Missouri had possibly its best season in program history last year, winning 11 games and finishing at No. 9 in the final AP Poll, its best finish ever. But although Missouri checked in with Bamford as to whether the game would be played at McGuirk or elsewhere in Massachusetts, Bamford said they never tried to cancel it.

UMass opened up its Missouri single-game tickets early, and the school has sold more tickets a month before the meeting than any other game in its FBS history.

“Right now, with a good, healthy student crowd, I think we’re going to be 15,000-plus,” Bamford said.

The two weeks leading up to any game are usually the best weeks for single-game ticket sales, and UMass expects the demand for tickets to rise higher as the game grows closer on the calendar. If UMass does sell out McGuirk’s capacity of 17,000, they’ll create temporary seating and standing room-only tickets to push 18,000, Bamford said.

It’s not quite the 25,000 that watched UMass play Boston College at Gillette Stadium in 2016, and it’s not the 61,000 that Missouri’s Memorial Stadium can hold when UMass completes the other end of the contract in 2025, but for the Minutemen and Bamford, hosting an SEC opponent in Amherst was “something we couldn’t pass up.”

For the players, it’ll be the biggest home game of their lives.

“I hope it’s loud in here, I’ll tell you that. I hope it’s really loud in here,” UMass’ Jalen Stewart said during preseason camp. “We [want to] give them a taste of what Amherst looks like and how we get down. I look forward to that.”