Four Saturdays, a Tuesday and a Wednesday: Blue Raider Single-Game Tickets Are Now on Sale
There is a particular sound a college football stadium makes on the first warm Saturday evening of the season — the low hum of a crowd settling in, the band tuning somewhere behind the end zone, cicadas still going in the trees past the fence line. In Murfreesboro that sound now has a date attached to it, and as of July 24, a price.
Single-game tickets for Middle Tennessee's 2026 home football season are on sale, covering all six dates inside Johnny “Red” Floyd Stadium. End zone reserved seats start at $22. Sideline reserved seats go for $28. A limited run of chairback reserved seats is also available, and the university has pointed out what anyone who has parked on a campus lot elsewhere already appreciates: at Floyd, you park close enough to walk.
A schedule that does not look like everyone else's
The six-game home slate is unusual in a way that rewards a closer read, because two of the dates are not Saturdays at all.
It opens Sept. 5 against Murray State, billed as the WHITEOUT Game and doubling as Faith & Family Night — the kind of season opener where the stands are supposed to look like a single color from the press box.
Two weeks later, on Sept. 19, Nevada comes to town for the 44th Annual Salute to Veterans and Armed Forces Game. That number is worth sitting with. Forty-four years means this tradition predates the current conference, the current stadium configuration, and most of the students who will be in the stands for it. It is also Scout Night and Family Weekend, so expect the lower bowl to skew young.
Then the calendar goes sideways. Delaware visits on a Tuesday — Oct. 13 — in what is the school's first-ever trip to Murfreesboro as a Conference USA newcomer. The promotion attached to it is $2 Tuesday, with concession specials running through the game. Two weeks after that, Kennesaw State arrives on a Wednesday, Oct. 28, for Halloween in Floyd and Winning Wednesday.
Weeknight conference football is a television artifact, not a local preference, but it has a side effect worth knowing about if you live here: a Tuesday night game means traffic on Greenland Drive at a completely different hour than you are used to, and it means a school-night decision for families.
November brings the two games with the most riding on them. Western Kentucky comes in Nov. 7 for Homecoming and Youth Sports Day — the heated rivalry on the schedule, and the one where the parking lots fill earliest. The regular season closes Nov. 28 against New Mexico State for Senior Day and Education Day.
Year three
This fall is head coach Derek Mason's third season leading the program, which is the point in a coaching tenure where a roster stops being inherited and starts being built. It is also the 112th season of Middle Tennessee football — a program old enough that the stadium carries the name of a figure from its own early history, Johnny “Red” Floyd.
That length of record is part of what makes a $22 ticket interesting. Six home dates, two of them on weeknights, one of them a rivalry Homecoming, at a price point below most single-ticket live entertainment in Middle Tennessee.
Making a night of it
If you are coming in from out of town — or you are a parent building a weekend around a game — the practical stuff matters as much as the kickoff time. Our MTSU parent's guide to move-in day, game days, where to eat and where to stay covers the logistics, and if you want to eat well before walking over, start with the 2026 guide to the best restaurants on the Murfreesboro Square — the Square is close enough to make a pre-game dinner genuinely easy.
For the complete fall calendar, including the road slate and the first-ever trip to Kansas, see our breakdown of how Middle Tennessee's 2026 season lines up.
