Mississippi State filled the gap in its 2016 schedule on Monday, announcing a deal for a three-game series with UMass that will begin next fall.

The Bulldogs will travel to play the Minutemen at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., home of the reigning Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, on Sept. 24, 2016 for the first game of the series, replacing a longstanding date with Tulane that the Green Wave backed out of last month. The other two games are slated for Sept. 23, 2017 and Oct. 17, 2020, both at Davis Wade Stadium.

According to MSU athletics director Scott Stricklin, MSU will pay UMass a total of $700,000 for its two visits to Starkville: $325,000 in 2017 and $375,000 in 2020. The Bulldogs put in a buyout clause for both schools, which Stricklin said protects the Bulldogs from a scenario similar to what they just went through trying to fill the date left open by Tulane.

“Because of what happened with Tulane, we are a little concerned with the buyout portion. We jacked that up a little bit,” Stricklin said, per the Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.).

Stricklin added that he’d like to have found the Bulldogs a home game for 2016, which Tulane was scheduled as, but the lack of openings around college football made that difficult.