Are you a Football Bowl Subdivision team? Do you need to fill a hole in your schedule? Having trouble finding someone to do it?

Call Alcorn State’s athletics department. Coaches are ready and willing to assist.

For the second time in a year, Alcorn State added an FBS (formerly Division I-A) school to its schedule late last week when it put New Mexico State on the docket. The teams will play in Las Cruces, N.M., on Oct. 4, filling what had been an open date for both schools.

New Mexico State had been scheduled to host Nicholls State last weekend, but the game was canceled because of Hurricane Gustav. First-year Alcorn coach Ernest T. Jones, whose team only had 11 games scheduled, was happy to fill the void on short notice.

“We wanted to optimize our schedule. The NCAA lets you schedule 12 games, and that’s something that’s important for us to do,” Jones said. “We were always trying to fill that date. We had talked to a few schools. It’s very difficult to get this to happen, but we thank God that it did.”

New Mexico State coach Hal Mumme was also happy to have a full schedule again.

“Our administration did an excellent job finding us another game,” Mumme said in a release from the school. “Our players and fans deserve to have their sixth home game back, so we are really happy about that.”

It’s the second time Alcorn has emerged as a late substitute for an FBS school. Saturday’s game at Troy came about because Troy had been dropped from another team’s schedule.

Playing bigger schools is something Alcorn, which competes in the second-tier Football Championship Subdivision, will try to do on a regular basis on Jones’ watch, the coach said. Playing a full 12-game schedule — most Southwestern Athletic Conference schools only play 11 — along with the added exposure of playing an FBS team and the sheer challenge, are all benefits.

The SWAC’s nine other teams play a total of eight games against FBS teams this season. Alcorn will play two by itself.

“It separates us from the other teams in the SWAC. We’re playing up, and we want to continue to do that,” Jones said. “It tells you what we want to do as a university and an athletic department. We could easily play down, but we don’t want to do that.”

While there is an upside to playing FBS teams, the downside is often a brutal drubbing — something the Braves may find out firsthand when they travel to play Troy on Saturday. The Trojans went 8-4 last season, and have earned a reputation as a perennially strong team. As a member of the FCS, when it was called Division I-AA, Troy reached the playoffs every year except one from 1993 to 2000.

They’ve been to two bowl games since moving up to the FBS ranks in 2002 — the last a 41-17 victory in the 2006 New Orleans Bowl against Rice — and won at least a share of the last two Sun Belt Conference championships.

Troy is also no stranger to playing up a level in competition. The game with Alcorn is followed by trips to Ohio State and Oklahoma State. A game at LSU, originally scheduled for last week but postponed by Gustav, awaits on Nov. 15.

“It’s going to be tough. This is a football team you have to respect,” Jones said. “This is their home opener, and they’re going to be fired up. To me, it’s a test to see what kind of football team we have. We’re going to find out.”