2016 East Tennessee State Buccaneers football team


The 2016 East Tennessee State Buccaneers football team represented East Tennessee State University in the 2016 NCAA Division I FCS football season and were in the first year of their second stint as football members of the Southern Conference. ETSU had originally joined the SoCon in 1978, with football joining in 1979, but dropped the sport after the 2003 season and left the conference entirely in 2005. ETSU returned to the SoCon as a full but non-football member in 2014, at that time announcing that the school would reinstate football with play beginning in the 2015 season. The Buccaneers played that season as an FCS independent.
They were led by second-year head coach Carl Torbush and played all but one of their home games at Kermit Tipton Stadium. The other home game, the Buccaneers' first SoCon game since 2003, was held at the nearby Bristol Motor Speedway on September 17. The game was played on a temporary grass surface that will be laid down from the Tennessee–Virginia Tech game to be held one week earlier. They finished the season 5–6, 2–6 in SoCon play to finish in seventh place.

Schedule

at Kennesaw State

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
0–12015L 16–56

vs. Western Carolina

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
21–23–12003L 21–28

at Wofford

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
13–112003L 14–28

Chattanooga

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
18–20–12003W 68–7

at VMI

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
13–82002W 35–21

Furman

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
7–232003L 10–30

West Virginia Wesleyan

at The Citadel

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
15–92003W 16–13

at Mercer

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
0–12015L 0–52

Cumberland

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
6–11947W 38–0

Samford

Overall recordPrevious meetingResult
0–31991L 6–31