The East Tennessee State Buccaneers football program is the intercollegiate American football team for East Tennessee State University (ETSU) located in Johnson City, Tennessee. The team was dormant from the end of the 2003 season until being reinstated for the 2015 season. They played all of their 2015 home games, and will play all but one of their 2016 home games, at Kermit Tipton Stadium until their new stadium is built in 2017. The remaining 2016 home game, against Western Carolina on September 17, will be played at nearby Bristol Motor Speedway. Before ETSU dropped football, it competed in NCAA Division I as a Southern Conference (SoCon) football program. The revived program played as an independent in 2015 before returning to the SoCon in 2016. The school's first football team was fi