North Carolina Tar Heels and Wake Forest Schedule Non-Conference Football Series
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons and the North Carolina Tar Heels have made an unusual step for conference rivals. They have agreed to a two game series as non-conference opponents in the years 2019 and 2021 according to the Carolina Athletic Commission.
More from North Carolina Tar Heels
- NC Colleges Provide Coronavirus Results from Athletic Departments
- UNC Football gets Commitment from Top Cornerback
- Four North Carolina players selected in first round of MLB Draft
- UNC Destroyed by Coach Duggs and Tennessee in NCAA Football 14
- UNC Basketball: Former Tar Heel star calls out Roy Williams
This is a development that was coming as far back as the expansion of the Atlantic Coast Conference as a twelve team league. It was that moment, when Boston College entered the conference, that North Carolina ceased playing Wake Forest on a yearly basis. North Carolina has four intra-conference rivalries, Virginia, Duke, NC State, and Wake Forest and they could not preserve all of them in the reorganization of the conference into divisions.
Duke and Virginia became part of the new Coastal Division with North Carolina, and NC State became the one cross-divisional rival that was played every year. That meant that Wake Forest would play the Tar Heels when the two teams cycled through their non-divisional opponents. The ACC then expanded to fourteen teams so the rotation was once every seven years.
Talks began last year about scheduling a series between former rivals when Duke and NC State made it known that they were looking at a non-conference series. North Carolina and Wake Forest were the other logical pairing. Besides playing a historical rival, the schools will meet the non-conference power conference opponent for those two years.
Live Feed
Saturday Blitz
Historically the Tar Heels have dominated the Wake rivalry, but the Jim Grobe era saw some important Wake wins in the series. Guessing what the teams will look like when the series comes around will be difficult since incoming freshmen will be playing that game as seniors.
It will be interesting to see how much of a trend this becomes. There are admittedly a lack of teams affected in the way that the Tar Heels were by expansion. There could be a Duke-State series on the horizon, but it would be hard to imagine beyond that.