Scheduling News

Brian Barbour on October 2nd, 2008 |

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UNC is still looking for another non-conference opponent for 2009 schedule to accomodate the cancellation of the home-and-home with Colorado. Butch Davis apparently does not care for long trips out west so he opted out of the series with Colorado last year. That game was replaced on the schedule this season with McNeese St with the 2nd date still open in 2009.

According to ACC Now, UNC has asked Texas A&M, Penn State and possibly Oklahoma if they would be interested in a home-and-home. So far there has been no response. The tenative future schedule through 2012 can be found here. Here are the non-conference opponents for UNC over the next four seasons:

2009: The Citadel, ECU, @UConn
2010: William & Mary, ECU, @SCAR, @Rutgers
2011: James Madison, Rutgers, Tennessee, @ECU
2012: @Tennessee

Davis has said he would like to keep “high profile games” on the schedule and also he wants to be sure those non-conference tilts are played early in the season so once conference play starts his team can focus on that. It is interesting to note that UNC gets ECU for three straight seasons but only one of them in Greenville. There was a recent spat played out in the media between NCSU’s Idiot AD Lee Fowler and ECU’s Mildly Annoying AD Terry Holland concerning the frequency of games between those schools. ECU is looking to back down some of their heavy commitment of playing UNC and NCSU so much mainly because they would like to schedule some cupcakes instead of being involved with two in-state battles during the same season. ECU would probably like some help from UNC on scheduling but I serious doubt this will happen since the Heels are having enough trouble getting a good opponent for 2009 and since 2010 and 2011 are set, no need to upset the apple cart there.

My two cents: I am glad that Davis is not shying away from playing good teams. A game versus a Big 10 or Big 12 school would be good. I would prefer not to play Oklahoma since the last time UNC stepped on the field with the Sooners, people were traumatized from having watched it and the last thing you want to do is destroy years of therapy for a good portion of your fan base.

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DSchwind

October 2, 2008 at 3:13 pm

From what I understand, the Penn State request was somewhat based on the assumption that Greg Schiano would be taking over there before long. However, after RU’s start this season and rising consensus that JoePa is actually the living dead and will never actually die, that one appears to be fading fast.

I personally would like to see a match-up with A&M. I also would like one with Michigan, or maybe one of the lower SEC teams like Kentucky or Mississippi State.