UNC Football: Heels schedule home-and-home with Minnesota

Larry Fedora’s team continues to add new opponents to its slate. On the (ahem) heels of the announcement that Carolina will be playing TCU in 2025 and 2026 comes the news that once again UNC has scheduled a home-and-home series against the Golden Gophers of Minnesota. The games are set to be played in the 2023 and 2024 seasons. UNC will host the first matchup in Chapel Hill, then head to the Twin Cities for the return game the following year.

Die hard Tar Heel football fans might remember that back in 2012, Minnesota and Carolina had been scheduled to play a two game series in 2013 and 2014, but Minnesota, under then-head coach Jerry Kill, decided to pull out of the matchup, opting instead to pay UNC an $800,000 buyout. (They must’ve thought Gio Bernard was coming back for his junior season!)

Bubba Cunningham, who at the time expressed his “disappointment” at the collapse of the series, has gotten a new agreement done with Minnesota AD Mark Coyle and Head Coach P.J. Fleck (neither of whom were at Minnesota for the earlier deal). Also on Cunningham’s radar is the possibility of scheduling a game with Auburn as early as 2020, which obviously would be a much more high profile matchup. If the deal with the Tigers is finalized, let’s hope the shambles of last season are well in our rearview mirror.

But for now, to quote Caddyshack’s Carl Spackler: “Au Revoir, Gopher!”