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Ten ‘Big Four’ football games to circle on your calendars

State, Wake, Duke, Carolina will play true round-robin in 2024

Published

January 24, 2024

There will be a lot more ACC football this fall, with the league adding three new schools. Graphic courtesy ACC.

The ACC is growing this football season, but the league has managed to preserve all of the “Big Four” rivalry games for 2024. NC State, North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest will play a true round-robin this fall even as the conference expands to 17 teams.

The ACC released its full schedule on Wednesday evening, incorporating new members Cal, Stanford and SMU into the mix. All conference teams will play eight league games, four home and four away.

Here are 10 contests involving Big Four teams that we’re circling on our calendars. See bottom of this story for full schedules for the Wolfpack, Tar Heels, Blue Devils and Demon Deacons.

1. Big Four Round-Robin

We’ll include all the in-state showdowns between the Pack, Heels, Devils and Deacs into one. We’re excited the ACC had the foresight to preserve these regional games while trying to incorporate schools from one end of the country to the other. No matter what happens to college football in the future, these four schools need to play each other every season. It makes no sense to cast aside any of these rivalries.

North Carolina and Duke will kick off the battle for Old North State supremacy Sept. 28, competing for the Victory Bell weeks earlier than in recent years.

NC State will host Wake Forest on Oct. 5, Duke will play at State on Nov. 9, and UNC will host Wake on Nov. 16. The final Saturday of the regular season (Nov. 30) will feature two Big Four match-ups: NC State at North Carolina and Wake Forest at Duke. As it should be the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

2. NC State vs. Tennessee (at Charlotte) | Sept. 7

The Wolfpack and Vols will meet in the annual Duke’s Mayo Kickoff Classic at the home of the Panthers. This ACC-SEC match-up will feature two programs optimistic that a spot in the new 12-team College Football Playoff is within their reach. The Pack could earn a solid resume builder with a ‘W’.

3. NC State at Clemson | Sept. 21

The Pack is the last team to defeat the Tigers, who finished 2023 on a five-game surge. NC State and Clemson have played football since 1899 in what is known as the Textile Bowl. NCSU has lost the last nine in Death Valley, though, with the last victory coming in 2002.

4. Ole Miss at Wake Forest | Sept. 14

Lane Kiffin and the Rebels have been going all-in on the 2024 season, loading up for a playoff run in an expanded SEC. This will be the first of a home-and-home between the schools, with the Deacs going to Oxford in 2025.

This contest has been on the books for a decade and has survived despite expansion in both leagues. Wake Forest won both prior meetings, in 2006 and 2008.

5. Duke at Miami | Nov. 2

New coach Manny Diaz will face his former team in this juicy ACC match-up. This will the first of three November road games for the Blue Devils.

Diaz posted a 21-15 record at Miami (2019-21) before being replaced by current Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal. He also was the defensive coordinator in Coral Gables from 2016-18. Under Diaz, Miami beat Duke 47-10 and 48-0 but lost to the Devils (2019) by a 27-17 count.

6. North Carolina at Florida State | Nov. 2

When UNC started last season 6-0, many pundits thought this match-up might happen in Charlotte in the ACC title game. While FSU kept winning — all the way to a 13-0 conference championship season — the Heels faded to 8-5. UNC coach Mack Brown has pledged to address the team’s recent late-season swoons. This game will be a test of whether those concerns have been rectified.

7. Florida State at Duke | Oct. 18 (Friday)

Say what you want about ACC teams playing on Friday nights — we’re not crazy about it; let the high schools have this night — at least the league gave us an intriguing match-up. We’re a little surprised that FSU agreed to play on a Friday. Aside from Thanksgiving weekend, playing on Fridays seems beneath the Seminoles, who fashion themselves on the level of the SEC, which typically doesn’t schedule Friday games apart from the final week of the regular season.

8. SMU at Duke | Oct. 26

One of the ACC’s newest members won 11 games in 2023 and captured the American Athletic Conference title on its way out the door. The Mustangs, though, lost to Boston College of the ACC in the Fenway Bowl. SMU is familiar with the Old North State, having played conference games against East Carolina for several years (and facing Charlotte a year ago).

9. Northern Illinois at NC State | Sept. 28

This will be Dave Doeren’s 12th season as the Wolfpack coach. Before coming to Raleigh, Doeren led Northern Illinois to an Orange Bowl berth. This will be Doeren’s first game against his former team from the MAC. It will NC State’s final non-conference tilt of 2024. NCSU is 1-0 all-time against NIU, beating the Huskies 41-14 in 1997.

10. North Carolina Central at North Carolina | Sept. 14

This game won’t register much on the national scale. But we here at NC Football News love these in-state match-ups when our FBS teams schedule FCS neighbors. North Carolina Central has been a top-20 program in its division the past couple of seasons, including a nine-win campaign in 2023. The UNC and NCCU campuses are only a few miles apart but the schools have never met in football.

Other notes about the ACC’s schedule release:

* NC State, Wake and UNC will open their seasons on a Thursday, while Duke will kick off on a Friday. None are playing a “Week 0” game, like last season.

* This year’s schedule features two open dates for each school.

* Appalachian State, which has tangled with teams like North Carolina and Texas A&M in recent seasons, will play at Clemson on Sept. 7.

* It’s strange seeing Cal, SMU and Stanford showing up in an ACC schedule reveal. The first league game for both Cal and SMU will be against reigning champ Florida State (welcome to ACC football!). The Seminoles will host the Bears on Sept. 21 and will travel to Dallas the next weekend. Stanford will open its ACC schedule on Friday, Sept. 20 at Syracuse in a battle of teams with Block S logos on their helmets.

* The first ACC game will be in Week 0, as Florida State and Georgia Tech will square off in Dublin, Ireland on Aug. 24. Florida State also will play a Monday night game this season, hosting Boston College on Labor Day (Sept. 2).

* Clemson will face Georgia in week one in Atlanta in what is likely the league’s premiere non-conference game for 2024.