The North Carolina Tar Heels and the Illinois Fighting Illini have scheduled a home-and-home football series for 2015 and 2016, UNC announced today.
North Carolina will host Illinois at Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill on Sept. 19, 2015. In the second and final game of the series, the Tar Heels will travel to face the Fighting Illini at Memorial Stadium in Champaign on Sept. 10, 2016.
“Coach Fedora and I have been in discussions for several months about our future non-conference football opponents. We both felt Illinois would be an attractive matchup for both schools and would be a tremendous experience and opportunity for our student-athletes, staff and fans,” said North Carolina Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham.
UNC and Illinois have only met twice on the football field. The Tar Heels defeated the Illini in both contests, 27-0 at Champaign in 1971 and 34-14 at Chapel Hill in 1987.
UNC has also announced the additions of Liberty (Aug. 30) and San Diego State (Sept. 6) to their 2014 football schedule. North Carolina has never faced Liberty and beat SDSU in their only match-up in the 1998 Las Vegas Bowl (20-13).
The addition of Liberty and SDSU completes UNC’s non-conference slate in 2014, which also includes games at East Carolina (Sept. 20) and Notre Dame (date TBA).
In 2014 ACC play, the Tar Heels will host Georgia Tech, NC State, Pittsburgh, and Virginia Tech and travel to Clemson, Duke, Miami, and Virginia.
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Good non-conference matchup. I like that teams are starting to do a much better job at scheduling better teams for non conference games. Makes it better for the fans!
Isn’t the Notre dame game in 2014 considered a conference game now?
Not for football. That’s why the ACC stayed at 8 conference games. Notre Dame is a full member in all sports except football; for football they will play 5 ACC teams per season, but it is not an official conference game. In other words, the ACC plays 8 conference games + Notre Dame.