The Wake Forest Demon Deacons and Notre Dame Fighting Irish will play in the 2027 Duke’s Mayo Classic, both schools announced Monday.
Wake Forest and Notre Dame will do battle at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., on Saturday, Oct. 9, 2027. The Charlotte Sports Foundation (CSF) is the organizer of the event.
“Hosting a game of this caliber reinforces Charlotte’s place on the national stage for college football,” said Will Pitts, CEO of CSF. “Welcoming programs like Wake Forest and Notre Dame not only energizes our local economy but also deepens the city’s reputation as a premier destination for major sporting events.”
“Fans can now find Duke’s Mayo on more shelves than ever before, making the Duke’s Mayo Classic a powerful platform to propel our brand into the national spotlight,” said Brad Wile, Chief Growth Officer at Sauer Brands. “Partnering with storied programs like Notre Dame and Wake Forest helps us bring our bold, delicious flavor to college football fans nationwide – and continue growing what we proudly call Duke’s Country, one tailgate at a time.”
Ticket information for the game will also be announced at a later date.
“Charlotte is an ACC town, and Wake Forest has the largest and most significant academic footprint of any conference institution in the Queen City,” said Wake Forest Vice President and Director of Athletics John Currie. “With our campus just 82 miles from Bank of America Stadium, the 2027 Duke’s Mayo Classic against Notre Dame is a tremendous opportunity to elevate Wake Forest’s presence and celebrate with incredible alumni, fans, and partners across the region.”
“We are excited for another chance to play in an NFL stadium and against the Demon Deacons,” Notre Dame Deputy Athletics Director for Football Ron Powlus said. “The opportunity to showcase our two great institutions and football programs, while affording our football program and student-athletes an exciting and unique experience in the great city of Charlotte, is one we can’t wait to be a part of.”
The game rounds out Wake Forest’s 2027 non-ACC slate. The Demon Deacons are scheduled to host Campbell on the opening weekend of the campaign, with a trip across the Tarheel State to play East Carolina on Saturday, Sept. 11. Tulane will visit Winston-Salem on Sept. 18 to round out the ledger.
Notre Dame has seven set dates for 2027. This game, previously scheduled for Allegacy Stadium in Winston-Salem, will now move to Charlotte. Purdue, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, and Navy will visit Notre Dame during the year. The Fighting Irish will hit the road for dates at Michigan State and Clemson.
Football Schedules
The following is a mock September 2027 Notre Dame Football schedule.
This is only a mock schedule.
9/4 vs Wake Forest at Charlotte, NC (Duke’s Mayo Classic)
9/11 vs Villanova (FCS opponent)
9/18 at Michigan State
9/25 vs Purdue
Disregard this mock schedule with very minor exception that I really want Notre Dame host Villanova (FCS) Week 2 of 2027 CFB season plus Villanova is currently open with a FBS opponent & that would make a very nice fit plus it will only be second time that Notre Dame will host an FCS opponent should it occur.
ND is only playing four games in 2027? Interesting.
Villanova? Really you want Notre Dame to play Villanova? How about Michigan, Penn St Miami or USC. Heck Auburn has an opening in 27. But you would rather watch Notre Dame play Villanova instead of a better program. Keep up these gems Dan you keep this place interesting.
Illininoles97 If Notre Dame play Tennessee State, they can do same thing with Villanova & this is just a suggestion that I want Notre Dame to host Villanova in South Bend.
Do not be concern Dave Notre Dame will play at 12 it’s schedule & I just gave a few suggestions for beginning of season and now I really favor Notre Dame-Wake Forest to play on October 9th in 2027.
Dan, ND has only played one FCS team ever because of a last late issue with their schedule that forced them to Play Tennessee State.
They aren’t going to play Villanova or anyone else from the FCS, that’s not what they do.
USC has never played an FCS team, so there is some motivation for you to keep that alive.
What pray tell, is your motivation for this block buster matchup between ND and ‘Nova, dare I ask?
Tennessee State was at least a respectful choice to play a HBCU that’s trying to make it in a full FCS conference rather than in an HBCU conference like the SWAC or MEAC.
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Villanova’s busily downgrading from CAA to Patriot, while GSoU & GStU, JMU, ODU, and now Delaware stepped up to FBS. How embarrassing for Notre Dame. I think we’re far enough past the old Big East days to even begin to say it’s a salute to that era.
What a crock of doodoo and other natural ingredients.
Okay, play a game in an NFL stadium and call it neutral site, but don’t hard sell it to make yourself feel better.
Does anyone see the irony that Wake is playing a game in the Duke’s sponsored game. That is the nastiest mayo; my wife bought some to put in whatever she was making one Christmas. We threw it out and started over along with the mayo.
In other words, ND is fulfilling their obligation to play each ACC team but is no longer willing to play in Wake’s tiny stadium.
Exactly!
If Wake Forest-Notre Dame were to play at Wake’s tiny stadium there will be more Notre Dame Fans than Wake Fans that would be very unfair.
Bank Of America Stadium is by far more reasonable so they can have both Notre Dame & Wake Fans 50-50.
I would look at this much more charitably.
First, I don’t think Wake agrees to move this game without it being a financial upgrade. Much akin to Navy moving its home games against ND to NFL stadia.
Second, this game was originally scheduled to be played in 2020 before being negated by the pandemic: Wake-ND in Charlotte for all the mayo on Sept 26 if memory serves (I actually had tickets).
Not a fan of college games played in pro stadiums. Game should be played on the Wake Forest campus.
Notre Dame Fans over Wake Forest Fans forget it.
Wake Forest’s stadium isn’t actually on its campus. It was built on one of the old Reynolds Tobacco plant lots that was turned into an industrial park.
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Its campus is small school anyway <5000 undergrads. It's a retro campus built in the 1950's when they moved from Wake Forest, NC to Winston-Salem, NC and doesn't have much character beyond a "planned" campus. Wait Chapel's famous for holding a couple of presidential debates, and Maya Angelou used to speak annually when she was faculty. WFU is not exactly a true P4 university. It's one of the smallest.
I went to a Clemson at Wake Forest game a couple of years ago. Out of a 30000 seat stadium, it looked like it was 25000 Clemson fans as all orange. At the bar before the game, the bartender said the Notre Dame and Clemson games that season made her rent with so many visiting fans. Not making excuses for Wake Forest but I am assuming selling this home game off is going to make them a nice amount of money. I agree 100% with the consensus of home and home series but sometimes a neutral site game makes sense although I never want to attend another Clemson vs Georgia neutral game after the last two.
Is Wake “selling off” the game or upgrading its economics by splitting the ticket sales in a 75k stadium?
At Allegacy, how many tickets does Wake have for alumni and fans after it allocates 5k to ND and probably another 5k or so to students, faculty and staff? Maybe 20k? That probably goes above 30k in Charlotte with ND’s allocation coming out of the other half of the stadium and fewer students, faculty and staff making the journey from W-S.
The tix in Charlotte are probably more expensive, too, so this works out as relative money-spinner for John Currie and his athletic department.
Does an 82 mile drive make this a neutral site, really?
That’s like calling Georgia-Georgia Tech a neutral site when they play in the dome in A T L
The fact that the stadium only seat 31,500, I can see why they want to move it. Sure, that is what ND wants because they don’t play in stadiums this size much. If they play SMU (it’s just 32,000) and get moved to Jerry World, maybe then you can convince me that they actually have any ability to move someone else’s home game.
I withdraw from Villanova or any other FCS teams.
I want Auburn to be Notre Dame opponent in 2027 & this is only a suggestion.