Future OOC Football Schedules (Updated with ACC games through 2026)

With recent ODU (gag) and UConn (gag) and Georgia St (meh) announcements, here are the upcoming WF OOC football schedules as compiled here.

I see a decent home game on the schedule in 2024, 2027, and 2028. Other than that, a whole lot of meh:

2024:
08/31 - North Carolina A&T
09/14 - Ole Miss
10/12 - UConn
11/16 - at Army
ACC home: Duke, UVA, Clemson, Cal
ACC road: UNC, Miami, Stanford, NCSU

2025:
08/30 - OPEN (@Liberty cancelled per Currie 9/16/22)
09/06 - Western Carolina
09/13 - at Ole Miss
11/15 - Army
ACC home: UNC, NCSU, SMU, GT
ACC road: Duke, UVA, VT, FSU

2026:
09/05 - OPEN (Liberty cancelled per Currie 9/16/22)
09/12 - at Purdue
09/19 - OPEN (Northern Illinois was slated here; doubt that game is ever played)
11/14 - at Army
ACC home: Duke, UVA, Miami, Stanford
ACC road: Cal, SMU, GT, NCSU

2027:
09/11 - at East Carolina
09/18 - Tulane
TBA - Notre Dame (fbschedules briefly removed, then reinstated this game in 8/2022)
Open

2028:
09/09 - Purdue
09/16 - at UConn
09/23 - East Carolina
Open

2029:
08/30 - Norfolk State
09/15 - Georgia State (added 5/25/2021)
TBD - at Notre Dame

2030:
09/07 - Maryland (added summer 2022)
09/14 - at Georgia State (added 5/25/2021)

2031:
09/06 - at Maryland (added summer 2022)

Other Notre Dame: at ND 2032; home 2037

Recent past schedules:

2021:
09/03 - Old Dominion
09/11 - Norfolk State
10/23 - at Army
11/06 - at North Carolina

2022:
09/01 - VMI
09/10 - at Vanderbilt
09/17 - Liberty
10/08 - Army

2023:
09/02 - Elon
09/09 - Vanderbilt
09/16 - at Old Dominion
10/28 - at Notre Dame

Our return game from the 1998 trip to Air Force has again been pushed back. Of course at this point the most likely scenario is that it is never played, but if it is, there will likely be AFA graduates who attended the game as cadets, had 30-year careers in the Air Force, and retired before the return game happened.

A few observations:

- Looks like we are done with App. They owe us a return game, after last year's game was cancelled. I know some here hate playing them. If we are going to play home and homes with ODU, Liberty or ECU, I would prefer App. They bring some buzz and high attendance to the games.
- Understand the scheduling strategy: maximize our chances to qualify for a bowl, by playing one low end Power V opponent (ACC requirement), two non-Power FBS schools and one FCS bunny; wish WF would play a more national opponent every 4 years; think it would help the program to play a likely high profile OOC game on an non-ND year
- Hate playing Vandy; even the non-Power V games, like ECU or Liberty generate more interest than playing Vandy; at least its just one home and home over the next 10 years
- Love playing Ole Miss; was great playing then during the Grobe years and a trip to the Grove is a must
- Like playing a Big 10 team (Purdue), wouldn't mind scheduling others (NW, Maryland, Michigan State -- KW3 revenge tour)
- Army is a pain in the ass opponent; they can beat anyone; no cares about the outcome, unless WF loses, then WF sucks; Army is tough to prepare for; often leave the opponent banged up
- Scheduling a home and home with UCONN is idiotic unless WF literally had no other alterntives; craptasitic program; again, no one cares about the result, unless WF loses; Groves/BBT will be empty for that game; it's the kind of game that those that WF recruits against point to to dissuade them from coming to WF: "Go to WF and play in front of 15,000 people against UCONN an FCS atmosphere".

Definitely plan to make a trip to Ole Miss.

I’d prefer any opponent over a 2 for 1 with Liberty for a variety of reasons. That doesn’t help us at all and is as likely to hurt.

We're playing the Tidewater, VA teams for recruiting purposes. I hope it pans out. There is some serious talent there. VT had a pipeline there during the Beamer's glory years. Lawrence Taylor is from that area (Williamsburg). Michael Vick (Newport News), too.

I'm disappointed that Covid cancelled last year's App game. Now that they're FBS, that's a good series to continue. I like having non-conference games against UNC. I like the military academy games and games with "like" opponents: Vandy, Northwestern, Stanford, Rice, Baylor (Baptist Bowl), Ole Miss ("the view").

I like the Vandy games, its as close to an SEC vs ACC rivalry as we get and its a good place to tailgate. Ole Miss is the marquee game. Otherwise its bleh, UCONN, Purdue, ODU. If they add SMU I'd appreciate that, but otherwise outside of Ole Miss, YAWWWWWWN.

We really really really need to tell Liberty to fuck off. I’m also ok with dropping the service academies. Those are the lamest games other than the yearly FCS one.

We have to play Louisville every year. We have to play VT when they’re on the schedule. We don’t have to play Army. Army was part of Wakeyleaks and gave Bateman a slap on the wrist. Playing them is weak.

Grobe really elevated our OOC scheduling from the awful Caldwell years (UAB, Rutgers, Vandy, ugh). It has been disappointing to see it regress under Clawson.

I have given up on trying to understand the love affair with Army. I'd really like to know why we insist on playing them as often as possible.

With the exception of Ole Miss and to a lesser extent Purdue, not a single one of those games excites me (ND and UNC don't count).

My brief comments are that, like many, I’m sick of playing the service academies. I also have zero interest in playing Liberty. I completely get (and am all for) trying to schedule winnable games. With that said, there are zero “new” teams on the future schedule. We’ve playing all of these schools this millennium. I want to see some new blood. There are two very close, beatable programs right now in Tennessee and UofSC. Let’s play them.

inspectah said:

Grobe really elevated our OOC scheduling from the awful Caldwell years (UAB, Rutgers, Vandy, ugh). It has been disappointing to see it regress under Clawson.

I have given up on trying to understand the love affair with Army. I'd really like to know why we insist on playing them as often as possible.

With the exception of Ole Miss and to a lesser extent Purdue, not a single one of those games excites me (ND and UNC don't count).

Click to expand...

I agree with this and I wonder how much of it is due to Clawson's success at Wake. He has done something that no Wake coach has, made Wake into a consistent winner. Even though Grobe had the ACC Championship and the couple of years after that, we quickly regressed to the norm.

From a travel perspective, our OOC schedule sucks. Other than seeing the Grove for the first time, none of these away games are going to motivate me to attend and see a new city. Already been to Army twice

Why play Army so much? Just why???

cheeseheads12 said:

Why play Army so much? Just why???

Click to expand...

Probably some bullshit respect the troops Wake Forest Way crap

cheeseheads12 said:

Why play Army so much? Just why???

Click to expand...

Because as a football independent Army needs to find a way to schedule Power 5 teams, and none of the marquee teams want to play them because they don't want to take time teaching their defense how to defend the triple option for one game. So Wake takes advantage of this and when they scheduled them initially, Wake believed Army to be a easy win. Also Wake has a growing number of alumni in New York and CT, so this game usually has good turn out for them (West Point is much easier to get to than Syracuse).

TimmyClutch said:

Because as a football independent Army needs to find a way to schedule Power 5 teams, and none of the marquee teams want to play them because they don't want to take time teaching their defense how to defend the triple option for one game. So Wake takes advantage of this and when they scheduled them initially, Wake believed Army to be a easy win. Also Wake has a growing number of alumni in New York and CT, so this game usually has good turn out for them (West Point is much easier to get to than Syracuse).

Click to expand...

Even if that is the case, it doesn't make much sense to play them at West Point in those years where we are AT Syracuse and AT BC

DeacInVermont said:

Even if that is the case, it doesn't make much sense to play them at West Point in those years where we are AT Syracuse and AT BC

Click to expand...

Mike Buddie is Army’s AD. I think the donors that consistently travel really seem to enjoy that trip.

I really think the goal of getting wins OOC to continue to go to bowl games is the right path. It’s less sexy, but as fun as the trips to Nebraska, Ole Miss, etc. have been, the seasons we are 4-0 before league play are way more fun.

Wake has a ton of alum who live in NYC (see great showing at Pinstripe Bowl) and you can take a ferry to West Point from there. Army game is best Wake game to attend for most Northerners.

Deacfreak07 said:

I really think the goal of getting wins OOC to continue to go to bowl games is the right path. It’s less sexy, but as fun as the trips to Nebraska, Ole Miss, etc. have been, the seasons we are 4-0 before league play are way more fun.

Click to expand...

This.

I disagree. I’d rather get tested before going into league play. It’s not great to go 4-0 hoping to get 3 more wins.

Deacfreak07 said:

Mike Buddie is Army’s AD. I think the donors that consistently travel really seem to enjoy that trip.

I really think the goal of getting wins OOC to continue to go to bowl games is the right path. It’s less sexy, but as fun as the trips to Nebraska, Ole Miss, etc. have been, the seasons we are 4-0 before league play are way more fun.

Click to expand...

I get it, and everyone does it, but sacrificing interesting regular season games for an uninteresting bowl in a 2/3 empty stadium in December doesn't seem like a great model.