There’s a first time for everything. Though in the more-than-150-year timeline of college football, that’s getting rarer and rarer.
It makes one of the storylines heading into Carolina’s game against Minnesota in Chapel Hill this Saturday even more surprising: the Tar Heels and Golden Gophers have never met in football.
In an era of cross-country flights and rapid nationalization of a formerly regional game, the Gophers are one of the last oases of mystery in the Power 5. After this weekend, Iowa and Purdue will be the only other Big Ten programs to never have faced Carolina. Only one SEC team – Ole Miss – has never played the Tar Heels, along with a handful of teams in the recently-expanded Big 12 and recently-raided Pac-12.
Head coach Mack Brown’s team is coming off its third meeting in five seasons with both South Carolina and App State, teams it should know as well as any. Now comes the complete opposite. But Brown shrugged off the notion that lack of familiarity with the Gophers puts his team at a disadvantage.
“The difference is the emotion,” Brown said. “They know a lot of the kids on the South Carolina team. They know a lot of the kids on the App State team. They pick at each other and they text during the week. All the families talk.”
Likely the only familiar face on the Gopher sideline this Saturday will be Chris Collins, the former Carolina linebacker who transferred to Minnesota this past offseason. When it comes to a game plan though, Brown said the Gophers should bear a strong resemblance to the Mountaineers.
“Minnesota is gonna run the same offense, exactly, that App State runs,” he told the audience at his weekly radio show on Monday night. “Except they’re gonna run it with 6-foot-8 guys instead of 6-foot-1 guys. That’s it. They’re huge.
“They’re gonna keep [the ball] away. This weekend, Minnesota played Eastern Michigan. Eastern Michigan had the ball for seven minutes in the second half and did not make a first down… Minnesota is letting the team they’re playing keep the ball less than 50 plays per game.”
From the Gopher perspective, Saturday’s game offers the fan base a rare opportunity to venture southeast. Carolina fans will have the opposite chance next fall, when the Tar Heels travel up to Minneapolis for the second leg of the two-game series. And according to Randy Johnson, the Gophers reporter for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the loud and proud Minnesota fans will be taking advantage of this literal once-in-a-lifetime trip.
“The fans like traveling to new destinations, or destinations they haven’t been to in quite a while,” Johnson told Chapelboro. “Two years ago, they went out to Colorado for the first time since the early 90s, and they came strong. There was probably 10,000 [fans], maybe more, out in Boulder. And it showed. They were very loud. I don’t know if you’ll get quite that many for this trip, but there should be a pretty good Gophers contingent coming.”
According to Johnson’s research, Minnesota’s last true road game against an ACC opponent was a visit to Wake Forest in 1969. Needless to say, it’s been a minute. This UNC series is one of several ambitious home-and-homes the Gophers have scheduled in the next few seasons, including matchups with Mississippi State, Cal and even Alabama.
At least, that’s what’s written down. Changes in college football conferences, and thus college football schedules, could threaten games like these in the future.
“We’ll see if these series survive through all the conference realignment,” said Johnson. “But those are nice things to point to.”
The Tar Heels can count themselves lucky their return visit to the Twin Cities next year comes in August as opposed to November. It’ll only be the first of what will likely be several long road trips for the team, as Cal, Stanford and SMU will all be joining the ACC in 2024. The Gophers are safe and sound in the rock-solid Big Ten, but will soon face the prospect of conference road games at Washington and Oregon.
Perhaps, some day in the near or distant future, Carolina and Minnesota will play every year as conference foes. For now, though, they’re newbies. Let’s enjoy the novelty while we can.
Featured image via Associated Press/Reinhold Matay
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