Charlotte 49ers to be North Carolina football’s +1 game, on Sept. 19 in Chapel Hill
The Charlotte 49ers will meet 19th-ranked North Carolina in a nonconference football game on Sept. 19 at Kenan Stadium.
It is — for now at least — Charlotte’s season opener and the third nonconference game on the 49ers’ schedule, joining a home game on Sept. 26 against Georgia State and a contest at Duke on Oct. 31.
North Carolina and Duke both made Charlotte their nonconference opponents in the ACC’s 10-league, 1 non-league scheduling format this season.
The Tar Heels’ schedule is now complete. They open their season on Sept. 12 at home against Syracuse before facing Charlotte the following week.
The Tar Heels and 49ers have already scheduled a home-and-home series in 2024 and ’25, with North Carolina paying Charlotte a $400,000 guarantee for this season’s game. The 49ers had already potentially lost a $1.3 million payout from a canceled game at Tennessee, but also would have had to pay the Football Championship Subdivision’s Norfolk State $275,000 for another game that was canceled.
“It’s a game that I know our fans will be really excited about,” 49ers coach Will Healy said in a statement. “We were already looking forward to this series starting in 2024, so now we just won’t have to wait as long. You knew coach (Mack) Brown would get that program going again, and they already have as much momentum as just about any team in the country. That staff has done a great job.”
Charlotte can potentially schedule another nonconference game. 49ers athletics director Mike Hill told the Observer recently that he’s had preliminary discussions with Appalachian State, which is also looking for nonconference games due to the coronavirus.
Hill told the Observer in a text on Saturday that he is still working on a 12th game, but is “very pleased to have 11 at this point.”
Conference USA announced Friday that teams will play their original eight-game league schedules, with up to four nonconference games. The league title game is scheduled for Dec. 5, with the possibility of it moving later. Charlotte opens league play Oct. 3 at Florida Atlantic.
Healy, in his second season at Charlotte, counts Brown as one of his mentors, along with Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Nebraska’s Scott Frost.
“Mack Brown is as much of a class act as there is in college football,” Healy said. “You cannot begin to understand what an unbelievable resource he has been for me and so many younger coaches. I feel very fortunate to call him a friend.”
This story was originally published August 8, 2020 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Charlotte 49ers to be North Carolina football’s +1 game, on Sept. 19 in Chapel Hill."