This is excellent news. Beyond this shoring up our recently-weak out of conference scheduling, this — like the planned home-and-home series with West Virginia and Mississippi State — is exactly the type of regional match up State should be playing regularly.
N&O:
N.C. State has agreed to open the 2017 college football season against South Carolina at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, according to two sources with knowledge of the agreement.
The deal makes South Carolina a regular in Charlotte for the Belk College Kickoff Classic and significantly upgrades N.C. State’s nonconference schedule.
The Wolfpack and coach Dave Doeren have been criticized the past two years for playing a soft schedule outside the ACC. The addition of an SEC team, to go with a pair of games with Notre Dame and East Carolina, should ease most of those problems.
Giglio notes that some details have to still be worked out. Namely, moving our return trip to Troy. Which naturally begs the questions: why are we continuing to make agreements that have on the road outside the Power 5 (especially considering we’re still forced by the General Assembly to play at non-Power 5 ECU now and then)?
