North Carolina’s noon habit is sticking around.
When the Tar Heels head to Pittsburgh on Oct. 10, the kickoff will again be at noon, making it the fifth straight game to open the season with an early start. The game at Acrisure Stadium will air on ESPN or ESPN2.
That also means UNC will match its total number of noon starts from 2024. Last season, the Tar Heels went 1-4 in those games, beating Virginia and losing to James Madison, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech and Boston College.
UNC has one more noon game on the schedule after Pitt, with a Nov. 7 trip to UConn also set for noon.
Carolina is 2-1 overall and 0-1 in the ACC. The Tar Heels’ busiest stretch of early starts in the last 40 years came in 2007, when they had seven noon kickoffs and finished 1-6 in those games.
Pittsburgh, meanwhile, enters at 4-0 and 1-0 in the ACC and will have an extra day to recover before facing UNC. The Panthers play at Virginia Tech at 7 p.m. Friday on ESPN.
The rest of UNC’s schedule remains largely unsettled beyond the next few weeks. The Tar Heels host No.
3 Notre Dame at noon on Oct. 3 on ESPN, then go to Pitt a week later before a series of TBA matchups at Duke on Oct. 17, against Syracuse on Oct. 24, against No. 4 Miami on Oct. 31, at Louisville on Nov. 14, at Virginia on Nov. 21 and against N.C.
State on Nov. 28.
UNC’s other confirmed noon start after Pitt is the trip to UConn on Nov. 7, which will air on CBSSN.
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Belichicks UNC Start Looks Worse As Passed-Over Options Keep Delivering
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Those parallel developments matter because the coaches North Carolina did not hire keep stacking up results elsewhere. Jon Sumrall and Jake Dickert, in particular, have continued to build momentum, while Wake Forests early success under Dickert and quarterback Gio Lopez has only sharpened the optics. Even in games with uneven quarterback play, such as Clemsons outing from Tait Reynolds, the broader trend has been hard to miss for UNC fans watching the wider carousel. [Read more 🡒]