Wake Forest Football: 3 takeaways from tight win over North Carolina

1. Non-conference nonsense

This whole game was played under a ridiculous pretense. On Friday night, North Carolina and Wake Forest met in a matchup that was somehow, not an ACC game. Two staples of the ACC met in a football game, yet it had no bearing on conference standings.

Of course, the two schools made this happen on their own. They first played in 1888, and had played a total of 106 times before Friday night. The rivalry was disrupted by conference realignment, and officials from both schools decided to make the game happen anyways.

This wasn’t the only rivalry to be halted, or slowed to a twice-a-decade pace, by conference realignment. It was an unfortunate development earlier in this decade. A lot of moves made sense financially, there’s no doubt. It’s just such a shame that we’ve lost so many of these common, classic matchups that are such a big part of the tradition in college football.

It was exciting to see North Carolina and Wake Forest playing on the same field Friday night. At the same time, it was a reminder of all the rivalries we’ve lost to conference realignment.