| Sport | Football and Basketball |
|---|---|
| First meeting | October 22, 1892 Virginia 30, North Carolina 18 |
| Latest meeting | October 21, 2023 Virginia 31, North Carolina 27 |
| Next meeting | October 26, 2024 |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 128 |
| All-time series | North Carolina leads, 65–59–4[a] |
| Largest victory | Virginia 66, North Carolina 0 (November 26, 1912) |
| Longest win streak | North Carolina, 9 (1974–1982) |
| Current win streak | Virginia, 1 (2023–present) |
The South's Oldest Rivalry is the name given to the North Carolina–Virginia football rivalry.[6] It is an American college football rivalry game played annually by the Virginia Cavaliers football team of the University of Virginia and the North Carolina Tar Heels football team of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[7] Both have been members of the Atlantic Coast Conference since 1953, but the Cavaliers and Tar Heels have squared off at least fifteen more times than any other two ACC football programs. Virginia and North Carolina also have extensive rivalries in several other sports.
The South's Oldest Rivalry is not actually the "oldest" rivalry, as the Auburn–Georgia series (Deep South's Oldest Rivalry) played its first game 245 days before the first North Carolina-Virginia matchup.[8] But nonetheless it is so named not only because of the extraordinary age and length of the series, but because of the immense early success of both programs and the great regional importance of their earliest games: between 1889 and 1902, either Virginia or North Carolina claimed a southern championship in twelve out of fourteen years.
The preeminence of this rivalry in early southern football is demonstrated by the fact that North Carolina beat both Georgia and Auburn in their own states by the combined score of 82–0, before edging out Virginia by four points and claiming the 1898 southern championship. When Virginia had first played one of those "Deep South" teams the year prior, a Georgia fullback died in Atlanta. Virginia had the upper hand overall in the early rivalry with North Carolina, and therefore the entire region, claiming no fewer than twelve southern championships through 1908. The game was still considered a regional attraction in 1928, with a sitting President and First Lady making the eight-hour round trip from the White House to attend the sold-out rivalry game in Charlottesville on that Thanksgiving Day.
The South's Oldest Rivalry started 1–1 after playing twice in 1892 (once in Atlanta). All games played between 1893 and 1916 were at "neutral site" locations in the Commonwealth of Virginia – Richmond and Norfolk – but after a two-year hiatus for World War I, the two programs have played every year since 1919 and have alternated between their home stadiums in Chapel Hill (at Kenan Memorial Stadium since 1927) and Charlottesville (at Scott Stadium since 1931) except for two games during World War II that were played in Norfolk, VA (1943, 1944). Between 1910 and 1950, the South's Oldest Rivalry was consistently played as the last game of the season for both programs, and nearly always on Thanksgiving Day.
Virginia–Carolina is, as of 2021, tied with the Georgia–Auburn game as the second-most played rivalry game of the Power Five conferences, after the Paul Bunyan's Axe rivalry between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Among Football Bowl Subdivision rivalry games, this game is also tied with Auburn–Georgia as the most played rivalry in the South, but moreover has been played five more times than the Army–Navy Game to stand as the most-played FBS rivalry game in the East. When including FCS rivalries, the Capital Cup has been played the most times in the South and The Rivalry the most times in the East (and nation).
- ^ "N.C. Team Forfeits 9 Football Games". The New York Times. December 18, 1956. p. 53.
- ^ "Wahoos Play Host to No. 18/22 UNC Saturday – University of Virginia Cavaliers Official Athletic Site". VirginiaSports.com. Archived from the original on May 17, 2012. Retrieved July 26, 2012.
- ^ Jon Blau, Penn State Daily Collegian, "Forfeits uncommon in realm of college sports" Archived February 22, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Sports Illustrated, 1957 Football Issue, September 23, 1957
- ^ [1] Archived October 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Carolina and Virginia Renew South's Oldest Rivalry Saturday".
- ^ "Virginia, North Carolina Square off in the South's Oldest Rivalry". September 12, 2011.
- ^ "Time to drop the 'Deep' — Auburn vs. Georgia is the entire south's oldest continual rivalry". www.thewareaglereader.com. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
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