South's Oldest Rivalry

rdf:langString South's Oldest Rivalry

rdf:langString South's Oldest Rivalry

rdf:langString Locations of North Carolina and Virginia.

rdf:langString North Carolina, 2

rdf:langString Virginia 30, North Carolina 18

rdf:langString North Carolina

rdf:langString Virginia

rdf:langString black

rdf:langString top

rdf:langString Virginia 66, North Carolina 0

rdf:langString North Carolina, 9

rdf:langString Cyan pog.svg

rdf:langString Orange pog.svg

rdf:langString North Carolina 31, Virginia 28

rdf:langString North Carolina leads,

rdf:langString North Carolina Tar Heels logo.svg

rdf:langString U of Virginia text logo.svg

rdf:langString yes

rdf:langString The South's Oldest Rivalry is the name given to the North Carolina–Virginia football rivalry. 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. 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 . 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. 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 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). 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).