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N.C. State football kicks off in just over two months, and the new nine-game ACC schedule has shrunk the number of non-conference matchups.
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It hosts Richmond and Appalachian State at home and travels to Vanderbilt. The university is set to pay the Spiders for their participation and is expected to receive payment from Vanderbilt.
Richmond comes to Raleigh on Sept. 11 for one of the team’s Friday night games and the first non-conference matchup of the year. It was first scheduled for Sept. 12, but it was moved because of television agreements.
N.C. State will pay Richmond $400,000 for its participation in the game, according to the contract. The two teams first agreed to the matchup in January 2022.
The Spiders, who play on the FCS level, travel to the Triangle for the second year in a row. North Carolina beat Richmond, 41-6, at Keenan Stadium in 2025, in the Tar Heels’ highest-scoring game of the season. The meeting was also planned in 2022 and included the same payout for the visiting team.
Richmond is the only team receiving a game guarantee. Last year, the Wolfpack paid East Carolina and Campbell to play at Carter-Finley Stadium.
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N.C. State and Vanderbilt agreed to a home-and-home series with games in 2026 and 2028. The Commodores will pay the Wolfpack $400,000 for their game in Nashville on Sept. 19, according to the contract from 2015. Roles will be reversed in 2028, and N.C. State will pay Vanderbilt the same sum for its trip to Raleigh.
Appalachian State was originally scheduled to host N.C. State in 2025, but it was postponed to 2028 after changes to the ACC scheduling requirements. That was replaced by the Virginia series, which was expected to be a non-conference matchup before the league went to a nine-game conference scheduling model.
The Wolfpack, however, is set to host the Mountaineers on Sept. 26, which the programs agreed upon in 2021. This is not considered a buy game, but App State received $300,000 to reschedule the first meeting in the series.
The Wolfpack opens the season against Virginia on Aug. 29 in Charlottesville after the Week 0 trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was canceled. N.C. State was expected to play on the road after the Cavaliers played at Carter-Finley Stadium last September, before the international opportunity arose.
N.C. State was set to receive $2 million for participating in the event. Instead, it will receive $1.5 million because of the cancellation.
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