Tennessee and West Virginia will open the 2018 season at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Charlotte Sports Foundation on Tuesday announced the first meeting between the schools. The game will be played Sept. 1, 2018.
The matchup is in addition to other neutral-site games scheduled for both teams. In 2016, Tennessee opens the season against Virginia Tech at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. In 2017, West Virginia opens against Virginia Tech at FedEx Field in Washington, D.C.
Charlotte, meanwhile, also will host South Carolina and North Carolina to open the 2015 season.
RSN editor notes:
On the surface you would think the Charlotte location favors Tennessee fans. However, consider the thousands of transplanted Mountaineers in the Carolinas and one might consider it neutral.
WVU, like most college teams, will continue to beef up it’s none conference schedule in order to gain points for any possible playoff committee recognition. That said, WVU fans will want to root for Tennessee to improve the next couple of years and the same could be said of Tennessee fans regarding the Mountaineers.
Considering strength of schedule mentioned in the previous lines, the development of Big XII expansion could dilute the league’s schedule in the beginning, placing even more pressure on member teams to strengthen their out of conference opponents.
Although WVU and Tennessee have no recent history on the gridiron, cross state rival Marshall has tangled with the Volunteers on two occasions at Knoxville in recent years. In 2003, Tennessee defeated Marshall 34-24 and in 2006 the Volunteers knocked off the Thundering Herd 33 – 7. Tennessee was scheduled to visit Marshall later in a 2 for 1 deal but then Marshall A.D. Bob Marcum sold the game back to the Volunteers in a time he believed Marshall was over scheduled in out of conference.
We have to believe that West Virginia native and country superstar Brad Paisley will find the WVU-Tennessee match up intriguing. Paisley has notably worn a split WVU/Tennessee jersey for his video “Country Nation”.
