Gophers football schedule continues to deliver marquee trips for fans

Kenan Stadium sits in the heart of the picturesque University of North Carolina campus and seats 50,500 on fall Saturdays for Tar Heels football. This weekend, the majority in attendance will wear Carolina blue, but a chunk of the crowd will sport maroon and gold.

The Gophers are making their first trip to play the Tar Heels in program history, and the nonconference matchup should be one of the more popular for Minnesota fans in the past couple of decades. Two years ago at Colorado, the Minnesota athletic department sold more than 3,000 tickets, and there appeared to be more than twice that total of Gophers fans at Folsom Field to watch the 30-0 thrashing of the Buffaloes.

Mike Wierzbicki, Minnesota's senior associate athletic director for external affairs, said the athletic department has sold more than 2,000 tickets for the North Carolina game. That doesn't count the fans who've used other avenues to purchase tickets, so the Gophers' representation should be strong.

Road games against Power Five opponents aren't an every year occurrence as teams try to schedule seven or more home games and seek paths to six wins and bowl eligibility. So, when a gem of a trip like a Colorado or a North Carolina makes its way onto the schedule, fans tend to buy in on something new and different.

In 2012, under then-coach Jerry Kill, Minnesota actually paid an $800,000 buyout to avoid playing the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill. Saturday's game will be the first time the Gophers have played in the state of North Carolina and the first time they've played an ACC team on the road.

Steve Erban owns Creative Charters, which sets up fan trips for Gophers road games. Rather than try to get as many people as possible to a game, Erban sets up experience-centered trips that last four or more days. On this North Carolina trip, for example, Creative Charters patrons will tour Charlotte Motor Speedway and have a chance to ride a couple of laps in a high-performance car.

"I think it's gonna move to the top of the list as far as one of the great experiences,'' Erban said of the North Carolina trip, citing the location, speedway visit and the fact that the roughly 150 spots filled up in less than a month last winter.

Gophers coach P.J. Fleck realizes the value that fans place on such trips.

"You get to go out to Raleigh-Durham — it's a beautiful part of the country,'' he said. "It's gonna be a gorgeous day. You get to see North Carolina play Minnesota in a nonconference matchup with two very good football teams.''

The Gophers have nonconference road games scheduled against Power Five opponents California (2025), Mississippi State (2027) and Alabama (2033). It's been the goal of Fleck and athletic director Mark Coyle to schedule such opponents, though with continuing conference realignment, there's no guarantee that will continue.

"At that moment when you make schedules, we wanted our nonconference for our fans and for our program to keep elevating by having premier programs scheduled," Fleck said. "… Now, college football continues to change. Who knows who will be Power Five and who won't?''

Next year, the Big Ten will jump from 14 teams to 18 with the addition of Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington. The conference schedule has yet to be announced.

For now, the Gophers and their traveling fans will savor this trip.

"The players like the challenge, the staff does [too],'' Gophers defensive coordinator Joe Rossi said. "… We like being able to say that, 'Hey, not only do you have the Big Ten games, you've got a premier game to go compete against someone else.' ''