Wake swaps Ole Miss with Oregon State series
- David Hale, ESPN Personnel WriterSep 18, 2024, 11:41 AM ET Close College football reporter.Joined ESPN in 2012.
- Graduate of the University of Delaware.Wake Forest and Oregon State announced a home-and-home series Wednesday that will see the Devil Deacons head to Corvallis in 2025 and the Beavers make the return journey to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 2029. For Wake Forest, the 2025 game will change a scheduled journey to Ole Miss, which has been canceled by the Demon Deacons, a relocation that generated criticism from Rebels coach Lane Kiffin.Ole Miss beat Wake Forest 40-6 in Winston-Salem on Saturday. After the game, Kiffin criticized Wake Forest athletic director John Currie for canceling the return trip, stating that violated “an unwritten rule.”Editor’s Picks 1 Associated A source informed ESPN that Wake Forest had actually been working with Ole Miss for the past a number of years to move the return trip but was not able to reach an agreement.The home-and-home with Oregon State will be more economically lucrative for Wake Forest and helps fill a need on the Beavers ‘schedule created when the Pac-12 broke down with
10 schools leaving this summertime.”We are committed to making choices that finest serve our program and our student-athletes, and that includes bringing nationwide games to Winston-Salem,”Currie said in a statement released by the school.”We have a high degree of respect for Ole Miss and their fans, and we praise them on their success last weekend in sold-out Allegacy Arena. But offered the ongoing monetary pressures of the brand-new age of college athletics and our concern on continuing to grow resources to benefit our student-athletes, it was the right company choice to protect this two-game home-and-home series with Oregon State, and cancel the scheduled game in Oxford next year.”Ole Miss recommended Wake Forest would pay a$1 million buyout to cancel the 2025 trip to Oxford, although sources at Wake Forest stated that number was inflated. Wake Forest said in its statement that it honored the regards to the original contract with the Rebels, which dates back to 2014.