The 1888 Wake Forest Baptists football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented

Wake Forest College Wake Forest University is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Reynolda Campus, the un ...

during the

1888 college football season The 1888 college football season had no clear-cut champion, with the ''Official NCAA Division I Football Records Book'' listing Yale as having been selected national champions. October 18 saw the first intercollegiate game in the state of North C ...

. In its first year of intercollegiate football, the team defeated

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

by a 6–4 score in a game played on October 18, 1888, at the State Fair Grounds in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...

. After the game, ''

The News & Observer ''The News & Observer'' is an American regional daily newspaper that serves the greater Triangle area based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The paper is the largest in circulation in the state (second is the '' Charlotte Observer''). The paper has be ...

'' wrote:

"Decidedly one of the most interesting features of the whole fair was the game of foot ball yesterday between Wake Forest and Chapel Hill, resulting in a victory for Wake Forest. The game was exciting and was played by excellent teams on both sides. It was witnessed by a tremendous crowd. The players were uniformed and were a skilled and active set of boys."

W. C. Dowd William Carey Dowd Sr. (March 21, 1865 – September 23, 1927) was an American football player and coach, politician, and publisher. He served as the first head football coach at Wake Forest University, coaching the team for one game in 1888. D ...

was the coach of the Wake Forest team. The game was the first intercollegiate football game played in the state of North Carolina. The game was also the first in the history of the

North Carolina Tar Heels football The North Carolina Tar Heels football team represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the sport of American football or Gridiron Football. The Tar Heels play in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate ...

program.

Schedule

References

Wake Forest Wake Forest Demon Deacons football seasons College football undefeated seasons Wake Forest Baptists football {{collegefootball-1880s-season-stub