Texas A&M, Wake Forest to meet in Charlotte’s Belk Bowl

Texas A&M and Wake Forest will play in the 2017 Belk Bowl at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

The game will be played Friday, Dec. 29. Kickoff is 1 p.m.

“We’re excited about the matchup for this year, bringing the Aggie Nation and the Deacons to Charlotte,” Will Webb, the executive director of the Charlotte Sports Foundation, said. “We’re going to have an exciting football game and an exciting bowl week.”

Texas A&M recently hired Jimbo Fisher, the former coach at Florida State, on a 10-year, $75 million contract, but Fisher will not coach in the Belk Bowl. The Aggies recently parted ways with coach Kevin Sumlin.

Both schools are 7-5, but their paths to the Belk Bowl have been dramatically different. Wake Forest hasn’t made an appearance in the Belk Bowl since 2007, and while this is the Deacons’ second straight bowl appearance, they had been through a stretch of several seasons without a postseason appearance. Alternatively, this will be the ninth straight bowl appearance for Texas A&M.

The schools are meeting in football for the first time.

Other Carolinas-area schools invited to bowls:

▪  Dollar General Bowl (Mobile, Ala.), Dec. 23: Appalachian State vs. Toledo

▪  Quick Lane Bowl (Detroit), Dec. 26: Duke vs. TBD

▪  Sun Bowl (El Paso, Texas), Dec. 29: Arizona State vs. N.C. State

▪  Outback Bowl (Tampa, Fla.), Jan. 1: Michigan vs. South Carolina

▪  Sugar Bowl (New Orleans), Jan. 1: Clemson vs. Alabama

This story was originally published December 3, 2017 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Texas A&M, Wake Forest to meet in Charlotte’s Belk Bowl."