Wake Forest has decided to cancel next year’s game against No. 9 Mississippi to make room for a football series with Oregon State. It appears that Oregon State is essentially covering the cost that Wake Forest owes for the Ole Miss cancellation, based on the contracts.
Both Ole Miss and Oregon State recently shared their contracts with Wake Forest after a public-records request from The Associated Press.
The first agreement, signed in 2014 for a home-and-home series, states that Wake Forest must pay $750,000 to Ole Miss for canceling the game more than 12 months but less than 24 months in advance. This amount is the same that Oregon State will pay to Wake Forest for a home game in October 2025 and the return game in September 2029.
The second agreement, signed on September 17, just a week after Wake Forest informed Ole Miss about the cancellation, requires each school to pay the visiting team $100,000. This payment condition was not included in the agreement with Mississippi.
The cancellation upset Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, who said Wake Forest broke “an unwritten rule” by paying to get out of next year’s game, forcing Ole Miss to find another major opponent.
At that time, Wake Forest athletics director John Currie mentioned “ongoing financial pressures” in college sports and said the change was “the right business decision” in a statement.
Wake Forest replaced one game with two and managed the costs through the new agreement, which included extra funds that could help with travel expenses.
Currie also informed Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter by letter and email on September 10, just before the cancellation fee would increase to $1 million if it were less than a year before the scheduled return trip to Oxford, Mississippi, on September 13, 2025.
The contract states that any cancellation payment must be made by February 15 for the year following the affected game, which would be in 2026. However, Currie told Carter that Wake Forest is open to an earlier payment schedule, according to the cancellation letter included in the released documents.
Kiffin announced the cancellation during his postgame news conference after Ole Miss defeated Wake Forest 40-6 on September 14 in Winston-Salem. He expressed his frustration about it two days later, saying, “It obviously wasn’t appreciated very much, them putting us in that situation.”
