ROCKINGHAM — The next two years of Richmond Raider football is finally set in stone after a somewhat difficult journey to lock in the final few opponents.
Sticking with program tradition and not shying away from a tough slate of games, head coach Brad Denson said he “honestly wanted it that way.”
Denson released the official 2025 football schedule on the team’s Facebook page last Thursday, encouraging fans to “Go ahead and start making those plans!!!”
Dictating part of Richmond’s schedule change for the next couple of seasons was the North Carolina High School Athletic Association and its realignment of classifications. Approved earlier this spring, the NCHSAA expanded from four classifications to eight.
Richmond landed as the largest of the 7A schools based on its average daily membership (ADM) of 2,181 students, which includes students at the Ninth Grade Academy.
Richmond’s ADM was 24 students fewer than West Forsyth High School (2,205), the smallest 8A school.
The four-year realignment, which will run from the start of the 2025-26 school year until the end of the 2028-29 school year, places all of Richmond’s athletic programs in the 8A/7A Midsouth Conference.
Two of Richmond’s familiar opponents will carry over into the new split conference as 8A schools — Hoke County (2,536 ADM) and Pinecrest (2,346 ADM) high schools.
Rounding out the six-school Midsouth Conference will be three additional 7A high schools — Jack Britt (2,064 ADM), Overhills (2,006 ADM) and Pine Forest (1,720 ADM).
In addition to keeping Hoke County and Pinecrest on its schedule, the Richmond football program will also play two other teams it faced last season — neighboring Scotland High School (6A) and playoff opponent Rolesville High School (8A).
Richmond’s other three non-conference opponents, which will fill the first five games of the season, are Hoggard (8A), Northwest Guilford (8A) and West Forsyth (8A) high schools.
“We have played the same teams for a good while, and nothing against them, but it’s always good to play other teams,” Denson said. “Seeing some different schemes and looks will get us prepared for down the road.
“Besides Week 2 (Scotland) and Week 3 (Rolesville), it has been a really long time since we have played any of the other non-conference teams. I’m pretty sure this will be our first ever meeting with Hoggard.”
Most recently, the Raiders played Rolesville in the third round of the 2024 NCHSAA 4A East playoffs, a game that ended Richmond’s deepest playoff run in five years and capped Denson’s first season as head coach.
Scotland has been a decades-long opponent for Richmond since its inception in 1972. The next meeting will mark the programs’ 58th all-time meeting (regular season and playoffs).
It was imperative to Denson and the program to keep the tradition going with Scotland and head coach Richard Bailey despite not being in the same classification or conference.
Meeting at least once every year since 1972, save for the spring season in 2021, Richmond and Scotland will play Week 2 at Raider Stadium. Different from the usual regular-season finale showdown, Denson still expects the lore surrounding the rivalry to grow.
“Playing Scotland early will definitely be a little different, but I think it will be a great time,” Denson shared. “Both counties are working on a little something to bring a little extra to that game.
“Coach Bailey will have his guys ready to go for sure. He has put together a really good staff in the offseason, so I expect that game to be what it’s always been.”
Week 1 at Hoggard on Aug. 22 will be the only non-conference game played before classes in Richmond County start Aug. 25.
That will be followed by Weeks 2 and 3 at home against Scotland (Aug. 29) and Rolesville (Sept. 5). The Raiders will travel to Northwest Guilford Week 4 (Sept. 12) before returning home to host West Forsyth to wrap non-conference action Week 5 (Sept. 19).
All teams in the Midsouth Conference will have a Week 6 bye week (Sept. 26) to prepare for MSC action.
While all the boxes are checked now, Denson explained that scheduling games, especially non-conference, for the next two years was difficult.
“This has been a war,” Denson said plainly. “The first two drafts (from the NCHSAA), we were in a nine-team conference which meant for easier non-conference scheduling. Coach Braswell at Hoggard and myself had been talking and that was a pretty easy one.
“Scotland is a must. Coach Bailey and I decided Week 2 because that would be the first week kids go back to school and we thought it would be a good time to do that one. It will hopefully generate some good revenue and kick off the school year right.”
The NCHSAA’s first two drafts came out on Dec. 18 and Jan. 21, which Denson said left Richmond and most programs in the state “well and good.”
The scheduling curveball came when the NCHSAA dropped its third draft (Feb. 14) and final draft (March 6), which both had Richmond in the current six-team conference, requiring an additional three non-conference games to fill out the team’s 10-game regular season.
“That forced us to have to find three other non-conference games,” Denson noted. “And keep in mind that not every conference changed in that third draft, only a few of them actually did. With that, most teams had their schedules solidified and didn’t need anything else.
“We got West Forsyth in Week 5, which I thought would be the toughest, the quickest. Then we locked in Week 4 with Northwest Guilford thanks in part to their head coach being Coach (Chris) Campolieta’s head coach at Guilford College.
“Week 3 was brutal to find,” Denson continued. “We had one team penciled in and they backed out a couple of weeks ago. Then I thought we had another and they decided they wanted to stay in-county and play someone closer. A big issue was the larger counties kind of stuck together and are playing most of their non-conference games in-county, which really puts us in a bad spot.”
The two teams that dropped the Week 3 game were metro-area schools, both of which were 7A.
Upon hearing that Rolesville had a game dropped, Denson reached out to the Rams and finalized the schedule last week.
“This whole process has not been fun,” Denson said. “There’s no doubt I contacted probably 70 schools to get three games. But we are excited to play these games and excited for our fan base to get to see some different schools against us. I would rather play tough teams instead of a cake walk.
“Our schedule is tough,” he closed. “Our guys are down for it, the staff is down for it, and I hope the Raider faithful are down for it. For now, we’ll just keep working and keep getting stronger and faster. Football season will be here soon.”
The MSC schedule will feature two home games for Richmond in Week 8 (Jack Britt, Oct. 10) and Week 11 (Pinecrest, Oct. 31). Road conference games will be at Pine Forest (Week 7, Oct. 3), Hoke County (Week 9, Oct. 17) and Overhills (Week 10, Oct. 24).
Of Richmond’s 10 opponents in 2025, all of its non-conference opponents made the postseason last year, and all but Hoke County made the playoffs of the new Midsouth Conference.
Rolesville finished as the 4A state runner-up in 2024, while Hoggard made the fourth round of the 4A playoffs last season.
Scotland made the third round of the 3A playoffs, while Northwest Guilford, West Forsyth and Pinecrest were second-round teams.
