ESPNU will air an NC high school football game on national TV. Here’s when and where

The Providence Day-Charlotte Catholic high school football game is going national.

The Charlotte rivals will play on ESPNU on Sept. 1. The game will be played at Providence Day and is part of the GEICO ESPN High School Football Showcase. In all, ESPN will air nine games featuring 39 ranked players in the ESPN rankings of the top 300 high school football seniors and juniors.

For Providence Day this marks two Fridays on very big stages.

Last week, the Chargers beat Rock Hill Northwestern in a historic football game in uptown Charlotte. The two teams played in the first high school game ever at Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers.

Now, the Chargers get to play Catholic on national TV.

“It’s pretty cool,” Providence Day coach Chad Grier said. “When I was (coaching) at Davidson Day, we were going to play Deshaun Watson and Gainesville Georgia high school, but it didn’t work out. So this is kind of crazy. it’s like an extension of that journey. To see these kids (at Providence Day) and what they’ve accomplished is amazing. To have the opportunity to play at the Bank and now to be on ESPN, man, I know it’s cliche’ and people give me a hard time for saying it — but hard work works and now they get a chance to do cool things.”

A year ago, Providence Day beat Charlotte Catholic 21-20, scoring the game-winning touchdown with 11.8 seconds left.

Providence Day (12-1 last season) went onto win the NC Independent Schools state championship. Catholic finished 9-3 and lost in the second round of the playoffs.

This season, the Cougars are being coached by rookie Matthew Reilly. Catholic beat South Mecklenburg 49-16 in its opener last week.