1888 Wake Forest Baptists football team

{{short description|American college football season}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2023}}

{{Infobox college sports team season

| year = 1888

| team = Wake Forest Baptists

| sport = football

| image =

| image_size =

| conference = Independent

| record = 2–1

| head_coach = W. C. Dowd

| hc_year = 1st

| captain = W. C. Dowd

| stadium =

| prev_year = none

}}

{{1888 Southern college football independents records}}

The 1888 Wake Forest Baptists football team was an American football team that represented Wake Forest College during the 1888 college football season. In its first year of intercollegiate football, the team defeated North Carolina by a 6–4 score in a game played on October 18, 1888, at the State Fair Grounds in Raleigh, North Carolina.{{cite web|title=Red Letter Dates in Wake Forest Athletic History|publisher=Wake Forest University|access-date=December 27, 2015|url=http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/wake/genrel/auto_pdf/history.pdf|archive-date=January 5, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160105102447/http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/wake/genrel/auto_pdf/history.pdf|url-status=dead}} After the game, The News & Observer 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."{{cite news|title=Senator Vance and an Overwhelming Crowd Yesterday|newspaper=The News & Observer|date=October 19, 1888|page=4|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3898345/wake_forest_unc_football_game/}}

W. C. Dowd was the coach of the Wake Forest team. The game was the first intercollegiate football game played in the state of North Carolina.{{cite news|title=UNC, Wake Forest deserve credit for schedule choice|date=January 26, 2015|author=Andrea Adelson|work=ESPN.com|url=https://www.espn.com/blog/acc/post/_/id/79763/unc-wake-forest-deserve-credit-for-schedule-choice}} The game was also the first in the history of the North Carolina Tar Heels football program.{{cite web|title=One Hundred and Twenty-Four Years of Tar Heel Football|date=October 18, 2012|author=Lawrence Giffin|publisher=UNC University Library|url=http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/uarms/index.php/2012/10/one-hundred-and-twenty-four-years-of-tar-heel-football/}}