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Early in the pre-season, newspapers in North Carolina and Virginia reported that Richmond College's football team had planned to take a trip down to North Carolina, taking a circuit around the Triangle, scheduling back-to-back games running from the 11th through the 14th. The daunting gauntlet of games started with a match against A&M; the following day featured a match against the Tar Heels. The final two days of the journey would have games against Wake Forest on one day and against Greensboro the next (Charlotte Daily Observer, September 16th, 1897, p. 8; The Press-Visitor, September 21st, 1897, p. 1; The Richmond Dispatch, September 19th, 1897, p. 11). The whole circuit was likely built around the feature game against Chapel Hill, with the game on the 12th scheduled for UNC's University Day, a holiday celebrating the school's first day of classes. Traditionally, UNC played a winnable football game on the day as part of the festivities, with A&M being the punching bag of choice from 1893 to 1895.

Despite the multiple papers independently reporting the expected games, by September 24th, the game was off of UNC's official schedule of games, replaced with the two games Greensboro Athletic Association, one on the 12th and one on the 16th (The Tar Heel, September 24th, 1897, p. 1). Richmond College's monthly periodical, Messenger, noted that the Crimson and Blue of Richmond stood at a disadvanage from the get-go; for one, the team had not started practicing until September 29th, in part due to poor field conditions (The (Richmond) Times, September 25th, 1897, p. 4). A day after they began training, the Spiders got their first coach in the form of William Wertenbaker, a former player from the University of Virginia. As of the publication of the October issue of the Messenger, the Spiders still planned their games against A&M and Greensboro, but did not have listed in their future games the Tar Heels (Richmond College Messenger, Vol. XXIV, No. I (October, 1897), pp. 41-42). By the time the November issue of the Messenger was published, the game had passed, and the journal made no mention as to why the game was canceled. Even as late as October 2nd, the game was expected to be played by people in Raleigh, though by October 7th, the Raleigh public new that the game was canceled, even if not why (Daily (Raleigh) Times, October 1st, 1897, p. 1; News and Observer, October 2nd, 1897, p. 8; Daily (Raleigh) Times, October 7th, 1897, p. 4). The fact that the Richmond student paper still had games against A&M and Greensboro suggests that the team had originally planned to play those games despite the cancellation of the UNC game, but a second snippet published on October 7th suggests that after the cancellation of their main big game to the South, Richmond decided not to travel: "Owing to the fact that foot-ball game between the University [of North Carolina] and Richmond College is canceled, Richmond College will not play the A. and A. [sic] College team here next Monday" (News and Observer, October 7th, 1897, p. 8).

There are many possible reasons the game would have been canceled, but unfortunately there is no concrete evidence as to why. Perhaps part of the reason for the cancellation was some trepidation by Richmond; they had just been easily handled 0-20 by the Richmond Athletic Club. Though they had no football team in 1896, in 1895 they lost to the Tar Heels 0-34 and to the Farmers and Mechanics 0-6. In fact, to find the most recent win by the Spiders on the gridiron, you had to go all the way back to 1893, when the Spiders beat Randolph-Macon 12-0 in a controversial game that was ended at the half after fights started in the student sections.

A second possible reason for the cancellation of the game was simply travel costs. As the editor of the Messenger opined, "For several years foot-ball has been slighted by Richmond College, and, of course, to start a team this year meant patience, work, and money. All of these were possessed, save the latter, which is just as important as the rest." The author continued to cite as part of the reason for the decline in their football team's skill the cessation of play the season prior. It is possible that the team simply decided that they were not prepared to play a game against two teams which would likely have beaten them, especially two teams at such a distance away.

The point made by the editor also leads into the third, and most likely reason, for the cancellation of the game: money. It is possible that Chapel Hill had agreed to help pay for some of the trip down south for Richmond, in addition to splitting gate receipts, as was common practice in early football games. With the game against UNC canceled, the trip was less economically feasible. Further evidencing this is a quote in the Messenger: "[Claude M. Dean, manager of the Richmond football team] has shown in the games already played that from a financial point of view he is a good manager.... He has procured several games with teams from all over the State." The fact that Dean cut away games to save costs seems logical, and can be seen from their scheduled games: in the October issue of the Messenger, the Spiders had planned on playing North Carolina, NC A&M, and Pennsylvania State College; all of the games against out-of-state teams, save Columbian University, were canceled. And even then, the powerful Generals met the Spiders in Richmond, were from Washington, D. C., and were one of the better teams in early college football (Richmond College Messenger, Vol. XXIV, No. II (November 1897), pp. 86-91; Richmond Spicer 1898, p. 18).

Whatever the reason for the cancellation, the Red and White were denied the chance to play their second football game of the year.